Down These Mean Streets: The Dark Side of the City

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 94 ratings

Price: 21.83

Last update: 12-20-2024


About this item

New fantasy and science-fiction stories with a hard-boiled noir twist—focusing on the mean streets of the city.

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” (Raymond Chandler)

Humans have always been fascinated by darkness. Especially the darkness of a city at night, when the black sky is made ever more inky by the pools of illumination dropped under streetlights. We harken to the sound of streetcars in the distance. We are drawn to the garish flash of club signs and marquees. We love the danger of shadowed alleyways, of wealth and poverty living side by side.

We love the city. It’s a part of us.

Whether the mean streets be in an alternate past charmed with dark magic or the dirty alleyways of futuristic crowded space stations, the city—and its darkened streets—will always fascinate us. Here then, an anthology of all new stories of science fiction and fantasy with a hardboiled noir twist that acknowledge that the city is a living, breathing entity...and it isn’t always on our side.

Stories by: Laurell K. Hamilton, Larry Correia, Kacey Ezell, Mike Massa, Steve Diamond, Robert E. Hampson, Chris Kennedy, Marisa Wolf, Griffin Barber, Robert Buettner, Hinkley Correia, Casey Moores, Patrick M. Tracy, and Dan Willis.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Steve Voss
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2024
    How clever. How new. How interesting. How varied. How not rehashed. How well written. Buy it immediately if not sooner.

    Lovely.
  • Gilbert M. Stack
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good Stories
    Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2024
    This is a good collection of short stories that seem to mostly have the hard-boiled PI (or something close to it) as their theme. Some of them are set in fantasy worlds and some in science fiction. It's highly entertaining and exposed me to a lot of authors I hadn't read before. Well worth your time.
  • WrightlySo
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Devil’s Bargain
    Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2024
    Great noir stories! My favorite was A Devil’s Bargain by Steve Diamond. It was well paced, super interesting, and a really cool unique urban fantasy world with a great main character. I’d love to see it as a 15 minute short film.
  • Ben Yalow
    4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent third of the "noir" theme anthologies by these editors
    Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2024
    As with any anthology, the stories vary in quality -- but the stories I liked least were good stories, and they went significantly up from there.

    For any anthology, you want to start with one of the best stories -- and the opening line of the Ezell story grabs you and won't let go. I'd say it would be easily the best -- but the Massa opening line, if second best, is only barely so. And, in both cases, the story itself matches the quality of the opening line.

    The locales are all different, which is what you would expect with this theme -- but they're all places set up for interesting things to happen to the right characters -- and we have lots of right characters.

    The clues in the Hampson are groan-worthy, as they were designed to be -- they matched the story perfectly.

    And the ending of the Kennedy story, although unexpected, was completely legitimate, and much appreciated.

    I could keep going on about more of the stories, but it's easier to simply say -- if you like noir, buy this book. And, even if you don't like noir, but do like excellent storytelling, buy this book.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great stories
    Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2024
    I have the Audible version and can say this is a great anthology. So many different and interesting stories from both established authors and newcomers. You will not be disappointed.
  • Rotten Roger
    4.0 out of 5 stars A good collection
    Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2024
    1957 the Dark side by Buettner and He who dies with the most scars by Pat Tracy were the best.

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