The Kill Society: A Sandman Slim
Novel. By Richard Kadrey. Harper Voyager. $25.99.
See, at bottom it’s all
pretty simple. “Just because I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” The words
are those of Sandman Slim, and the self-evaluation is right on target. And
“target” is exactly the right word, since Sandman Slim has “target” written all
over him in Richard Kadrey’s ninth book about him, The Kill Society. But no problem, because pretty much everyone else
has “target” written on him, or her, or it, as the case may be. So much to see.
So much to do. So much to destroy.
So maybe it’s not so simple
after all. “If the Church had afterlife travel agents, they could make a
fortune. Pay now, then later see the most colorful views of damnation from a
double-decker, air-conditioned tour bus. Stop for lunch at the damned soul
deli, where you can try Phil, your racist neighbor, on whole wheat. Or roast
hot dogs over the lava pits where crooked politicians and show-business
accountants do synchronized-shrieking shows every…well…forever. Don’t forget to
tip your driver on the way out or you’ll end up with the other stingy bastards,
growing gold teeth and pulling them out with pliers for eternity while other
stingy dumb-asses pound them into coins with their faces.” Kadrey’s prose goes
way beyond purple into the ultraviolet. Or, more accurately, ultraviolent. But The Kill Society is no prissy Anthony
Burgess Clockwork Orange wannabe
book: this is straight-out murderous fun, with equal emphasis on the death
stuff and the enjoyment.
Not that James Stark (aka
Sandman Slim) has much fun in this episode, since he is dead. Genuinely dead
this time. This is scarcely his first visit to Hell and its environs, but this
time he has been sent there by a weapon that has actually succeeded in
destroying his Earth form. That happened at the end of the previous book, The Perdition Score, and gets a brief
recap here before Kadrey gets to the meat of the matter. And there is a great
deal of meat, most of it off the bone and flying every which way. The basic
plot, at least for most of the book, involves a quest through the nothingness
of a place called the Tenebrae, led by a man, or more accurately a being,
called the Magistrate. Just what is being sought, and why, is never explained
to the Magistrate’s followers; indeed, at one point the Magistrate says, “The crusade
itself is important. Not the crusaders.” And that leaves Stark, who has been
there and done that more often than all the rest of them put together, to note,
“And there it is. The voice of a true believer. Nothing matters but him and his
obsession. …I met freaks like this everywhere. Everyone has. Not just in Hell
and not just in wars. They’re people you pass on the street. A preacher, a
grocery-store manager, a parent. Anyone with a vision and enough of a vicious
streak to make it come true no matter what they have to destroy or who they
have to chew up and spit out along the way.” This is vintage Kadrey: take a
completely bizarre, outré situation and relate it through an ultra-noir lens to
everyday life, forcing readers not only to suspend disbelief but also to see
the mundane from a different, thoroughly skewed angle.
The quest for whatever-it-is
takes up most of the book, but when the whatever-it-is is in fact found, it
turns out not to be what the Magistrate thought it would be, and additional
mayhem inevitably ensues, and the whole shebang leads to – where else? –
Heaven. Yes, Sandman Slim gets to Heaven in The
Kill Society, and no, the experience does not do much for him: “I’m really
trying to not start out in Heaven by killing an angel.” There is a war going on
in Heaven, and there are good angels and bad ones, and ones that change sides, and just figuring
out who’s who and what’s what takes most of Sandman Slim’s brainpower, which is
a trifle on the, um, slim side. Which brings us back to, “Just because I’m an
asshole doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” Stark makes the comment after challenging an
overwhelmingly powerful archangel to a duel that Stark is sure to lose, despite
the bravado of his next comment: “This kind of thing is pretty much all I’ve
done for the last twelve years.” That is scarcely enough, but one thing to
remember is that however many times Sandman Slim is killed, and however long he
stays dead, there is always someone or something that needs his unique talents
badly enough to find a way to revive him. And that brings us, and him, to the
uber-potent and hyper-frightening organization called Wormwood, a simply
marvelous amalgam of all that is wrong with unfettered capitalism. Wormwood, a shadowy
presence throughout The Kill Society,
provides a perfect setup for Kadrey’s next foray into the world, or rather
worlds, of Sandman Slim. “You’ve been dead a long time,” a character says very
near this book’s conclusion. Yes, but not long enough for the bad guys. As they
will definitely discover next time. Stay tuned.
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