Filling In The Shadows

This collection of short stories probably came from an assortment of collections — those lovely teaser tales that allow you to buffet-style several authors at once.  They definitely would offer up a chance to get a feel for the Nightside.  And that’s kind of the problem with the collection.  While we get a nice bit of backstory or origin stories on a few characters for half the collection, the other half consists of John Taylor tales.  And these feel like less fleshed out versions of the novels.  Like the half-discarded chicken wings of an actual Nightside novel.  They’re still amusing and entertaining, but some of the resolutions are even more slapdash than the usual Nightside style.