Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
Trust me on this — Hell is a tough room.
James Stark is back and it's time for heads to roll (literally). His “friends” managed to get him pulled into Hell and he's spent the last 11 years entertaining Lucifer and Beelzebub in the gladiatorial arena, learning plenty of new skills (including how to speak High Hellion, which sounds a lot like barking), and acquiring a couple of useful magical objects. Now he's crawled out of the abyss and he's ready for revenge on those who killed his girlfriend and sent him Downtown. Fortunately he's got a little help from a 200 year old French alchemist who's looking for a cure for his immortality and an L.A. Goth girl who runs a video store.

Sandman Slim is a well-written and entertaining novel. What I liked best was Richard Kadrey's use of colorful metaphors and similes:


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Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me lately. I keep finding myself reading some gloriously blasphemous works of fantasy literature. I reviewed Jesse Bullington’s The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and accepted that it could very well show up as a stain on my soul’s credit report. Now, having just finished Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim, I might as well file eternal bankruptcy.

James Stark was betrayed and sent to hell for 11 years. While in Hell he learned a few things like killing, drinking heavily, and swearing like it was an Olympic sport. James Stark’s only goals are payback for his banishment, and revenge for the murder of his one true love... Anything else that happens along the way is just a bonus.

Stark’s one-track min... Read More

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

Stark has escaped from Hell, where he spent the last 11 years as a gladiator and assassin. He’s out for revenge, to kill the group of magicians who not only got him sent to Hell in the first place but recently murdered his girlfriend too. Stark was already somewhat of an outlaw with magical abilities before going “downtown,” but just like the prison systems on Earth, his fiery incarceration only made him tougher and more knowledgeable. He also smuggled out a couple powerful items: a magical black bone knife and a key which will transport him anywhere, from shadow to shadow, by way of the nexus of the universe, the Room of Thirteen Doors.

I haven’t had much luck finding urban fantasy that I like. So I tend to shy away from it, but when other FanLit reviewers mentioned how tough, gritty, and of full of wise-cracking dialog Sandman Slim is, I knew it was for me. I love ... Read More

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

James Stark is the only man who has ever gone to Hell while still alive, and escaped to tell the tale. He’s back on Earth to hunt down those who sent him to Hell and kill them. Because he’s picked up a few immunities to injury during his time Down Below, where he was essentially a gladiator, he thinks that might not be too difficult a job. In fact, he takes five bullets straight to the chest in his first few hours back here, and they don’t do anything but pose a threat of eventual lead poisoning if he doesn’t get them removed.

Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim is urban fantasy with a kick to the head. Stark is the kind of anti-hero who becomes more of a hero the longer you read about him – he makes an effort not to kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it, and is even sorry that he decapitated one of his enemies and kept the guy’s head alive to be capt... Read More

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

Would James Stark, the hero of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim, and Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden get along? Here’s what I think. They could drink together, but sooner or later they’d get into a fight and end up torching the neighborhood. They’re a little too different, yet too much alike.

Dresden is a rebel and an outcast. So is Stark, but he is something more — a true punk, in the 1980s Sid Vicious sense of that word. He’s something more than that, too, but I don’t want to spoil it for everyone.

Stark’s punk sensibility marinated for eleven years in Hell, where a rival magician sent Stark (still alive) when he was nineteen years old. Stark survived by becoming an arena fighter in Hell, and later a shadow assassin for one of Lucifer’s generals. Now he’s ... Read More

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey

PLOT SUMMARY: James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend's murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It's a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse.

Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard. Sandman Slim has to swim with the human and inhuman sharks of L.A.'s underground power elite. That's before the murders start. And before he runs into the Czech porn star who isn't quite what she seems. Even before all those murdered people start coming back from the dead and join a zombie army that will change our world — and Stark's — forever...

FORMAT/INFO: Kill the Dead is 434 pages long without any cha... Read More

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey

Richard Kadrey’s Kill the Dead is the sequel to Sandman Slim, and James Stark has been keeping himself busy working for various entities in order to pay the rent. The Devil is one of the entities that makes use of Stark’s services, and he wants Stark to serve as his bodyguard while he’s in town on business. Stark is forced to juggle the obligations of both Heaven and Hell, and manages to place himself in the middle of a conflict that started at the dawn of time.

Richard Kadrey’s writing style is awesome. Seriously, I want this guy to write my epitaph after I die. I imagine it would go something like this:

“Here lies Justin Blazier. If you owe him money, you’re a lucky son of a bitch.”

Kadrey continues the gritty shit-kicking approach to writing that made ... Read More

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey

Lucifer has come to Hollywood as an advisor for a movie about his life that’s in production. With all the power struggles going on between the old Sub Rosa families, he hires Stark, a.k.a Sandman Slim, to be his bodyguard. Stark has recently been contracting for the Golden Vigil, a special department of homeland security that’s overseen by the angel Aelita and defends against God’s enemies on Earth. But between Stark’s bad attitude and Aelita’s “holier than though” one, that job isn’t working out so well. So Stark needs the money. However, as one can imagine, when working for the Devil there’s always going to be a catch. In a desperate bid to take over, somebody has set zombies loose in L.A., and Sandman Slim is the only person who can stop them.

Mr. Kadrey’s take on the Devil makes me think of the old mafia don depicted in gangster movies: a businessman who has ... Read More

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey

Kill the Dead, Richard Kadrey’s second Sandman Slim adventure, didn’t impress me as much as the first one did. I think I’ve hit my zombie threshold. I didn’t know I had a zombie threshold until I was about halfway through this book, but apparently I do and this book reached it.

All the things I liked about Sandman Slim are still around in Kill the Dead. James Stark, Kadrey’s punk wizard, is still punk: powerful, angry, pragmatic. When the book opens, he is killing vampires for money, paid by the Golden Vigil, a truly frightening partnership between angelic warriors and Homeland Security. Yes, that’s right, an operation that can smite you with God’s wrath, suspend habeas corpus and strangle you in bureaucratic red tape all at the same time. They are not the scariest thing walking L... Read More

Aloha From Hell by Richard Kadrey
“I have to laugh. There isn’t much else to do. Go down into the deepest darkest parts of Hell, and you’ll see what I mean. They laugh all the time down there.”
Aloha From Hell is Richard Kadrey’s third SANDMAN SLIM novel. Jim Stark was betrayed by a fellow magician and dragged alive into Hell. Eleven years as an arena fighter for audiences of Hellions and fallen angels did not improve Stark’s attitude, and when he clawed his way out of Hell, he had some unfinished business with Mason, his betrayer.

Dealing with Mason is at the top of Stark’s to-do list, but in Sandman Slim and Kill the Dead, various things like world-destroying anti-angels and a zombie apocalypse distracted him. Stark did manage to send Mason to Hell. This might not have been a good choice, since Lucifer had gone ... Read More

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

John Joseph Adams assembles a wide variety of apocalypse-related fiction in Wastelands. some of which are older than I am, while others are more recent. What you end up with is a diverse anthology covering topics such as religion, war, and exploration while containing horror, comedy, and a sense of wonder.

The majority of the stories are easy to get into. Some stories are more subtle than others. Overall, Wastelands is an enjoyable read and the selection seems balanced. Having said that, here are my top three stories:

"Bread and Bombs" by M. Rickert is one of the more horrifying stories in this anthology, and this is achieved through her characterization and commentary on society. It's easy to jump into Rickert's text and there is a foreboding established early on w... Read More