The Kill Society, Sandman Slim Is Dead, But Can Still Bring the Violence

So: James Stark is finally dead. After eight books of spitting in the eye of everyone from shady government agents to God, Richard Kadrey’s chain-smoking, nigh-unkillable anti-hero finally took a hit too many and wound up on a mountain with nothing but half a pack of cigarettes and a horde straight out of The Road Warrior bearing down on him. Outnumbered and (for once) outgunned, Stark is forced to join up with the band of crazies and their leader, the sinister Magistrate, as they lay waste to every town in the underworld in their quest for a mysterious artifact that could win them an age-old war. While Stark’s never been a joiner, it’s clear that the only way he’ll get out of this one is to cooperate, so he sets off across Pandemonium on a crusade of the damned. But forces both Downtown and Upstairs have taken an interest in Stark and the Magistrate, and with a war brewing in Heaven, whatever it is the Magistrate’s planning could be more dangerous than anyone realizes.
Believe it or not, The Kill Society is a relatively subdued, as this series goes. Stark begins the book without many of his powers and lacking his arsenal of awesome weaponry, which means that as much as he would like to tear through every member of the demon horde like a tiger through tissue paper, he doesn’t have the firepower. Circumstances force Stark to be patient in a way he usually doesn’t have to be, and the unfamiliar situation really brings out a cerebral side to the anti-hero as he struggles to stay one step ahead of the eerily prescient Magistrate while trying to convince him they’re on the same side.
The subdued tone places the focus on characters over action, and it’s a fun change of pace, especially coming so far into the run. It’s structured as road novel, with the characters drifting from doomed town to doomed town in their “holy crusade,” with enough downtime to develop the (mostly new) cast, which includes a serial-murdering suburban housewife covered in blades, a young Carthaginian who can only speak in mime because no one else understands his ancient language, and numerous others who join the damned along the way. It also allows returning characters to be fleshed out in more detail, as Stark actually has time to talk to them in-between sudden scenes of violence, leading to scenes like his sin eating session with Father Traven (using a Johnny Cash song, naturally) and an argument about Stark’s refusal to share the donuts he scavenged during a cigarette break with Death.

Lest one think talk of character moments and a subdued Stark might lead to a quieter book, rest assured, this is still a Richard Kadrey novel we’re talking about: the quip-filled dialogue, creatures out of a B-movie nightmare, explosive battles, references to everything from classic anime to crime novels, and of course, Stark brutally laying waste to everyone in his way—it’s all still here. In fact, with a Hellion army riding alongside Stark, the battles, when they come, are even more frenetic and pitched into a larger scale. There’s a fight between the Magistrate and an entire heavily armed town, a naval battle on the River Styx, and open warfare in the carnivorous garden of a former lord of Hell. The action borders on the epic, as parts of heaven rain down on the protagonists and the damned souls pour a hail  of bullets onto the twisted convoy.
While this may not be the best place to get into Sandman Slim (it’s better to start at the beginning, or jump in when Stark returns from Hell the second time; more on that here), the mostly new cast and marked change from the usual venues do a lot to ease along newer readers. Most of all, it  takes the urban noir series series in a new direction, allowing it to explore much wider, weirder territory than ever before, nailing the series trademark chaotic violence and sharp dialogue onto a grander framework. Let’s hope this journey is far from over.
The Kill Society is available now.