I always enjoy the Sandman Slim novels, a combination of hard boiled detective, monster stories, and save the world from Lovecraftian gods mythos, always ending in a "you've saved the world, but you're still screwed." In this one, Candy, Slim's girlfriend, is slowly being poisoned, but he cannot really solve it because the Lovecraftian gods, what is left of God, the Devil, and everyone else want the magic 8-ball, the Quoram, which can reset our universe to zero and start a new one. Great existential questions exist: is it better to have active gods who have the greatest legal and moral right to our universe (but would wipe us out) or a neglectful god who doesn't help us but at least allows us to muddle through (or not) on our own? Sandman is helped by a wisecracking name-calling mummy who is slowly killing himself by drinking a book and his usual cadre of losers, traitors, and low lifes. It's hard not to look at this as the end of the series. It's definitely the end of the first arc of the Sandman Slim saga, if more books are forthcoming. I'm not sure if it's the best ending, but it is epic and satisfying, nonetheless. Most of the plot lines are tied up, with a few loose dangling threads to push a new arc forward. Kadrey's signature horror, black humor, and endlessly inventive profanity are on full display here.
Do You like book The Getaway God (2014)?
I love this series, not super deep, but always good fun with lots of violence and sarcasm. :D
—Books
Liked it, but not as much as the early Sandman Slim books.
—Tricia
Probably the best Sandman Slim novel since the first.
—lucius
