The only reason I stopped reading last night was because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I didn’t even bother getting out of my PJs until I was done, it was that good. I had such a good time that I just kept reading it this morning until I finished it. It kept surprising me and entertaining me, all at the same time. Sandman Slim was a hell of a lot of fun to read. I am so looking forward to what Kadrey comes up with in his next endeavors. Along the way, Kadrey introduces us to all sorts of fascinating characters: an immortal French alchemist, a vampire-like creature who’s trying to stop eating humans, a branch of Homeland Security that’s helping Heaven fight its seventy thousand year war against chaos. Stark, like the anti-hero he is, pursues his revenge and his plans to rescue his few friends in spite of a conspiracy that could mean not only the end of the world as we know it, but also Heaven and Hell. I love it when a plot does something that I can’t work out in advance. It takes some of its inspiration from the idea of divine sparks ( nitzotzot, if I’m being pedantic) and the Breaking of the Vessels out of Jewish mysticism, but goes somewhere I’ve never seen before. This twist in the plot is, as far as I know, original in fiction. Before he realizes it, Stark is caught up in a war between the angels and a previously unknown (to Stark) race of supernatural beings who are addicted to chaos. But as Stark starts trying to pick off the members of the Circle, they start dying before he can get his hands on them. Before he leaves Hell, Stark becomes Sandman Slim, “the monster the other monsters are afraid of.” Back on Earth, Stark starts his quest for revenge by finding the weakest member of his old magic Circle and uses the guy’s head as a source of information on the other members of the Circle and, for the readers, unintentional comic relief. Anytime anyone tries to kill him, Stark just gets harder to kill.

Stark, our anti-hero, is the first human to survive Hell.

Our anti-hero escapes from Hell (yup, that Hell), and goes after the people who put him there. Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey, is about revenge. This book is dark in the ways that the best Raymond Chandler stories are, but with the added bonus of magic and angels and demons and other fantastical weirdness. It’s got more in common with Mike Carey’s novels than anyone else I’ve seen it compared to so far. I couldn’t get through the first Harry Dresden book no matter what I tried. I think this book is what Jim Butcher’s books are trying to be: urban fantasy noir.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey