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Working as a sideshow gladiator in Hell after being snatched by demons at the age of nineteen, James Stark escapes and returns to Los Angeles, where he plots to destroy the magic circle that stole his life. "An addictively satisfying, deeply amusing, dirty-ass masterpiece." —William Gibson "A sharp-edged urban fantasy, drenched in blood and cynicism, tipping its hat to Sam Peckinpah, Raymond Chandler, and the anti-heroes of Hong Kong cinema....A bravura performance." —San Francisco show more Chronicle "I couldn't put it down." —Charlaine Harris Sandman Slim has arrived—a wild and weird, edge-of-your-seat supernatural roller-coaster rider that propels author Richard Kadrey to the forefront of the fantasy, thriller, and a host of other literary genres. This spellbinding, utterly remarkable tale of a vengeful magician/hitman's return from hell is part H.P. Lovecraft, part Christopher Moore, part Jim Butcher, and totally, unabashedly dark, twisted, and hilarious. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
brakketh Also contains an anti-hero magician in a real-world setting.
Also recommended by enrique_molinero
80
anonymous user Both these novels are told in first person by men who are not averse to a bit of violence every now and then, and who have a certain attitude towards the universe. Altered Carbon is SF, while Sandman Slim is more of a Supernatural Urban Fantasy.
50
saltypepper Start of a series which begins with the resurrection of a man who uses magic and is seeking vengeance, in a city (Los Angeles, London) which is practically another character.
40
yarmando Supernatural action thrillers with heavier, more graphic violence.
LongDogMom Similar style
LongDogMom Similar in tone and I think would enjoy a similar audience.
majkia gritty supernatural thriller
LongDogMom Similar feel and style, both deal with angels, demons, Hell, betrayal and love.
reconditereader Both are about tough guys battling in supernatural, violent underworlds... but their secret weakness is always the people they care about. Both are real page-turners that keep things moving, too!
Also recommended by ShelfMonkey
by SunnySD
Vulco1 A supernatural creature just does their best to live a good life, even when confronted by mysteries, conspiracies, and supernatural bureaucracies.
They find some love and some danger.
Member Reviews
I've never been a huge fan of urban fantasy, it sort of came along after I'd gotten into science fiction, but this is an appealing mix of down and dirty crime writing and full on horror as our hero escapes Hell to modern LA and sets about taking revenge on the fellow magicians who betrayed him and sent him there, alive, eleven years before. Monsters, devils, magicians, alchemists, angels, Homeland Security and Nazis, the pages are crowded with inventive characters and ideas and set-ups. Slim is a nasty piece of work with a heart of gold, though sometimes he leans into being an asshole a bit too much while being as irritatingly self-righteous as only those who go around being an asshole with a heart of gold caught between the forces of show more good and evil can be. It's fast, tight, furious, bloody anarchic fun, and the prose is so wonderfully hard-boiled you can take big bloody bites out of it to chew while you read. show less
I'd literally never heard of this series, or even this author...and I'm kind of wondering how that sad state of affairs ever came about.
I'd been talking with another writer friend about how much I ended up loving the Dresden Files, and she suggested this as a good follow up.
She was not wrong.
This one's far grittier, far seedier, more punk rock than Dresden ever got. Where Dresden is a shabby white knight, Stark is an a-hole with an occasional soft spot for those getting picked on...while also being the guy that picks on others. Dresden is noble. Stark is vengeful.
And the attraction to this one is just the incredible dump of imagination and ideas. The writing is noirish and engaging. Where it took me almost seven novels to really become show more invested in Dresden, I was pretty much all in on this one right from the get-go.
I hope the series holds up, because this one shows a lot of promise.
How have I missed this series and author for the past 16 years? Makes me wonder what other incredible authors are out there that I don't know about. show less
I'd been talking with another writer friend about how much I ended up loving the Dresden Files, and she suggested this as a good follow up.
She was not wrong.
This one's far grittier, far seedier, more punk rock than Dresden ever got. Where Dresden is a shabby white knight, Stark is an a-hole with an occasional soft spot for those getting picked on...while also being the guy that picks on others. Dresden is noble. Stark is vengeful.
And the attraction to this one is just the incredible dump of imagination and ideas. The writing is noirish and engaging. Where it took me almost seven novels to really become show more invested in Dresden, I was pretty much all in on this one right from the get-go.
I hope the series holds up, because this one shows a lot of promise.
How have I missed this series and author for the past 16 years? Makes me wonder what other incredible authors are out there that I don't know about. show less
Richard Kadrey has officially become one of my favorite authors. Sandman Slim is sometimes witty, often dirty, but always a pleasure. Whether you're in the streets of LA or the dark shadows of Hell, Kadrey's writing will take you on a wild ride through the life of Sandman Slim, the monster you just can't help but love.
Surprising no one who has been playing along at home, I really disliked this book.
I finished it mostly because Mr Dee had read it before me, and didn't mind it. Mind you (I realised as I thrashed through the final third) he was also possibly out of his head on illness for most of that time. Hmm.
I hate the hero. He's an ultra-noir macho thug prick who is such an asshole (using American spelling, because he's so fucking American) to everyone that even his friends in the book call him an asshole - and every time they did, I nodded in complete agreement. He's smart-mouthed belligerent at everyone all the time, steals cars to get around (but it's all right, they're really expensive cars, so they're insured and probably belong to rich show more bastards, right?) only to crash them two seconds later (seriously, why is that motorcycle even in the book?) and he makes lascivious or derogatory comments at every woman who passes the narrative lens, and uses most of them as an excuse to fall into a muddle of emo about his dead girlfriend (of course he has one, did you miss the ultra-noir part?) who was the only good thing about his life and made him a better person and without her he might as be a macho thug prick punching the world in the face before it punches him in his.
And he's a frigging idiot. He comes rampaging back to earth (from hell, where he's been for eleven years) to get his goddamned revenge, and he has precisely zero plan on how to do it. Nor does he ever, at any point, develop a plan beyond getting distracted and blowing other things up. He lurches from one encounter to another without any personal driving force - oh, but then when he needs to have a showdown with the arch-villain's lieutenant, he suddenly knows precisely where it's going to be.
He has abilities that he only uses when it's convenient and totally forgets about when it would be prettier to do it a different way (and then never smacks himself for it later, but it's ok, big guy, I've got enough smacking to go around). Oh, and he pretty much can't die, so there's no tension about his physical wellbeing, except for the fact that from very early on he has some bullets stuck inside him that keep giving him indigestion and that another guy offers to take out for him, but for NO REASON AT ALL he decides to leave them there.
Probably so he can keep whining about them, which he does a lot. Then again, he whines about EVERYTHING so it's kind of boring to pick out individual topics. He whines about how the world is full of things that cause him rage and he whines about how his girlfriend's dead and now so is he inside and he whines about how annoying every second thing he comes across is (oh wait, I sort of already said that, but then again, so did he).
And look, I get it, his voice is actually supposed to be stoic and sardonic and laconic and other things that end in -ic, to go with the rest of his ultra-noir-dom, and also wise-cracking, because I dunno, Americans like that or something, somehow they are immune to the urge it gives me to just smack 'em upside the ear. But frankly he just pissed me the hell off. Which I'm sure you haven't picked up on already.
Also he missed cellphones because he was in Hell but he can make references to Harry Potter. Fuck off. show less
I finished it mostly because Mr Dee had read it before me, and didn't mind it. Mind you (I realised as I thrashed through the final third) he was also possibly out of his head on illness for most of that time. Hmm.
I hate the hero. He's an ultra-noir macho thug prick who is such an asshole (using American spelling, because he's so fucking American) to everyone that even his friends in the book call him an asshole - and every time they did, I nodded in complete agreement. He's smart-mouthed belligerent at everyone all the time, steals cars to get around (but it's all right, they're really expensive cars, so they're insured and probably belong to rich show more bastards, right?) only to crash them two seconds later (seriously, why is that motorcycle even in the book?) and he makes lascivious or derogatory comments at every woman who passes the narrative lens, and uses most of them as an excuse to fall into a muddle of emo about his dead girlfriend (of course he has one, did you miss the ultra-noir part?) who was the only good thing about his life and made him a better person and without her he might as be a macho thug prick punching the world in the face before it punches him in his.
And he's a frigging idiot. He comes rampaging back to earth (from hell, where he's been for eleven years) to get his goddamned revenge, and he has precisely zero plan on how to do it. Nor does he ever, at any point, develop a plan beyond getting distracted and blowing other things up. He lurches from one encounter to another without any personal driving force - oh, but then when he needs to have a showdown with the arch-villain's lieutenant, he suddenly knows precisely where it's going to be.
He has abilities that he only uses when it's convenient and totally forgets about when it would be prettier to do it a different way (and then never smacks himself for it later, but it's ok, big guy, I've got enough smacking to go around). Oh, and he pretty much can't die, so there's no tension about his physical wellbeing, except for the fact that from very early on he has some bullets stuck inside him that keep giving him indigestion and that another guy offers to take out for him, but for NO REASON AT ALL he decides to leave them there.
Probably so he can keep whining about them, which he does a lot. Then again, he whines about EVERYTHING so it's kind of boring to pick out individual topics. He whines about how the world is full of things that cause him rage and he whines about how his girlfriend's dead and now so is he inside and he whines about how annoying every second thing he comes across is (oh wait, I sort of already said that, but then again, so did he).
And look, I get it, his voice is actually supposed to be stoic and sardonic and laconic and other things that end in -ic, to go with the rest of his ultra-noir-dom, and also wise-cracking, because I dunno, Americans like that or something, somehow they are immune to the urge it gives me to just smack 'em upside the ear. But frankly he just pissed me the hell off. Which I'm sure you haven't picked up on already.
Also he missed cellphones because he was in Hell but he can make references to Harry Potter. Fuck off. show less
"Sandman Slim" is a frenetically-paced, relentlessly gore-splattered story, powered by some clever trope-twists on the Christian angel myths and told from the point of view of a magic-using anti-hero whose mood flips from maudlin self-pity through smart-mouthed aggression to lethal frenzied blood lust.
It's delivered with punchy prose, unstoppable momentum and violence described with loving attention to detail. The magic and weaponry were clever. The descriptions of LA were sleazy and inventive. The humour was of the self-flagellating kind.
It felt to me as if this was what at Nightside novel would be like if Simon Green ever wrote a cocaine-addicted version of John Taylor
I finished the book out of curiosity rather than enthusiasm. I'd show more have happily seen Sandman Slim ripped apart by any of the nasty things he went up against and not have felt any sense of loss.
If you're in the mood for a blockbuster splatter-fest with some interesting twisty on angels and devils, then you'll have a lot of fun with this book, show less
It's delivered with punchy prose, unstoppable momentum and violence described with loving attention to detail. The magic and weaponry were clever. The descriptions of LA were sleazy and inventive. The humour was of the self-flagellating kind.
It felt to me as if this was what at Nightside novel would be like if Simon Green ever wrote a cocaine-addicted version of John Taylor
I finished the book out of curiosity rather than enthusiasm. I'd show more have happily seen Sandman Slim ripped apart by any of the nasty things he went up against and not have felt any sense of loss.
If you're in the mood for a blockbuster splatter-fest with some interesting twisty on angels and devils, then you'll have a lot of fun with this book, show less
Fun, dark, and sort of heart-breakingly ridiculous, this is one of those books that you can't help falling into and catapulting through. I have to imagine it's a little like what could result from a mafia boss locking Stephen King and Christopher Moore into a room, and demanding they write a book for him. It defies genre, and it makes you laugh at things that, if you thought about them for any length of time, might make you cry or crawl into the closet to hide.
In other words, it's kind of awesome, and I can't wait to read the next one.
So, yes, absolutely, I recommend it.
In other words, it's kind of awesome, and I can't wait to read the next one.
So, yes, absolutely, I recommend it.
Right from the start this is a totally wild, on the verge of going off the tracks rollercoaster of a book. When I first received it I thought it was going to be a little violent. That was an understatement, and the book was great. Just as another reviewer said, there's a little of The Addams Family in this, but nothing that would ever show up on TV. The violence starts on the first page, as does the running dark humor commentary by our "hero", and goes through the last page. You'll learn a little about Heaven, a lot about Hell, magic, and bad attitudes, and have a blast doing it. I'll probably reread this one to pick up the nuances of some scenes even though I know the ending. Well put together, and there's nothing like magic to make show more for smooth transitions.
The book does end with the hint of more to come, and if it does, I'll be there to pick up the next installment. show less
The book does end with the hint of more to come, and if it does, I'll be there to pick up the next installment. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Members
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Published Reviews
ThingScore 100
It's the kind of book where suffering and slim hopes are the reality for almost all the characters, and where goals are not achieved without the kind of sacrifice and revelation that change people's lives forever. And by the standards of that kind of book, Sandman Slim is very, very good indeed.
added by lampbane
This is a tightly plotted revenge story that grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go.
added by lampbane
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Author Information
126+ Works 11,828 Members
Richard Kadrey is a freelance writer. He is the author of dozens of stories, plus numerous novels, including: the Sandman Slim Series, Metrophage, and Butcher Bird. Kadrey created and wrote the Vertigo comics mini-series ACCELERATE. Richard has written and spoken about art, culture and technology for Wired, The San Francisco Chronicle, Discovery show more Online, The Site, SXSW and Wired For Sex on the G4 cable network. He is also a fetish photographer and digital artist. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Sündmuste horisont (101)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Sandman Slim
- Original title
- Sandman Slim
- Alternate titles*
- Sandman Slim: Höllendämmerung
- Original publication date
- 2009-07-21
- People/Characters
- James Stark [Sandman Slim]; Mason Faim; Kasabian; Lucifer; François Eugene Vidocq; Aelita (show all 7); Dr. Kinski (Uriel)
- Important places
- Los Angeles, California, USA; Hell
- Epigraph
- Just judge of vengeance, grant the gift of forgiveness, before the day of reckoning. - Dies Irae, Requiem Mass
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them. - William Clayton - Dedication
- For Nicola
- First words
- I wake up in a pile of smoldering garbage and leaves in the Old Hollywood Forever cemetery behind the Paramount Studio lot on Melrose, though these last details don't come to me until later.
- Quotations
- Nothing nice happens to murdered women, except that maybe someone cares about how they got that way.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Metatron's Cube. One of the holiest of holy glyphs. The soul of the angel Metatron, the voice of God. Good for keeping away imps, flesh-eating zombies, and ants at a picnic. It slices. It dices.... (show all) It has a thousand and one uses. A thousand and two if you draw it on a brick and throw it through the windshield of your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend's car.
While it's giving me a migraine right now, I think the fact that I'm not an expert on corpse disposal says a lot of good things about me and my life choices. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Can we order in pizza later?" asks Kasabian. "Can you eat?" "I can chew" "I'll put a bucket under you." "Shut up. The movie's starting."
- Blurbers
- Gibson, William ; Harrison, Kim ; Harris, Charlaine; Doctorow, Cory; Black, Holly
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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