Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

Sandman Slim

Sandman Slim #1

Publisher: HarperVoyager (2002)

Author: Richard Kadrey

Genre: Urban, Fantasy, Horror

Pages: 416

Price: $14.99

Life sucks and then you die. Or, if you're James Stark, you spend eleven years in Hell as a hitman before finally escaping, only to land back in the hell-on-earth that is Los Angeles.

Now Stark's back, and ready for revenge. And absolution, and maybe even love. But when his first stop saddles him with an abusive talking head, Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than you'd expect, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future.

This is an odd book to read. It's told in first-person present tense, taking the reader along for the action as it's happening. This allows for a sense of danger that past tense books don't normally contain. The existence of an after life and all that goes along with it means that even death wouldn't stop the story, but it would change it dramatically. That fact keeps things tense and dangerous. The other oddity in Sandman Slim is that it doesn't contain chapters. After all, the reader is being pulled along through a few days of James Stark's life, and life doesn't always break conveniently for sleep or dramatic effect. It's not a technique that is used as expertly as say Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but it does help to convey the feeling of constant danger and eventual fatigue the protagonist is experiencing.

The protagonist, James Stark, is at times completely unrelatable, almost alien in his way of handling things. This is attributed to the eleven years he's spent in Hell. Then he'll do something that the everyday person only wishes they could do, like busting up some local toughs extorting a bar owner, and he starts to feel like a person again. One complaint I had was that even though the reader is told he's an accomplished magician we see very little of his magic at work. Most of the things he does are courtesy of magical items in his possession, I would have preferred to see him flex his magical muscles at least as often has his physical ones

Although the story is framed as a revenge tale there is of course, like in most urban fantasy, something far larger at play. Instead of only getting glimpses of the larger picture, as is common in the first book of a series, most of the stakes are laid out plainly to reader early here in book number one. Even with the stakes made apparent Stark feels little obligation to the big picture. His focus is solely on his revenge, although he goes about it in a haphazard fashion; failing to take vengeance on most of his targets as they're killed by another party. The other party is of course the man that originally sent him to Hell, Mason Faim. When he finally confronts Mason it's revealed that he's been led by the nose to that specific moment, as a kind of job application. The showdown between the two is a bit of a let down. Stark doesn't seem like the kind of guy to avoid pulling the metaphorical trigger himself, and yet he leaves the fate of his adversary in others' hands. In the process he manages to avert the greater threat, although that wasn't his true concern, again making him tough to relate to as a character, it's just a little too anti-hero, even for me.

The cast of supporting characters was one of the brightest spots in the book. Allegra and Vidocq served as the closest thing Stark has to friends in the world he's returned to. Dr. Kinski has his own secrets and motivations that kept him interesting for the entire book, along with the semi-reformed monster Candy, who should see more page-time in subsequent books. Stark's first victim, pseudo-sidekick, Kasabian served as comic relief in what would have been too serious a tale otherwise. They all provided a much needed change of pace from the sarcastic and cynical main character.

Conclusion: Sandman Slim builds the foundation for an exciting entry into the urban fantasy genre. With a little more actual magic, and a better balance of Stark's personality quirks there could be something fun brewing here. The world Richard Kadrey has built already feels detailed and dangerous and that feeling should only increase as the series goes forward.

Rating: 7.5/10