★ 08/25/2014
Kadrey delivers another slamming urban fantasy adventure in James "Sandman Slim" Stark's sixth foray. Stark reluctantly associates with the Golden Vigil to investigate a series of murders. As Los Angeles is enveloped in a portentous rainstorm, Stark and his part-time sidekick Candy come face-to-face with the oldest faction in the battle for control of the universe. A patron at the Bamboo House of Dolls bar is killed in magical crossfire, Candy is targeted from all directions, and Stark navigates myriad perils in a concerto of violence and improvisation. The novel is wall-to-wall action, and Stark careens from mayhem to chaos, doing battle with the recently deceased and those who can never die. His choices are anchored in the salvation of a video store, a donut shop, and a woman he can't be sure he knows. Under all the shock and gore, the heart of Sandman Slim still beats to its own delightfully unpredictable pace. (Aug.)
This July sees the release of Killing Pretty, the seventh installment in Richard Kadrey’s fiendishly inventive noir-tinged urban fantasy series Sandman Slim. This fact either fills you with delicious anticipation—another anti-heroic adventure of our favorite back-from-the-dead magician hellbent on revenge!—or it should, because you’re about to pick up the first book, because you read that whole “anti-heroic back-from-the-dead-magician-revenge” part.
For over a decade, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. Every month on the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog and Tor.com, Jim shares his curated list of the month’s can’t-miss new SF/F releases.
A war ends, an interstellar conflict looms, and knights ride dinosaurs—must be this week’s new releases in SF/F.
When it comes to the fantasy genre, the epic reads tend to get the most attention, with their clinking swords, garrulous monarchs, and unruly dragons. But some of the most compelling series are coming from the world of urban fantasy these days, with tough-talking, complex heroes and heroines, mix-and-match genre elements, and worlds at once both recognizable and innovative. Here […]