Sandman Slim Review
I don't normally like urban fantasy, nor do I care much for anything involving Heaven, Hell, or any of the mythical beasts roaming around those lands. The difference here is Richard Kadrey's writing. His prose is faster than a bullet and as vulgar as a sailor pounding the back door out of a two dollar lady of the night. If that last sentence offended you, please stay away from Sandman Slim. The main character's first-person narration is far more blue. If you like crass descriptions and foul-mouth anecdotes, Sandman Slim is stuffed full of hilarity and offensive charm.
Another reason I should have hated this book is the present tense storytelling, but once again, Richard pulled it off. I normally put down a book as soon as I see the first "is" instead of "was," because I don't feel present tense is believable. I mean, how is the story being related? The only present tense stuff I can stand is normally short fiction and blog posts. I constantly wonder whether or not the narrator has a voice recorder in his pocket. If your doing this right now, how the hell are you writing it. I know, I know, I'm being to damn literal, but that's how I feel. I have no idea why I was able to withstand the tense of this book and not others. I just did.
I loved the fact that the main character, James Stark, (aka Sandman Slim) doesn't care about anything else aside from his own revenge. The world is going to end, and the only reason he's saves it is because the person bringing about hell on earth is the guy who killed his girlfriend. It's a very human story surrounded by magic and supernatural evils. Not to mention, one fun ride.
For those of you that care about typos and grammatical foibles, I will say that the book is full of words left in after editing, missing words and several instances where "bought" is used instead of "brought." I could almost see someone using the find function in word and accidentally replacing every instance with the wrong word. Oh, and for the ebook version, there are several formatting issues. Mostly with the dialogue. One person will talk and the quotation marks will close out the speech, but then another piece of dialogue, from a completely different person, will start up without a new paragraph. Nobody's perfect, not even the Big Six guys. But most of you already know that. The only reason I even mention it is because I know some of you will care enough to stop reading, which, in my opinion, would be a grand mistake, indeed.
I will definitely be checking out the rest of the Sandman Slim series.
