Book number 5 in the Sandman Slim series and still going strong. Kadrey really manages to keep the tension while throttling up the action, the black humor and the giddy adrenaline indicative of the impending end of the world.
That’s what Hell is. It’s the shithole bottom of the universe, but it’s a place where you’ll learn more about yourself than you ever wanted to know.
It’s been a month since the end of the last book (and abdicating his throne in Hell) and Stark still hasn’t found the Magic 8-Ball, He’s naturally a little testy. With his Scooby gang, he’s running into ever weirder factions in the Sub Rosa and beyond. It is essential he locate that Qomrama before the Angra find a way to break though to our existence and he’s certainly not getting any help for Lucifer 3.0, Samael or the splinter of God himself. The guy just cannot catch a break sometimes. There’s this great scene where Brigitte, Candy and Stark pay a visit to a Tick-Tock Man, things naturally get out of control and the next thing you know the whole suite is a whirling maelstrom of mechanical familiars bent on their destruction. Frightening and hilarious at the same time. Finally they get a lead and head to Kill City, which is essentially a haunted shopping mall and resort and it has some of the flat out creepiest of the creepy crawlies that inhabit Kadrey’s world. I couldn’t wait to get out of that place. But they had to get the Qomrama and face down Aelita once and for all. It came with a price (doesn’t it always?) not the least of which, Stark, Candy and Kasabian are evicted from the Chateau Marmont. No more endless buffets, luxurious digs and the most plush and comfortable robes known to man (and nephilim). So they are back at Max Overdrive Video, preparing for their next move. Will that place ever get finished?