There must be something about brothers that really interests readers and television fans. Supernatural is big on television, and Rob Thurman’s new series about Caliban and Niko are becoming big hits in the paperback arena. The first two books, Nightlife and Moonshine are out now, and Madhouse is coming out in February of 2008.

On the surface, the series looks like one of the many entries into the urban fantasy arena, but the books come with a twist. Caliban, or Cal as he prefers to be called, is half-Dark Elf (Auphe) and has some kind of dark destiny that the brothers are only now starting to get a handle on. Cal’s mother had an affair – for money – with his Auphe father and he was born, a hybrid unlike anything that had ever been birthed before. Suffice to say that Cal wasn’t born into a nurturing home.

However, what Cal did have was his older brother, Niko, who is a self-styled samurai warrior and Renaissance man. Since day one, Niko has been Cal’s protector and mentor, a super-parent who has more or less given up his life in order to make sure Cal grew up. Cal feels tremendous amounts of guilt over this, but there’s nothing he can do about it. His life has been entirely too strange – and that’s before you take into account the two years the Grendels (Dark Elves) kidnapped him to their world and did unspeakable things to him that he still can’t remember.

The relationship between the brothers is the foundation that makes everything else work. I could constantly see them around each other and in each other’s lives. Even those times when Niko wasn’t on the page with Cal, I was constantly aware of him.