Sandman Slim and Kill the Dead

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey (Eos) was unquestionably the most entertaining novel I read last year – smart, dark, hilarious – which actually surprised me a lot. While I like mysteries and some quirky fiction, I tend to run a mile from anything too dark or apocalyptic, but one glance into Sandman Slim and I was hooked. I wrote the following for Indie Next:

How a book this dark can be this much fun to read is just one of many things that will amaze you about Sandman Slim. After surviving eleven years in Hell – literally – Stark is ready for vengeance on the magicians who killed his girlfriend and sent him there. If he happens to avert the Apocalypse at the same time, that will be icing on the cake. Good Omens meets Raymond Chandler!

The good news is that Sandman Slim is now available in mass market paperback for only $7.99. The great news is that Kadrey has written a sequel, called Kill the Dead. The amazing news is that Kill the Dead is twice as good as Sandman Slim. The bad news is that Kill the Dead won’t be published until October. But here's what I wrote about it for Indie Next:

The most delightful novel I read last year was Richard Kadrey's amazing Sandman Slim. The only problem with a book so stunning, original, fast-paced and funny is that it's a very tough act to follow. Only a truly outstanding writer could give us a sequel twice as good as the original: action-packed from the first page, dark yet slyly hilarious, thought-provoking and impossible to put down. Fortunately, Kadrey is a master, and Kill the Dead, in which Stark, the half-angel hitman from hell, goes up against angels, devils, federal agents and a zombie apocalypse in Los Angeles, is a masterpiece.

You may also want to check out http://richardkadrey.blogspot.com/ - like his novels, it's smart, funny and interesting.

Bloomsday

June 16, Bloomsday, is the day when the action in James Joyce's novel Ulysses took place. I am one of the only people I know who read and enjoyed this novel. It took about a week to read. I read it during a heat wave and drought in the summer of 1988. I had just graduated from college with an English degree and I was working in a parking lot. That week the lot was being repaired, so I wasn't working, and I mostly lay in front of the fan reading. The scene where the crippled girl deliberately flashes her underwear at Leopold Bloom is so classic.

I'm unreasonably geeked that Harper/Eos used a review I wrote in the publicity letter they're sending out with galley copies of a book I loved, even though I personally never read those letters and I doubt if anyone else does either. I'll be writing about that book very soon. Its initials are Kill the Dead.

Is this thing on?

This was taken about 40 years ago, but some things don't change much. I still have that table, but the floor I have under it now is a lot neater.

So I thought I'd try this blog thing. Mostly it will be about books, although I reserve the right to rave about whatever seems raveworthy at the moment (I can't stop playing the new Underworld single). I'll post something real soon; this is just a "testing, testing" kind of thing.