Tag Archives: Richard Kadrey

Books to Read November 2015

  1. Cabinet of Curiosities – Gordon Grice
  2. The Girl with Ghost Eyes – MH Boroson
  3. The Everything Box – Richard Kadrey
  4. A Tale of Two Cities with Dragons – Charles Dickens & Steve Dewinter
  5. We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson

Books to Read May 2015

Dealing with Dragons – Patricia C. Wrede

Murder as a Fine Art – David Morrell
Inspector of the Dead – David Morrell

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater – Thomas de Quincy

Quite Contrary – Richard Roberts

Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews

Killing Pretty – Richard Kadrey

The Gospel of Loki – Joanne M. Harris

Bird Box – Josh Malerman

Marie Antoinette’s Watch John Biggs

Incoming Books October 2014

Just to keep track. 🙂

Voices from Beyond – Simon R. Green (Saving this for my next plane ride.)

Elementary – ed. Mercedes Lackey

The Getaway God – Richard Kadrey

Expressive Handmade Books – Alisa Golden

The House of Mystery #2 – Jack Oleck

King of Shadows – Susan Cooper

The Kelly-Springfield Story – Kenneth A Jackson

 

Books to Read December 2013

Dead Set – Richard Kadrey

The Curse Keepers – Denise Grover Swank

Death and Mr. Right – Kendra Saunders

One-Eyed Jack – Elizabeth Bear

Voices of Cherokee Women – Carolyn Ross Johnston

The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton – Diane Atkinson

The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War – Stephen Kinzer

Cradle Lake – Ronald Malfi

Hitler’s Furies – Wendy Lower

Empress Dowager Cixi – Jung Chang

Books Read March 2013

The Big Short – Michael Lewis

Devil in the Dollhouse – Richard Kadrey (this is actually a short story, but it was an ebook, so… whatever.)

The Kingdom Keepers #1: Disney after Dark – Ridley Pearson

Watch Your Back – Donald E. Westlake

Hit Me – Lawrence Block

Move Under Ground – Nick Mamatas

Book Review: Kill the Dead

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey

Recommended for: Anyone who liked Sandman Slim, people who enjoy hard-edges and black humor on their urban fantasy, or Chuck Palahuniuk fans who are looking to branch out

Kill the Dead follows Sandman Slim. It takes place about half a year after the events of the first book. Jim Stark (Slim) is getting paid by the DHS-angel hit squad to do a little investigating and a lot of monster hunting. He’s also on retainer to Lucifer.

Slim is coasting along, trying to figure out what he wants to do when he grows up, now that he’s nominally done everything he set out to do in order to get revenge on the circle that sent him to Hell. Lucifer hires him to act as a body-guard while he’s Above Ground in LA. There’s a studio-head doing a biopic on Lucifer, and the fallen angel is paying Stark every month.

The body-gaurd job leads to the interesting perk of meeting a Czech adult entertainment star as well as the opportunity to get into some fights and possibly kill someone along the way. It’s better than nothing, even if Slim does have to wear a tux.

Nothing’s ever what it seems when you’re working for Heaven and Hell at the same time and Slim is always at his best when the world’s going crazy. When the zombies come knocking, the story starts to rock.

As with Sandman Slim, the action just amps up as you go. I read the book in one sitting on the train. It’s a good read. There’s plenty of details, magic, blood, double-crosses, and murky identities to keep your attention. The voice is authentically hard-edged and leaves no illusions that the main character is anything but cynical and burning out quickly despite the fact that he keeps doing the right thing, simply because it’s the only thing he can think to do.

Slim is an hero despite himself and Kill the Dead gives him the perfect platform to become more a part of this world. He’s not perfect by any stretch and his cast of supporting characters is excellent. The LA world is recognizably just left of center today and dark humor made me laugh out loud. Kadrey is a poet with dark descriptions.

I would recommend reading Sandman Slim before you pick this one up. Kill the Dead does stand on it’s own, but the deeper knowledge from the first book makes everything mean a little more.

The series is set up for at least one more book and I can’t wait for it.

Definite Read.

Books to Read August 09

SANDMAN SLIM by Richard Kadrey (Boing Boing Review)(ED. Read Sept. 09)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (Lilith Saintcrow) (ED. Read Oct. 09)

The Intergalactic Playground: Children and Science Fiction by Farah Mendlesohn (Boing Boing Review)

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

Cheap: the High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell (Boing Boing Review) (ED: Read May 2012)


The Affinity Bridge by George Mann (i09 Review)

Soulless by Gail Carriger (i09 Review)


He Died with His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond (Ecstatic Days Review)

Slights by Kaaron Warren

Rag and Bone by Peter Manseau (Laelaps Review)