The Kill Society (Sandman Slim Series #9)

by Richard Kadrey

Overview

Sandman Slim returns in this stunning, high-octane ninth thriller in the series, filled with the intense, kick-ass action and inventive fantasy that are the hallmarks of New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey.

Sandman Slim has been to Heaven and Hell and many places in between, but now he finds himself in an unknown land: the far, far edge of the Tenebrae, the desolate home of the lost dead. Making his way inland with nothing but his unerring instinct for trouble to guide him, he collides with a caravan of the damned on a mysterious crusade, led by the ruthless Magistrate. Alone and with no clue how to get back home, he throws in with this brutal bunch made up of human souls, Hellion deserters, rogue angels—and Father Traven.

Slim didn’t land in Tenebrae by chance. His little stunt of trying to open Heaven has set off a tsunami across the universe. Now, the afterlife is falling apart because of the ensuing warfare. And when Heaven finds out Slim is close by, the angels put a fat bounty on his head.

It’s one thing to ride with a ferocious criminal pack across the treacherous plains—it’s another to do it when everyone in the land of the dead is itching to keep you there permanently. But Slim’s not too worried. He’s been fighting cosmic forces bent on destroying Heaven, Hell, Earth, and him for years. A pack of vicious bounty hunters, vengeful angels, and dangerous enemies with friendly smiles isn’t going to stop him fixing the chaos he’s caused . . . one way or another.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062474162
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/27/2018
Series:	Sandman Slim Series , #9
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	255,494
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.12(h) x 0.83(d)

About the Author

Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir books. Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s “100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime,” and is in development as a feature film. Some of his other books include The Wrong Dead Guy, The Everything Box, Metrophage, and Butcher Bird. He also writes the Vertigo comic Lucifer.

Editorial Reviews

Every time I imagine that Richard Kadrey has run out of ends-of-all-creation to torture his long-running, hard-boiled supernatural antihero Sandman Slim with, he surprises me...and with the [ninth] volume in the series, The Kill Society, Kadrey pulls out all the stops.” — Cory Doctorow, author of Walkaway

“A welcome return to form and a wildly entertaining bridge to bring Stark back from the brink.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series just keeps getting better, and this ninth installment packs some of the darkest twists and blackest humor yet...With plenty of gruesomely fascinating characters, visceral descriptions and a final shocking showdown, this is a sensational installment to a fiendishly good series.” — RT Book Reviews

“It’s a testament to Kadrey’s mastery of the craft that, even after nine books, I still read the final page and am immediately anxious for more.” — GeekDad

From the Publisher

Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series just keeps getting better, and this ninth installment packs some of the darkest twists and blackest humor yet...With plenty of gruesomely fascinating characters, visceral descriptions and a final shocking showdown, this is a sensational installment to a fiendishly good series.

RT Book Reviews

It’s a testament to Kadrey’s mastery of the craft that, even after nine books, I still read the final page and am immediately anxious for more.

GeekDad

Every time I imagine that Richard Kadrey has run out of ends-of-all-creation to torture his long-running, hard-boiled supernatural antihero Sandman Slim with, he surprises me...and with the [ninth] volume in the series, The Kill Society, Kadrey pulls out all the stops.

Cory Doctorow

Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series just keeps getting better, and this ninth installment packs some of the darkest twists and blackest humor yet...With plenty of gruesomely fascinating characters, visceral descriptions and a final shocking showdown, this is a sensational installment to a fiendishly good series.” %COMM_CONTRIB%RT Book Reviews

05/15/2017
Jim Stark, aka Sandman Slim, is in hell again. The difference this time is that he's actually dead. In the Tenebrae, the farthest reaches of the lost dead, he sees a dust storm approaching. As the dust gets closer, he realizes it is actually an enormous convoy of humans and hellions, and seeing no better option, Stark cons his way into the group, which is led by a messianic leader who seeks the ultimate weapon to use against heaven in the ongoing war. But Stark just wants to find a way back to Los Angeles and Candy, or at least to a less depressing part of hell. With all the violence and smart-alecky snark readers expect from Stark, this sojourn in hell might scratch a Mad Max itch for some readers. But while the war between heaven and hell is referenced, this volume doesn't move things along. VERDICT A solid, if not particularly memorable, entry in the long-running series (last visited in The Perdition Score), with some nice callbacks to familiar characters we haven't seen for a while. [See Prepub Alert, 1/8/17.]—MM

Library Journal

2017-05-02
Sandman Slim returns to hell. Again. Must be Tuesday.The prolific Kadrey has been riffing off his comedic thief Charlie Cooper for his last couple of books (The Wrong Dead Guy, 2017, etc.), so it's time to get back to business with James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, the half-angel assassin who anchors his inventive horror saga. Only, whoops, Stark's dead, murdered by Audsley Ishii right in front of his girlfriend, Candy, back in The Perdition Score (2016). Fortunately for him, Stark has been here in the Tenebrae, a subset of hell, before, like that one time he had to be Lucifer for a while. Back story aside, Stark finds himself in a Mad Max-style desert apocalypse populated by a roving band of followers of a powerful rebel called the Magistrate. "I know a killer when I see one and he's one cold Charlie Starkweather motherfucker," says Stark in assessing the Magistrate. Not that the infamous Slim outs himself, instead going by the moniker ZaSu Pitts. Buoyed by a familiar face in Father Traven, the man who eats sins, Stark reluctantly joins the gang. It turns out that the Magistrate seeks to unite a powerful cannon with the Lux Occisor, God's own sword, to blow the gates off heaven itself. Like any good ensemble drama, there are plenty of cool cameos, including the return of Cherry Moon, who used her power to transform herself into a manic pixie manga girl, Stark's old girlfriend Alice (now a powerful angel), and a touching reunion with Stark's buddy Death himself. If you're a newbie to the series, you've probably realized by now that starting nine books into it is probably not a great jumping-on point. For fans of Kadrey's profane assassin, it's a welcome return to form and a wildly entertaining bridge to bring Stark back from the brink. One of horror's most singular characters goes to hell. And back again. As per usual.

Kirkus Reviews