THE GETAWAY GOD By Richard Kadrey – Reviewed

James Stark, Sandman Slim, is working for a secret Christian agency that is intent on keeping the demons and magically infused citizens of LA in check. Meanwhile the entire world is falling apart, under a deluge of never ending rain LA is flooding and emptying out. God, the actual god, has had a breakdown and his split personalities have literally split him into various pieces, and are fighting each other. Stark trapped one part of the fractured deity down in hell, to get out of being Lucifer.

The Angra Om Ya, a powerful set of old gods, are attempting to come back while the chaos continues, and only Stark and his magic eight ball (a powerful weapon he doesn’t know how to use) can stop them.

There’s also a serial killer on the loose, cutting people up and putting them back together as vessels for the ancient gods to possess.

Can Stark work out the eight ball in time? Can he stop the serial killer? Will his girlfriend leave him? Will heaven collapse?

If you’re coming to a series six books in then I think you should be a bit lost, but Kadrey kindly provides enough explanation of the back story so that every makes sense.

The fact is, as a reader of the series, I remember all of it. I read a lot, I watch a lot, and most things pretty much trickle out of my sieve-like brain. But not Kadrey’s books. They stick in there, their weird scenes, characters and a hellish LA are imprinted on my memory. Sure, I don’t remember everything, but I remember most of it. These books are memorable, and that’s a lot more than I can say for most books.

Kadrey’s characters and writing has attitude. Stark would pick you up, slam your head against the wall, and kick you while you’re down.

The filmic quality of the books is finally realised with the new style covers for the paperbacks.

The Stark books are not likely to be anything like the books you’ve read before, and that’s more than a good thing, that’s a great thing. You don’t often find a writer who can quite tap into your nastiness and bring it out in book form, but Kadrey’s done just that.

The man is a genius, and while this isn’t the best of the Stark novels (the series does seem to be losing a bit of momentum), I’ll be sticking with it until the end, because it’s still the best urban fantasy ever.

Read and beware, you may well become addicted.

ALOHA FROM HELL By Richard Kadrey – Reviewed

I hate Richard Kadrey. I hate his books. I hate Sandman Slim, one of the greatest anti-heroes to ever be captured on the page.

Kadrey writes books I wish I’d written. He had created a world and characters that I can only dream of creating. He has plots that make me want to read the whole book in one sitting because I want to find out what happens so bad. But also I want to read slowly, to savour every sentence, and respect every line because there is such a wit and darkness in these pages.

This is the third book in the amazing Sandman Slim series, featuring Slim who is a magician returned from hell after turning monster fighter and demon killer. He lives in an LA underworld ruled by Sub Rosa (old magical) families and factions. And finds himself involved as a bodyguard to Lucifer, a private-detective and monster hunter. Slim is my hero. The dude rocks my world, and I wish, I so wish, that he was mine. We would have such great adventure together. But what am I saying? We do have such great adventures together, but that bugger Kadrey creates them! I don’t want to share, I want Slim all to myself.

The third book in the series see Slim having to head down to Hell as his nemesis is having success building an army of hellions and plans to head up to Heaven to destroy it, and then destroy the rest of the world. Of course, there’s excommunicated priests, demons and gods, magic, fighting, betrayal, lies, and all manner of excitement to get in the way of things moving along smoothly.

Slim narrates with a unique voice that entertains with a brisk pace and style that you will find hard to match. The closest comparable voice stylistically would be Joe Lansdale’s East Texas drawl. But Kadrey goes further, where most are afraid to go. He seems unafraid to deal with difficult and controversial issues such as religion and faith, all the while having a wicked sense of humour, and one hellish, fetid darkness that sucks the reader in.

Like the very best fantasists, Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman at the top of their game, Kadrey creates a magnificent world that drips reality, characters that ooze personality, and plots that truly capture the imagination.

The third book in the series continues on the success of the previous two books. You must read the Sandman Slim novels. You MUST read one of them.

I hate Richard Kadrey, I want to be Richard Kadrey. I love Sandman Slim. I look forward to most adventures together.

Darkly brilliant.

Demented genius.

SANDMAN SLIM By Richard Kadrey – Reviewed

I saw Devil Said Bang in Forbidden Planet before Christmas and knew I had to read it. OCD sufferer that I am, I can’t start a series with book number four, so this one (Sandman Slim) went on my Christmas list. Fortunately Santa listened and I unwrapped this along with another twenty-odd books (Santa’s good!). I thought I’d start with this one because it’s fairly short, and I wanted to start working my way towards that fourth book in the series, the one I really wanted to read.

Fortunately the first in the series is a rock-hard, ultra-violent, action-fest!

Jimmy Stark was sent down to hell eleven years ago by his magic circle. Since then he’s been trying to survive as the play-toy of demons, and has managed to become a monster fighter and assassin. But when his ex-girlfriend is brutally murdered by the very same man who put him in hell, Stark escapes, killing one of Lucifer’s generals in the process. Now he’s in LA, looking for revenge on the magic circle that sentenced him to hell and their leader who killed the only woman he ever loved.

What follows is a cross between David Gunn’s Death’s Head (the attitude, the action, the raw brutality, and the protagonist from hell [this time literally]), and Tim Waggoner’s Nekopolis (a city [this time LA] riven with hellish creatures and magic), although it’s all under the surface here.

Stark is the perfect host (first person narrator), a revenge-driven psychopath, willing to kill himself and whoever gets in his way. The first person he encounters he cuts of their head. He doesn’t get any friendlier as the novel goes on, and it’s great! Hard-bitten, filled with venom and pithy comments, Stark is a true urban anti-hero with a bad attitude.

Kadrey has produced a real character in Stark, a unique individual you can’t help but remember, and may be not for all the right reasons. He’s fantastically caustic, and all the better for it in the urban sprawl of LA. An LA filled with angels, demons and Kissee, along with magicians, G-men from Homeland Security, murderers, skinheads and all manner of human-pus.

Sandman Slim is a unique and terribly entertaining mix, an urban fantasy that is vile and brutal and brilliant because of that. Stark is a hero that demands your attention, he has mine, and I’ll be back for the second in the series, and the third and fourth. I can’t wait!