Sandman Slim: Sandman Slim, Book 1

This is a hard series for me to review. The author is good at writing, but he decided to make his protagonist completely unlikable. I like urban fantasy and anti-heroes, but I'm pretty sure Slim goes out of his way to be the biggest jerk possible. There's a difference between not being a goody-two shoes/being a mercenary and trying to pretty much actively kick every puppy you can on your way down the street. I know that Slim has had a screwed up life, but he spends most of the book being angsty and ridiculously self-destructive.Also, his powers are pretty much completely broken and the only thing keeping him in check is the fact that Kadrey never puts any sort of reasonable power system into the whole series of books. Things just "magically" work or don't depending on where the plot is supposed to go and this is probably my biggest gripe with the series. It's not much fun to have a power system that's this broken, guns/knives/fire/power of old Gods all boils down to about the same level of danger for characters and are relatively interchangeable. Pretty much no one can actually die until the author suddenly lets them and then you have no idea why this one type of magic/attack worked where it has failed in past encounters.And the world, don't even get me started on it. They live in this weird universe where there is technically a planet called Earth but apparently is populated by LA and nothing else. No one ever leaves LA nothing takes place outside LA. If they somehow manage to leave LA for some reason, they only go to an alternate plane that is alternate-LA and is almost exactly the same. It's pretty hard to care around a world this simplistic, especially when the author is nihilistic and seems to actively hate LA and makes every effort to make it sound like a pretty miserable place.Finally, this book is a bit weird from a religious angle. The first book is pretty decent, but we soon find out that angels and demons are pretty wimpy all things concerned and neither are particularly good or evil. God is not holy, the devil is not evil and they aren't very powerful either. Everything is kind of mashed together in a nihilistic, bland stew. Some surprises or reversals are interesting, but Kadrey somehow managed to make supernatural beings boring and mundane.Despite all this, I still generally enjoyed the books. Not sure how, but they might be worth a read if you can put up with the cons.Background: I typically buy my Kindle books as part of the Kindle Daily Deals and plan them for airplane reading or times when I am away from home and cannot do more exciting or responsible tasks. This means that my standards are not too high and I am looking for books in the beach read category under the fantasy/sci-fi genres. I try to rate fairly on the star scale and personally consider anything 3 stars and up to be fine.

This book is full of ridiculous characters: the protagonist is the baddest in a cosmic scale as a noir detective mixed with a war veteran and a gladiator; everybody seems angry and even the considered good people actually does illegal or criminal things. And it is not only the characters: the plot also gets uncontrolled from something supernatural to pure mythology. So I couldn't say I like it... I love it! xD it was quite fun and I found myself seeing what more was happening to the struggle of our hero to avoid the closing of... Max Overdrive Video 😂😂Among the things I loved more was to read the thoughts of Sandman Slim about anything, specially about L.A. Los Angeles is a city that I know from movies an it is a kind of magic place so his point of view is fantastic as he seen it as if it was the first time: he is exploring L.A. with us. Without spoiling the story one of the most amazing parts is the trip to the famous Bradbury Building (if you are fan of Blade Runner you know this building) that turns an already spectacular place into something eerie and magical, specially I felt what I felt when I read Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Sandman Slim is an interesting novel where the MC (Stark) isn't your stereotypical hero. Closer to an anti-hero, Stark is on a revenge campaign to hunt down the people that imprisoned him and murdered his girlfriend... and if he leaves a few bodies in his wake... well thats ok too.Positive:+ Characters. A demon fighting gladiator dropped onto the streets of LA, especially one that suffers from impulse control, make for an interesting novel.Neutral:+/- Writing. While including a large amount of internal thoughts and exposition, the writing was a-ok: it didn't impress or hinder the story.+/- Tone. While i liked the general Noir/Anti-Hero tone that permeated most of the novel, the book sometimes became sidetracked. At these points it felt odd and misplaced.Negative:- Plot Scope = Plot Holes. Numerous instances early in the book where characters know things they shouldn't. Later in the book the plot goes from 'revenge-plot' to a 'world-ending-conspiracy-plot'. The transition wasn't handled great. The 'villain' details and information feel rushed and poorly fleshed out.

The bad guys betray the anti-hero, send him to hell, and kill his girlfriend. Now he's back and ready to mouth off and get some revenge. If that sounds good to you, then you'll probably be reasonably entertained. The problem for me was that it was fine, but lacking anything that would make it special. The side characters aren't especially memorable, and the big showdown didn't have me on the edge of my seat. I'm still not clear about how or why he became known as Sandman Slim and he doesn't seem to know either. He's got a rep, I got that, but why Sandman Slim? There are a few good lines, but the character spends a bit too long blundering about. Half the time he's an unstoppable badass, the other half he's getting his butt handed to him, sometimes by the same opponent. It's a bit inconsistent.

If you bundle Jack Reacher up with John Constantine and give him the hide of a rhinocerous, you might end up with someone like James Stark, AKA Sandman Slim, recently escaped after 11 tough years in Hell. What follows is a bullet riddled, gore splattered, revenge tale as Stark indulges in a murderous vendetta against those who sent him "Downunder" and killed his lover.Sandman Slim is a not particularly original but entertainingly written, pure comic book action from beginning to end. As such, it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. Don't read if you are looking for romance, fairies or subtlety. Do read if you like sardonic, violent anti-heroes, wanton destruction and supernatural horror reference spotting.

Well what a disappointment. I’ve had this book in my wish list for ages waiting for the price to come down. And when it did I was so eager to read it after waiting all of that time. But after 92 pages I gave up! And if I could have my 99p back, I would. It was that bad. I don’t usually give 1 star reviews but I was so disappointed with this book. The story is very disjointed. It flits all over the place. One minute we’re taking to other characters and the next he’s reminiscing about Hell. The grammar and proof reading is really bad. And what finally did it was speech marks starting and then not ending. So I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to another character or just telling the story. After waiting for so long for this book, I was not happy that I had to give it up...something I very very rarely do. One thing that is good about it - at least I got it on a deal and didn’t have to pay its full original price.

he opening chapter throws you straight into the story, with the reader having no time to grasp what is occurring.Stark is throw into the cosmic battleground, where there appears to be no good guys (the Angels do not come across as particularly angelic).The book is written in the first person so we know what is going on in Stark’s head. The narrative tone is full of dark humour, sarcasm and conveys someone who is a bit full of himself; Stark allows his mouth to get him into trouble, as he normally speaks before he thinks. Despite this Stark is a likeable character. While we know Stark is not evil (despite what the Angels say), we see that he has his own crooked moral code – save his friends and seek revenge.For me there were two flaws in this the book. The first was the use of Alice (Stark’s love interest before he ended up in hell), we never see the type of character she was or what Alice and Stark really shared. Instead she comes across as a device used by Kadrey so that we can sympathise more with Stark and see him as a flawed hero rather than a virtuous villain. The second is where did the name Sandman Slim come from. Even the title character is confused over the name choice and we never receive a sufficient answer.Despite these flaws, Sandman Slim was a thoroughly enjoyable book, and was from beginning to end a roller-coaster ride.

Meet Sandman Slim. The monster who kills monsters and a recent escapee from hell who is on the search for his girlfriend's killers back in Las Angeles. Sandman Slim's persona develops during the course of the book and not only is he a mean bad-guy slayer but also a very funny guy.This book is the start of an urban fantasy series with a difference. It has angels, hellions, Lucifer himself makes an appearance, anti-angels and any other ghoul you could imagine. Sandman Slim, a.k.a Stark, a.k.a. Wild Bill is a magician of immense skill that 11 years previously was sold out by his coven of magician friends and dragged to hell for eternity. During those 11 years Stark was effectively, a gladiator, used by the hellion upper echelons to fight any and every demon. But what no one foresaw was that Stark became immortal. Fast forward, and Stark is back on earth looking to kill everyone responsible for the death of his girlfriend Alice. Once back in sunny LA, stark gets to grips with technology and forms some unlikely alliances with people he doesn't usually deal with, and makes friends with some usual characters.This book has tonnes of action and is a page turner from the get go. Kadrey has an easy to read writing style and there are some great passages that made me laugh our loud. The characters are likeable and the story line is gripping. I can't wait to start reading the next book in the series, Kill the Dead.

Sandman slim is written how he describes Maledictions. Which is to say a tyre fire inside a candystore.If I now have your attention come in take a sit let's talk. If like me you have been following the trend of urban fantasy you maybe familiar with other authors and heros or antiheros in the series.You may like Hellboy or Constantine. You may also be more familiar with books than comics. Ok so how about Harry Dresden, Anita Blake, Mercy Thompson and Nate Temple? If you have read one or more of these types of books then hopefully your still here as this is where it gets good.Sandman slim isn't like the others, he is in your face he's angry and he isn't crying about his crabby day. Yes as a character he has flaws and makes mistakes but they are within his character not world breaking trying to string the book out.I've recommended this series several times and no one I got to pick it up hasn't finished it or didn't want to talk about it or recommend it to others.