Paths Not Taken
core novel 2005 The Nightside / Secret Histories
Record
| First published | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.05 (11,265 ratings, collected 2026-08-26) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441013197 |
| Internal chronology | 5 |
Synopsis
The fifth novel in the main Nightside sequence follows John Taylor, the hidden London district's resident finder of lost things, as he pursues the truth behind his mother's long-ago disappearance. His inquiry uncovers a startling possibility: that she is an ancient being who predates human history and who, according to what he learns, was responsible for creating the Nightside itself. Taylor comes to believe she now poses a danger to the very place she once built, though her motives remain unclear to him. To have any hope of averting the threat, he must undertake a perilous journey backward through the Nightside's own long and hidden past, revisiting earlier ages of the district in search of answers before events can play out to their conclusion.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Nightside / Secret Histories
- Series: The Nightside main sequence core; position 5 of 12 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Simon R. Green
Notes
- From the series record (The Nightside main sequence): No further main-sequence novel has been found published since The Bride Wore Black Leather (2012); a short-story collection, Tales from the Nightside (2015), exists in the same setting but is not catalogued in this admission. No confirmed major-award nomination was found for this series after a genuine search; this is an honest "none found," not an unresolved lead.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Nightside main sequence: position 5 of 12: previous Hex and the City (2005) · next Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth (2006)
- Internal chronology, within The Nightside / Secret Histories: position 9 of 24: previous From Hell With Love (2010) · next For Heaven's Eyes Only (2011)
Sources
← The Nightside / Secret Histories dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.