(3.75 Stars)

It took me about 1/3rd of the book to get into it, but I think it also took that long for the book to find out what it wanted to do. I’m glad I kept going. This is another great addition to the Sandman Slim series. ( )

Devil Said Bang is the 4th book in the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey. At the end of book 3, Stark finds himself in charge of Hell. This book picks up there with a lot of pouting that he is stuck as Lucifer and all he wants to do is get home to LA. It takes him close to half the book to leave, without any really interesting things going on other than fighting numerous assassins. Once he leaves, there is a new mystery about a child ghost on a killing spree that could end up ending the world. While this story had potential, it felt a bit rushed. I felt like Kadrey got his main character stuck in Hell and instead of embracing it and writing an interesting story set there with him leaving at the end and then a second book with the mystery set in LA, he rushed through both and neither portion felt all that satisfying. ( )

Still stuck in hell, James Stark is the new Lucifer. He has to constantly watch his back as others seek to kill or maim him from rank and file Hellions to his top advisors. Eventually, Stark manages to trick one of his advisors into being a caretaker as he goes topside, back to L.A., to track down an impostor of sorts and return to his girlfriend, Candy; however, Stark has to stop a serial killing ghost and deal with Candy's new "friend." ( )

I love this series. I love these characters. I will probably read all the books ever written about James Stark.

They are light reading.

Continuing with food metaphors, these are a tomato sandwich in the summer time. Absolutely delicious at the moment. ( )

I picked up Devil Said Bang because of the concept of the character and the amazing blurbs by well-known authors. Unfortunately, the novel fell well short of my lofty expectations. Sandman Slim is the main character and has been made the new Lucifer, in charge of Hell after the last Lucifer no longer wanted the job. Sandman Slim wants nothing to do with the job and is only interested in going back to Los Angeles.

For me, this novel was all style and little substance. It felt like the high school kid with the hot rod car trying to impress everybody. For starters, the narration was over the top. I didn’t care for the first person, present tense point of view, which is all of the rage these days, but makes no sense from a story telling standpoint. You don’t tell a story as it happens. You tell it after it happens. The novel felt very repetitive. After about the eighth time, I lost track of all the assassination attempts on the main character. It was one after another after another and became dull after a while. There were way too many characters to keep track of, and the characters had little meaning because it seemed as if there was a constant flow of new characters in every scene. The novel felt disjointed since the first half of it took place in Hell and had little to do with what would come later. It should have been two separate novels. There wasn’t much that I liked about it. I would recommend skipping this one and reading Tim Marquitz Demon Squad series, which is similar in theme but far superior in quality.

Carl Alves - author of Battle of the Soul ( )

This one started really slow, but ended...



... (dare I say it?)...



...with a bang!

( )

I love this series. I love these characters. I will probably read all the books ever written about James Stark.

They are light reading.

Continuing with food metaphors, these are a tomato sandwich in the summer time. Absolutely delicious at the moment. ( )

Stark is the new Lucifer, except he’s not very good at it. After several brutal power plays, he takes a vacation topside in order to visit his girlfriend, and gets sucked into some other troubles, like the ghost of a little girl who’s killing the Dreamers who preserve the world’s coherence. ( )

I’ve been taken with Sandman Slim from the very beginning. Not only is he a mostly unrepentant badass who embraces that part of him. He uses it to try to make life better for those he loves, and the world in general, although were the world to be aware of Slim, they wouldn’t thank him for his efforts.

At the end of Devil Said Bang, Slim is the only person to have escaped Hell twice. This is quite an accomplishment, given that no one is supposed to escape ever, especially if you’re a gladiator expected to fight to the death the first time you’re there.

Kadrey shakes the notions of Heaven and Hell, God and Satan, around a lot in his Sandman Slim books. His notions match mine that all is not so cut and dried as Christians would have us believe, there’s a lot of grey area. And to shake that notion even more, it’s revealed in the first book, Sandman Slim, that Slim, aka Stark, is a nephilim. This part angel, part human thing makes just about every supernatural being mad. To say Slim’s home life was screwed up wouldn’t even begin to cover it.

It is also the conjunction of many celestial mythologies which make the Sandman Slim books so interesting. Along with other supernatural beings you might not expect to mix with creation and destruction myths.

Devil Said Bang suffers from mid-series dementia. Something often found in other series by other authors. There’s just something about the fourth or so book in which is messy. Kevin Hearne’s fifth book in the Iron Druid series, Trapped, suffered from this.

And I will say the same thing about Devil Said Bang as I did about Trapped, there’s too much information being thrown at us. Too many characters and too many machinations. I couldn’t keep up.

With that out of the way, what I like about this book was the continued battle Slim has with himself. He knows that maybe he could do better, but there are times when he just wants to break stuff. It’s what he knows best.

There are always interesting characters with “interesting” hobbies, which turn out to be some sort of key to the plot. In Devil Said Bang, it’s Teddy Osterberg and his collection of cemeteries. Yes, collection.

For generations, Teddy’s family has been moving cemeteries from their original plot of land to the family land outside Los Angeles. There’s a lot of detail about the supernatural aspects of the cemeteries, but it comes down to Osterberg as caretaker of the more “special” cemeteries. It is from this the scary little girl with the curved knife, who is running around killing people, comes.

Did I mention Sandman Slim is dark?

Not only am I fascinated by the mythology Kadrey uses, the machinations and politicking also fascinate me. How do people think like that? How do they know how to find that piece of information which will allow them to manipulate others? How do they think three, four, five steps ahead of the others? Reading Slim play off the others who think they have one up on him in Hell is fascinating. As are all the new and inventive tools used to kill the nasties for whom a shotgun isn’t enough.

Richard Kadrey’s books are not for the squeamish, or for those who hold their mythology dear. I find them very entertaining, if sometimes gross, and I always learn something new about mythology; especially Christian mythology. Kadrey sends me scurrying into the stacks to look up information, and gives me things to think on deeply which allows me space to reframe what I think I already know. ( )

I loved it of course. Moved straight on to the next one! Kadrey keeps it interesting, and the dialogue is witty and sharp. I hope I continue to be as entertained as I have been, but I'm kinda wondering how long he can keep this going... ( )

I loved it of course. Moved straight on to the next one! Kadrey keeps it interesting, and the dialogue is witty and sharp. I hope I continue to be as entertained as I have been, but I'm kinda wondering how long he can keep this going... ( )

Sandman Slim is the Lucifer, in charge of hell and not happy with having to deal with the minutae of this space, tired of the politics he returns to LA to find that things are a mess and he has the skills to fix it.

James Stark needs a hobby that doesn't involve killing people, even if it is sometimes necessary he really is messed up. Hopefully the next book will start him on a path towards healing. I like him, but it's getting a bit over the top at this stage and he really needs to work on his people skills. ( )

Fun, but a little incoherent - there's a lot going on in this book, and not a lot of it has anything to do with each other. ( )

When we last left Sandman Slim he had been tricked by Samel into becoming the next Lucifer and his angel half had ditched him in hell. This book opens with Stark learning how to be Lucifer and to avoid being killed. The hellions are not impressed to have a human in the top spot and seek to overload him with bureaucracy because hell needs to be rebuilt. He taken his ancestor wild Bill on as sort of an adviser but longs to be back in LA.

I am pretty sure that this is going to be the last book in this series that I read. Four books in, and I still don't enjoy the story and this time, I kept drifting from plain old boredom. I have zero investment in Stark, who cannot figure out whether trouble comes to him, or he finds trouble everywhere that he goes. His sarcasm, if one can even call it that, is puerile and his behaviour is the equivalent of a bull in a china shop.

He seems to float from one disaster to another in his attempt to save the world. I really enjoyed the first book in this series but since then, it has been nothing but a series of disappointments. It is really sad because Kadrey has built what could have been an interesting world. God is not the God that we understand him to be, nor is he the creator of the universe.

Honestly, I don't have much to say about this novel except to say that I a glad I am done. I very nearly did not finish. Stark just seemed to meander from place to place with no real point or destination. The conversations were stilted and that is particularly true of any scene involving Wild Bill. It felt like Stark entire mission was to walk around and appear as bad ass as possible. If after four books the protagonist has not developed any complexity or nuance it is quite simply never going to happen.

Read More ( )

Between the budget meetings and the planning meetings, and the assassination attempts, Stark's getting a lot tired of being the new Lucifer in town. Besides, he promised Candy he'd be back in LA in three days - and that was 77 days ago.

Running Hell is no picnic, but going home might just be worse... but what are a few ghosts, drug addicts and bloodthirsty ghouls among friends, right? Stark's adventures are addictive as a good cup of coffee - and just as satisfying to start the day with. ( )

Another solid entry in the Sandman Slim series. ( )

Please allow me to preface this by saying that I love this series. It's edgy and smart, great characters, great story, I want more, more, more. However, this was my least favorite in the series thus far. I was bored to tears by the first half of this book. Stark stuck in hell...big yawn. None of characters that we love, just Stark thinking deep thoughts and wanting out of hell.

I missed Candy, I missed Kasabian, etc...Stark should not stand alone. Once he got out of hell, the book picked up and I loved it, but that first third really did me in. I almost gave up, but am so glad that I didn't.

Stark has to figure out why a little girl ghost is killing the dreamers that hold the world together. ( )

This is the fourth book in the Sandman Slim series. In the third novel, Jim Stark parted ways with his angel half after almost becoming a zombie and discovered the true nature of God. Lucifer decided to go back home to Heaven and become Sameal. Stark was then stuck in Hell as the new Lucifer. This novel picks up with Stark running Hell, with its planning and budget meetings, while watching his back because all the Hellions want to kill him. Stark finally finds a way to get back to his beloved L.A. but as always the city is in peril. His angel half has disappeared, a ghost child is killing Sub Rosa and the fabric of reality is falling apart.

Like all the books in this series a few plot points are resolved and new ones are introduced. The author does this to keep you interested in reading the next installments. In this novel the author does a good job weaving previous plot points into the storyline so the reader remembers what happened in the first books.

Kadrey’s writing is fast paced. All the characters are anti-heroes with good and dark sides. Even though Stark is called the “monster that kills monsters” he cares for the people in his life. If you don’t like reading gritty novels then this is not the series for you. I usually read lighter fare, but the world Stark lives in is interesting and a lot of fun to read about. The next book will be out soon and I am look forward to it. ( )

The premise: ganked from BN.com: Getting out of hell is just the beginning...

What do you do after you've escaped Hell, gone back, uncovered the true nature of God, and then managed to become the new Lucifer?

Well, if you're James Stark, you have to figure out how to run Hell while also trying to get back out of it . . . again. Plus there's the small matter of surviving. Because everyone in Heaven, Hell, and in between wants to be the fastest gun in the universe, and the best way to do so is to take down Lucifer, a.k.a. James Stark.

And it's not like being in L.A. is any better—a serial-killer ghost is running wild and Stark's angelic alter ego is hiding among the lost days of time with a secret cabal who can rewrite reality. Starting to care for people and life again is a real bitch for a stone-cold killer.

My Rating: 3 - Not My Cup of Tea (DNF)

So yeah. I was reading along and reading along, and I kept thinking that I just wasn't interested in anything that was happening in the pages. And what's strange is that while reading, I was remembering that I'd hesitated before pre-ordering the book. I hesitated (not remembering that I was looking forward to what would happen next) because of partial urban fantasy burn-out, and the genre just isn't grabbing me like it used to. There's also the fact that over the summer, I noticed Kadrey had released an e-book novella, Devil in the Dollhouse (which is free for the Kindle right now, if anyone wants to take advantage), and I just wasn't interested enough to read THAT either. If I wasn't interested in a little story, which takes far less time to read, why did I think I'd be okay with the book?

If the book had grabbed me in the first hundred pages, I would've been all right. Sometimes you just need to remember why you enjoyed the author in the past, you know? And I did like the scenes with Wild Bill Hickok, yet there's an implication that it was Charlie Utter who, as Bill puts it on page 74, "so violently disrupted my final card game." Wait, what? The little I know (yes, you can blame Deadwood, and yes, I know that's about as accurate as believing everything you read on Wikipedia), Utter and Bill were companions and friends. Is that a typo, or is there some conspiracy over who really killed Wild Bill Hickok? Whatever the case, it ruined the author's credibility in my mind, and I'm also tired of Stark making cracks on Glocks every chance he gets. The first time, in the first book, fine, whatever. But by book four, this teeny part of his personality is getting old and repetitive.

But really, nothing happens. The stuff that does happen just doesn't interest me, and it doesn't help that this is at least the second book I've picked up this year that features the main POV character going to hell and running the show.

This doesn't mean I won't try again in the future. The series isn't over, and if I hear it truly ends with an awesome bang, I'll be happy to pick this back up and give it another go. But right now, I'm just not interested any more, and when I realized I was no longer interested, I decided to move onto something I was interested in instead.

If you want the full review, which really only includes cover commentary aside from what you read here, you can click the link below to go to my blog. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome.

REVIEW: Richard Kadrey's DEVIL SAID BANG

Happy Reading! ( )

A little lackluster compared to the the previous three. It's not bad and doesn't turn me off from the series but the formula feel is there: a new, mysterious power to figure out and combat, fights with the usual suspects (Aelita), a bit of broken heart, some humor. The fact that the latter was a little more wooden and forced was the major problem. Average read = average rating. ( )

This is the 4th book in the Sandman Slim series by Kadrey. I got an eGalley for review from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This one started off a little slower than previous books, but really picked up speed as the book went on. I ended up loving this one just as much as previous books. It’s gritty, darkly humorous, and Stark is the perfect anti-hero.

The book starts with Stark down in Hell trying to do his job as Lucifer. When he finds out Lucifer mainly does a lot of paper work he continues looking for a way back to L.A. He gets back to L.A. only to find that a serial killer ghost is on the rampage; if Stark doesn’t figure out how to stop the ghost then L.A. could end up worse than Hell.

This book is kind of like two books, or at least two distinct parts of one story. The first part deals with Stark in Hell as he tries to figure out Lucifer’s job, evade assassinations and find a way back to L.A. I didn’t enjoy this part as much as previous Sandman Slim books. Yeah there is a lot of action, but you also get a lot of Hellion names thrown at you and it gets hard to keep track of all the Generals, etc.

I did enjoy watching Stark run the Hellion administration Sandman Slim style. It was pretty hilarious to watch him smack down all those Hellish administrative types. I also enjoyed the secret and truly deadly weapon that looks like a Magic 8 ball.

Things pick up pace and become much more interesting when Stark gets back to L.A. This goes back to the more traditional “Stark solves a murder to save the world” sort of story line. I loved that all of the great characters from previous books feature. Candy is back in full force and it was great to watch her and Stark kick some butt. The Father is back as well and he has learned some truly awesome and deadly spiritual magic and is backing Stark up with more than just intellect. Brigette makes a cameo appearance too.

As with previous books Stark has to solve a mystery or the whole city (and lots of the world) will bite it. In this case it is a murderous young girl ghost that he is chasing. As he solves this mystery we are introduced to more detail of the ghost realms and some new and interesting characters.

Stark actually develops quite a bit as a character in this book. He has to track down his angelic half and make peace with it, and he is starting to actually care about some of the people around him. He is just as tragic as in previous books but he is changing and growing some. It was great to have some character development here.

The action scenes are awesome, the settings dank and gritty. The dialogue sounds like it feel out of an old black and white noir film and it totally over the top at times; I absolutely love it! This is a gritty and ugly urban fantasy and I absolutely adore it.

Overall an excellent addition to the series. The beginning does drag a bit, but things really pick up in the second half of the book. All of our favorite characters are back and Stark makes some awesome progress in character development. This isn’t my favorite Sandman Slim novel, but it is still an excellent one. This whole series is highly recommended to fans of gritty urban fantasy. ( )