Richard Kadrey

If ever a novel needed its own niche, Kamikaze L'amour might've been it. Dipping here, there, everywhere, from many subgenres inside and out of science fiction—dystopia, post-apocalypse, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, timeslipstream, satire, literary fiction, magical realism, it eluded a single label—a good thing—but also eluded sales—not so good; it's unclassifiable nature reminiscent to me of Steve Erickson's inimitable oeuvre, particularly his second novel Rubicon Beach, in which an show more encroaching jungle, a parallel reality Los Angeles, and a mysterious woman named Catharine, all figure prominently. Could've been coincidental, there being so many striking similarities between the two novels, though I suspect Kadrey was probably paying Steve Erickson some much deserved homage.

When Kamikaze L'amour opens, San Francisco and Los Angeles are already in ruins. "San Francisco was on the verge of some discrete internal shift accompanied by subtle deviations in gravity, cellular tremors — like a city-sized snake getting ready to shed its skin." In an ecological experiment gone cataclysmically wrong, the Amazon Rainforest has inundated the California coast. Hardcore defoliants have been no match for this super-sized rainforest. The Feds, running out of options, have resorted to dropping napalm on Hollywood (yes, napalm, such sweet satire), with little long lasting effects. It's like the Vietnam War all over again, except it's in Los Angeles, where mutant jungle vines grow fast before your eyes like menacing erections. U.S. Highway 101 has become a barely passable corridor between the Bay and L.A., an overgrown concrete stand-in, say, for the Congo or Nung Rivers of Conrad's and Coppola's respective visions.

Ex-rock star Ryder and his hearty appetite for destruction (yeah, he knows Slash), having faked his own suicide in order to escape what he's deemed an empty existence of excess and ennui (because "Fame is just schizophrenia with money," he's reasoned in Kamikaze L'amour's fantastic opening line), takes the dangerous trek south for Los Angeles in search of an idiosyncratic personal "light" from his memory whose luminescence, if he can only recapture it—and the strange thing is the peculiar light emanates from sound—believes will somehow restore him. Maybe save him. Provide him renewed purpose. Become his guide. Or might the epic anti-heroic quest for the light leave him in darkness instead, disillusioned, damned, another abandoned husk of a human being sifting the ashes throughout the charred vestiges of L.A.

Ryder's girlfriend, also a talented and nutty musician (and likely insane), has fled south through the jungle before him. Ryder's convinced, since she's spent so many secret hours on the fringes of the new rainforest, recording the jungle's animate sounds, that she knows the right combo of ambient tones and notes to unlock that resurrecting light within and without. But will he find her before the jungle devours her whole? Ryder pursues her with reckless abandon, as obsessive in his search for the light and the sound (vis-à-vis Catharine) as perhaps Proust was his past. Despite the untold dangers, and some scary setbacks along the way, involving mercenaries, wild beasts, and indigenous tribes of the new Amazon, Ryder arrives in L.A., having barely survived his harrowing journey.

"The new Los Angeles seemed remarkably smaller, and somber; the most extroverted of cities had turned introspective. This was the sleeping face of L.A.—its dream face. Under its jungle coat, all the fantasies that the city had birthed, appropriated, conceived or destroyed moved raw and wild beneath the luminescent green canopy of the kapoks and palm trees. When it gave itself over to Amazonia, Los Angeles had found itself—a hermetic fusion of city and rainforest, half construct and half dream—as solid as the omnipresent HOLLYWOOD sign still visible in the hills, and as fragile as a dragonfly's wings."

In Kamikaze L'amour's acknowledgements, Kadrey thanked those who'd helped him write "The Book That Would Not Die". I think it's unfortunate that Kadrey's underrated second novel did in fact "die," commercially speaking, shortly after publication. Victim of false expectations, suffering from unfair comparisons to his—granted, dazzling debut Metrophage, considered now a cyberpunk classic—Kamikaze L'amour is nevertheless a good, often great, novel in its own right (so what if it's not a classic phenom like its predecessor, neither was In Utero after Nevermind, or Tusk after Rumours, but they were still very good) has been out of print now for almost twenty years. Perhaps Harper Voyager will one day reissue it as they did Metrophage in 2014 to acclaim and steady sales. Regardless, I hope many curious intrepid readers will soon reconsider reading the more experimental Kamikaze L'amour—a paean, ultimately, to humanity's obsessive search for light or illumination throughout the ages, and what an elaborate suicide might've symbolized in such a quest—for when they do I'm convinced they'll discover, as I did, that Richard Kadrey's second novel has long deserved a second chance. show less

It's been fascinating to watch Sandman Slim--James Stark--change over the course of this series. He's still a dick, he'd still almost rather burn the universe down than save it, but he's different now. He has friends. Ties. He might learn to use a coffeemaker. And right now, this asshole is the only thing standing between humanity and a bunch of elder gods who want to take back their world only to kill us all. Almost nobody trusts him to save us, not even himself.

If you enjoy characters I show more refer to as "dickish wizards," then you'll really like Stark. He's been enslaved and ruled in Hell, he's friends with parts of God, and the hellhounds just love him. show less

You know how you can overlook a really good friend's faults? Moreover, how those faults kinda become the things you cherish most about him or her? For me, that's exactly why I love James Stark/Sandman Slim. This character is so broken and disjointed. He's unpredictable, but not in the sense that he's chaotic, but in that I believe Richard Kadrey had no idea (even in book two) who or what he wanted Stark to be. The end of this book is proof that Stark could turn out to be anything (aside from show more a nazi robot zombie vampire, of course), and I'd still have a sizable man-crush on him.

I hate everything about a synopsis: writing one, reading one. I tend to skip them because they're nothing more than spoilers disguised as information. So, going into KILL THE DEAD, I had no idea what I was in store for. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself surrounded by the walking dead.

Kadrey did everything right in this second volume of the Sandman Slim story line. I have only ever once given a sequel/continuation anything more than four stars, and that was Koontz's ODD INTERLUDE serial, which was (in my opinion) better than the first book in the series. To say the least, I was shocked that I loved KILL THE DEAD as much as I did SANDMAN SLIM. I couldn't see how Kadrey was going to keep up the epicosity, but he pulled it off. From the first paragraph on, I was entertained. With me, that's rare. Usually I find something about a book to complain about, but this time around I couldn't help but gush over every page, even the plot holes were like a birthmark on a lover's face. It's something you accept because the whole is worth loving... See, told you I had a raging boner for this series.

All right, enough maudlin bullshit, let's get down to business. Will you like this as much as me? Who knows? I sure can't say. I'll be completely honest with you, though: I'm biased as fuck. Keep that in mind if you read KILL THE DEAD.

SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!

In a status update here on Booklikes, I mentioned how this book had become oddly Matrix-esque. Funny thing is, that was before the bullet-time scene wherein Stark ravages a swat team by using his angel vision (which is not unlike Neo seeing the Matrix in code form). Then you have Stark falling for porn star/zombie-carver, Brigette, who's a badass on par with Trinity, and their quick, albeit doomed, love affair. I don't know if Kadrey was purposefully channeling the Wachowski brothers (now brother and sister; good for you Larry/Lana), but it sure as hell felt like a tribute.

END SPOILATION

If nothing else, go into KILL THE DEAD expecting witty sarcasm and laugh-out-loud commentary. Stark is nothing if he's not funny. And vulgar. Did I mention how vulgar he is? You need to be a little sick and twisted to enjoy Kadrey's work, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

In summation, I dug the hell out of this book, and will likely love every sequel that comes after it. There's something about Stark that gels with me: be it his attitude, his sense of humor, or the fact that he's everything a boy like me looks for in a hero. I'm starting to understand why people like Harry Potter... show less

I started reading Aloha From Hell on February 15th of this year. Here it is, September 20th, and I've just now finished it. What began as a read on my Kindle changed to the hardcover edition in July when I found it at the library. I made it to about page 100 before I had to take the book back so someone else could tear their fucking hair out. Finally, I downloaded the audio book, because MacLeod Andrews can make Cannibal Corpse lyrics sound like Catholic hymns. And whataya know? I actually show more finished this mother-humping book. Amen, and pass the maledictions!

Oh, how I loved the first two books in this series. The witty sarcasm, the foul-mouthed humor, action that explodes on the page... What in the name of Tom Cruise's bleached asshole happened here? Sure, Stark is just as sarcastic as ever, but the humor was like listening to an obese comedian tell his hundredth fat joke of the night. It was funny the first 99 times, but now it's just kinda sad. Doesn't he have any other material, for Cruise's sake?

Aloha From Hell drones on about religious bullshit and other godly mythos as Kadrey tries to figure out who God is and what purpose the deity will serve in his Sandman Slim urban fantasy series. As far as action is concerned, we get an anti-climactic exorcism, three or four gladius battles that seem ripped from the Sword Fighting Playbook of 1940, Stark driving a Ferrari Testarossa out of Hell and into a war with Heaven ( literally pause the audio because I was laughing so hard at the mid-life-crisis-fantasy-porn), and a finale on par with the ending of the Richard Donner's Superman. Other than that, we receive roughly two billion conversations. There's so much dialogue in this book, I though I was reading a script. And, for the most part, the cast are not talking about anything worth a fuck. No! We get page after page of hellions whining about why Hell sucks, bad guys spouting off exposition, and good guys complaining about having to be good guys. By the time I was done with this (and I never thought I'd say this, but...), I was chomping at the bit for some of Peter Straub or Stephen King's infamous walls of text, wherein we get paragraphs that last two or three pages without a single shred of dialogue. I was actually tired of hearing people talk. More than once I thought, "Shut the fuck up and get on with the goddamn story, you mouthy pricks!"

This book is packed full of filler. It's bursting at the seams, really. I mean, for fuck's sake, it takes Stark until the 54% mark to get to Hell. The book's story doesn't even really start until halfway through the goddamn book! All the bullshit before he goes to Hell is superfluous. Wanna know how I know? Because I forgot everything that happened during the first section of the book and was not even close to lost at the end. I got the full picture, and I can't even remember the first fifty percent!

Oh, and Jack the Ripper's appearance was pointless. So very cliched and pointless. What about H. H. Holmes or Albert Fish, or someone who hasn't popped up half a trillion times in books about Hell.

See also: Hell being a twisted version of Los Angeles... FUCKING GODDAMN SQUIRREL-MOLESTING MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST ON A TAMPAX YACHT, KADREY, SHOW SOME ORIGINALITY!

(*takes a deep breath* Sorry, about that. Now back to our regularly scheduled review)

I almost rage-quit this pile of dumpster leavings five times since February, but friends kept telling me, "The fourth book is SOOOOO worth the trouble." You guys better be right, or I'm going to burn this book and use the flames to light your pubes on fire.

Now, with all this cussing and fussing, I bet you're asking yourself how in the name of Tom Cruise's waxed weasel hole did it garner three stars from me? Well, the answer is this: There are parts in this book that I liked quite a bit. All the emotional stuff was handled expertly, and I even teared when Alice tells Stark how she really died. I got another sentimental boner while Stark was ranting about how God was just another deadbeat dad in his life. Any scene that was designed to tug at my heartstrings worked like a bodybuilder bench pressing bags of cotton. And that's what I don't understand, Mr. Kadrey. This is urban fantasy, not literary fiction, so why the huge emphasis on emotional content here? Some of your prose herein is fucking gorgeous, but when it comes to action and plot progression, Aloha From Hell eats all the ass with pancake syrup and sprinkles on top. Had the fight sequences been up to par with the tear-jerking shit, and the dialogue edited down a couple dozen pages, I believe this would have been the best book in the series. Because, Kadrey,dude, you had some important shit to say, it's just that most of it got buried under a metric-fuck-tonne of bloated text.

In summation: I don't know if reading this volume was worth it yet, so I cannot recommend Aloha From Hell, nor can I tell you to stay the fuck away from it. I will tackle that after reading the next book in the series, which, strangely enough, is a novella. Devil in the Dollhouse (book 3.5) comes before Devil Said Bang (Book 4), so to the Dollhouse I turn. It best not suck, Kadrey. Best not!

Three balls sucked out of five. show less