Sandman Slim

Sandman Slim

by Richard Kadrey

The blurb says “Nicotine and octane in equal parts might come close to the high-energy buzz from Kadrey’s Sandman Slim“. When I look at the first page, it’s written in first-person, present tense. I feel dread. I remember how much I hated Snow Crash, which had a similar blurb, and a similar first page.

But I guess I shouldn’t be so prejudiced, because I actually liked Sandman Slim. Could hardly put it down, even. It has a lot of things to like. First, the hero/narrator is a likable guy. He’s a little bit gunslinger, a little bit vigilante – he’s got cool fighting skills, a hot temper, and a dry sense of humor. The basic idea is that he is a bad guy: violent, angry, murderous tendencies. But he is out for revenge against Even Worse Guys – guys who ruined his life and who might even be out to destroy the world. So, he’s the “monster that kills monsters”, as they say in the book. Of course, he’s a good guy at heart who cares about the people close to him and worries about the condition of his own humanity.

So that’s right – end of the world, revenge story, vigilante, bad boy monster-hunter. Stuff that appeals to pretty much anyone.

And the writing style is fine. I fear present tense writing because it’s often so gimmicky: an author uses present tense to force the story to seem more immediate, faster paced, closer. But it’s often annoyingly obvious what’s going on, because the present tense narration is weird and jarring. In Sandman Slim though, the writing is actually pretty smooth. And the fast pace comes from an actual plot, not from writing style trickery.

A lot of the elements in the story are unique as well. I liked the hero’s sarcastic magic coin, which he flips for questionable bitter advice. I laughed pretty hard when the hero visits the Room with 13 Doors (the method by which he can travel anywhere in time/space), and his friend says “My God. It really is a room full of doors. I assumed the doors were a metaphor.” Ha.

Advertisement