10 Books That Inspired the Mad Fantasy Worlds of Richard Kadrey

Richard Kadrey is best known for his gritty noir-leaning fantasy series about Sandman Slim, about a tortured soul who escapes from hell on a mission of revenge in a twisted version of L.A. crawling with monsters and demons. Yet the eight books of that series to date weren’t enough to contain the author’s madness: this month, he publishes The Everything Box, a much lighter series-starter that following a supernatural enforcement agency tasked with putting a stop to the end of the world—an event that nearly happens more often than you’d think. In honor of his new book, we asked Richard to share the authors that inspired both of his ongoing series.
I’m currently writing two very different book series. The Everything Box, the first novel in my humorous fantasy series about a thief named Coop, was influenced by a wide range of American and British science fiction, fantasy, and thriller writers. On the other hand, the Sandman Slim series is much darker and more serious. Most of its inspiration comes from crime and dark literary works.
Here are a few of the books and writers that influenced The Everything Box.

A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore
When self-confessed beta-male Charlie Asher’s wife dies and leaves him with an infant daughter, he thought the world couldn’t get any stranger or more stressful. Then one day, he learns that he might be Death himself. Asher soon finds himself having to confront his sister, his pawn shop employees, cops, and a group of demons bent on destroying the world. Moore is very good at mixing fantasy, humor, and pathos. This is a fun read.

The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett
I only picked this book because it’s the first of the fantastical comic Discworld series. Discworld is Pratchett’s fantasy kingdom where he can play with both ideas of magic and power, but also culture, and belief. The books both parody and celebrate famous fantasy tropes of writers such as Tolkien and Shakespeare, but also draw inspiration from folktales and Pratchett’s own wild imagination. The series is so expansive that it’s hard to talk about a single title. That’s why I recommend starting with The Color of Magic. It’s a terrific book and the perfect entry point to a funny and engrossing mini-universe.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
This is one of the funniest and smartest science fiction books ever written. The story is about Arthur Dent, who is swept off the Earth by his friend Ford Prefect seconds before the world is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic freeway. The book is basically a road story as Dent travels the galaxy with a wild set of characters, while trying desperately to get back home. What makes the book special is the way in which it’s told. The narrative stops at points for comments and explanations from the hitchhiker’s guide of the title. The guide’s entries are hilarious takes on both SF tropes and Adam’s own insights into the world.

Bad M0nkey, by Carl Hiaasen
The book opens with a couple on a fishing holiday in Florida where they catch a human arm instead of, well, fish. There’s a difference of opinion over whether the limb is the result of an accident or murder. Just to make sure that the evidence doesn’t wander off, ex-Miami Cop, Yancy Andrews, keeps the arm in his freezer. And the story gets weirder, funnier, and more complex from there. Hiaasen’s plots seem to fly in ten directions at once, but he pulls all the different characters and strands of storytelling together in the end. I learned a lot about plotting from Hiaasen.

Bank Shot, by Donald E. Westlake
Coop in The Everything Box is a thief who sets up complex robbery capers with his friends and criminal allies. If you’re going to write a caper novel—especially a funny one—you have to acknowledge Westlake and his Dortmunder series. They’re funny, original, and wildly inventive stories of John Dortmunder and his criminal pals as they try to pull off one insane heist after another. Bank Shot is a personal favorite partly because aspects of it remind me of my childhood in Texas.

The Insanity Defense, by Woody Allen
Woody Allen write a lot of very funny and stories and essays, often influenced by S.J. Perlman, back in ’70s and ’80s. They’re a mix of the kind of mundanity and insanity that made his earlier films so hysterical. A Look at Organized Crime is a twisted parody of hard-bitten New York crime reporting. Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts is his reference work in which he documents creatures such as the Frean, described as having “…the body of a crab and the head of a certified public accountant.” Viva Vargas! is his diary of a fictional freedom fighter in a very peculiar revolution. You can find the roots of Allen’s film Bananas there.

These books and authors had more of an influence on my Sandman Slim series.

The Hunter, by Richard Stark
I first read The Hunter when I was about 18 and I never forgot it. It’s a fairly simple revenge story about Parker, a crook getting out of prison hunting down other crooks who’d screwed him after a big job. I’d never run across prose as hard as Stark’s and a protagonist as relentless and driven as Parker. After I finished it, I wondered if I could apply some of what I’d read to a science fiction or fantasy story. It only took a few decades, but it finally came to me and I wrote Sandman Slim. James Stark, my protagonist’s real name, is an homage to Richard Stark.

Pop. 1280, by Jim Thompson
Thompson was another big influence on both my writing and the feel of the Sandman Slim books. The novel is the story of Nick Corey, the corrupt sheriff in Potts County. He doesn’t do his job. He cuts deals and basically never arrests anyone because it’s too much trouble and because Corey would rather be having affairs with various women in town. Then things are complicated by a local election he just might lose. By the end of the book, the population of 1,280 is considerably reduced. As in his book, The Killer Inside Me, Corey presents himself as a genial fool, while underneath it all is a cunning mind that enjoys being underestimated. While a much funnier book than The Killer Inside Me, there’s plenty of bad behavior and darkness in Pop. 1280.

The Song is You, by Megan Abbott
Mix a Black Dahlia-type murder mystery, a guilt-ridden Hollywood publicist, and a trip through old school L.A. sleaze of the ’50s and you have a great formula for a pulp thriller. Abbott is a terrific writer who brings it all to life. A great book for fans of L.A. crime stories.