(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 ( )