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Calidus posted:New Sandman Silm Tuesday, the series is my guilty pleasure. Came here to talk about this, I really enjoyed it. The "unstoppable murder monster, but entirely useless when violence doesn't help" is nice, and consistent. Anyone have other series in the Sandman Slim vein to recommend? Separately, is Kevin Hearn's non-Iron Druid stuff worth reading? I enjoyed the characters and ideas in Iron Druid.
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Aug 27, 2020 20:19
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Dilber posted:I read it all at midnight when it released. I really like how he's having to deal with all the mental stuff caused by the last couple of books. I remembered I had been waiting for it late Tuesday night, then finished it yesterday. The action felt more like fluff to give the characters something to do while they developed as characters, which I didn't mind, and the hook into the next catastrophe at the end was good enough. ConfusedUs posted:If you liked Iron Druid, you'll probably like the rest of his stuff. They were pretty quick reads, and I tend to get into a thing with a series where I read it just to know what happens. I couldn't tell you what happened in the middle of the series from memory, though.
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Aug 27, 2020 21:37
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Wizchine posted:I blazed through the new Sandman Slim as well. Since the topic seems to be of interest in this thread, Slim begins a relationship with a non binary character. (And yes, I had to reread sentences because I kept getting confused with whom "they" was referring to, especially in scenes with multiple characters.) That kinda freaked me out, it being that I'm named James, and my spouse is a non binary person with a twin peaks tattoo. At least similarities end there.
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Aug 27, 2020 22:23
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biracial bear for uncut posted:As far as *you* know, you mean. I was trying to figure out if the eleven years I spent with my ex counted as hell... Early Sandman Slim can get a little edgelordy for itself, but it settles out rapidly. The middle books are about exploring the cosmology, and the later stuff has so far been more of that, and a bunch of "what does the ultraviolent man's man savior of the world do after the world gets saved, and no longer needs his particular skills?", which has been fun. I could see wanting to check out after the first couple books, though. Edit- the_steve posted:I liked Owen a lot more than Atticus. The talking dog is my favorite overall character. I'm not sure what that opinion says about me or the series. I agree with you on why I finished reading it though. Silly Newbie fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 00:20
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aziraphale60 posted:Does anyone know where I can find a recap for sandman slim? I don't feel like re-reading the whole series but I want to read the new one. I started writing a recap, but realized I'm too tired and had too much to drink. I'll come back at it tomorrow, though, if no one has answered. The new book is a pretty decent place to start if you don't mind reading four paragraphs of back story.
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Aug 29, 2020 06:57
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aziraphale60 posted:Oh cool, thanks. I decided if i couldn't find an answer I'd re-listen to hollywood dead instead of the whole thing since it was so transitional but I'd really appreciate the help Ok, so I keep thinking about attempting this and realizing how much is actually there, and how tough it is to do while phone posting, but here's what I think are the relevant parts before reading the next book. James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, is a half Angel (via the archangel Uriel) natural magician who spent 11 years alive in hell because his friends were dicks. He has superhuman strength and toughness, and a super inconsistent ability to scar when hurt, then be largely immune to being hurt like that again. After returning from hell in book one, he chops off an old acquaintance's head and takes over his video store. Most of the first couple books are a revenge fantasy to rival The Crow. During this, he meets God, Lucifer, meets and kills a race of not-angels called the Kissi, is briefly Lucifer, king of hell, and generally just is a fuckup. There's a lot of fairly well thought out cosmology that goes into this. He attempts to free the denizens of hell to go to heaven, but God is weak (and fractured into multiple parts) and the angels are dicks, so the gates of heaven are locked. There's a big fight against the dudes God kinda stole creation from, and a few pieces of God die. This is not presented as a bad thing. Throughout the series he works with and sometimes against a government agency dedicated to policing magic people. Which reminds me, magic is real, all kinds of non- and meta-humans (vampires, ghouls, pixies, etc) are real, magic is either learnable or innate, and the whole magical world keeps a low profile. It's basically grimdark Harry Potter. Eventually, someone finally has enough of his poo poo and kills him for real, and he goes to hell for a terminally boring book that mostly serves to bring back old characters and move along the "angels are dicks and heaven is locked" storyline. Stark has the use of a place called the Room of 13 Doors, which allow him to basically use shadows to teleport wherever he wants, and whose existence probably sounded really cool originally in the author's head, but mostly serves as a deus ex machina device. Stark gains and loses access to this power somewhat randomly through the series. Stark also has a not particularly well described knife made of black bone that can open any lock (or start any ignition), which are both incredibly rare and easy for him to find, that he loses and regains through the series. In the last few books, Stark dies, goes to hell, survives that (it's possible to die in the afterlife and go to double hell), goes to heaven, is about to get super murdered by the archangel Michael in heaven (who is an rear end in a top hat), then gets brought back by a necromancer to do dirty work for the super cabal that secretly runs the world. He does some of this dirty work, kills a bunch of people, gets double crossed, gets saved by one of his trademarked Powerful Friends, then brought back to life for real by his regular friends, in a pretty heartwarming/funny sequence where they adapt a spell used primarily to preserve meat. Stark has an old flame named Alice (see: revenge fantasy) who got murdered, went to heaven, briefly to hell a couple times, and is now an angel. He has a sometime girlfriend named Candy who is a jade (species that does spider-vampire stuff to dissolve people from the inside to eat them). Stark and Candy went on a bit of a break due to him being literally dead for a year, she moved on, and they're now ethically non-monogamous, sort of. Most of their friction stems from Stark being a sociopath who doesn't have an identity other than "guy who breaks stuff", but he's trying to get better. Other notable characters: Vidoq - old (couple centuries) French alchemist. Accidentally made himself immortal around the French revolution, deeply regrets it. Brigitte - Czech porn star/legit actress/zombie hunter. Zombie hunting career cut short by Stark removing the concept of zombies from the world entirely. Turns out they were animated because of a seal that kept an ancient big bad contained, and Stark broke it. Allegra - first regular person Stark meets early. Runs a clinic for magical people that Stark's dad used to run. On/off with Vidoq. Tends to be the voice of reason. Carlos - runs a tiki/punk bar. Regular dude whose boyfriend is an amateur witch. Saw his bar transition from dive getting rolled by Nazis for projection money to hang out for the secret magical world. Business is good, so he mostly doesn't mind the mayhem. Janet - works at a donut shop, got inadvertently saved by Stark during the zombie apocalypse because Stark told her to go home and stay there, to avoid the incoming shitstorm. Kasabian - acquaintance of Stark's who had his head removed in book one, but non-fatally. Has become friends with Stark in that way that they hang out and depend on each other, and mostly feel hate and contempt for each other. Currently is a human head that magically cannot die attached to a mechanical/cyborg hell hound body by a dude who does magical clockwork creations named Manimal Mike Sammael - literally Satan, but apologized to God and is now back to being an archangel. Briefly made Stark be Lucifer as a joke. Typing that out made me think about how ridiculous the whole thing is, and freshly amazed at the quality that resulted. This is mostly targeted as a refresher for someone about to skip to the new book, so I'm leaving a ton out. I also typed it entirely from memory on my phone, so there may be some mistakes and the formatting sucks.
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Aug 30, 2020 22:50
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Wizchine posted:Any multi-book urban fantasy series would. It really is. I left a lot out that's covered by context in the newest book. The author has (mostly) worked through his adolescent power fantasies, and the recent books have become more focused on what happens when an adolescent power fantasy has to exist in the regular world, and it's fun to watch it grow. Watching hope just barely edge out total nihilism in every book is a good time, too.
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Aug 30, 2020 23:36
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:The saving grace for Sandman Slim is that while the character looks and sounds like the kind of embarrassing poo poo I used to draw in the margins of my notebooks in junior high, the actual books are written to be, weirdly, fairly forward thinking and emotionally mature. Sandman Slim just wants to tinker on his motorcycle and watch schlocky movies with his monster girlfriend, but all these demons and poo poo keep hassling him. I've found, particularly in the later books, that while the character acts like Rob Leifeld and Jonen Vasquez had a collaborative effort in 1998, those behaviors only ever solve the short term problems, and breaking out of them and being better is typically how the day gets saved.
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Aug 31, 2020 01:43
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aziraphale60 posted:I just saw this and ended up just re-listening to Hollywood Dead. I forgot how enjoyable Stark's BS is. Tbf he's generally only sociopathic to people who are constantly yelling at him and doing insane poo poo around him anyway. Whenever he's interacting with someone who isn't trying to manipulate him he's sort of just a dork. He basically tries his best to do right by the people who deserve it (and sometimes the people who don't) and constantly finds himself being the only super person around willing or able to stop some nonsense apocalypse from being caused on purpose. I agree, I think. Stark can conquer whatever threat is happening, but that's not the drama of the series - it's him trying to interact with regular people and maintain enough sanity to try to save the world that creates the meaningful conflict.
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Aug 31, 2020 03:57
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I found Schaeffer a few years back. I'm a Chicago area native from about the same area as he is, and the heist in Naperville was loving DELIGHTFUL and super accurate. I should go check and see if there's more Faust I haven't read. I absolutely agree that the cast feels really balanced, it's not one super powerful dude and his gang of sidekicks.
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Sep 5, 2020 04:01
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From everyone's description, I'm getting a lot of Night Watch vibes from Verus, does that track?
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Dec 5, 2020 21:25
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'll take a look. Let's see: The Sandman Slim series is a fantasy/supernatural/occult/noir collection of novels. Each book is narrated by James "Sandman Slim" Stark, a half-human/half-angel magician who returns from Hell to exact revenge on the people who sent him there. Yeah, it's not noir for too long. Also, the Cool But Rude stuff constantly bites him in the rear end as absolutely no one wants to put up with it, and everyone dunks on him constantly for being a whiney edgelord. He also has some male-gazey stuff that also bites him in the rear end every time, and it's portrayed as the character's pov and not the author's, and never works out well. There is some power creep as the series goes on, but there's always someone around that could stomp him into a mud puddle if they could be bothered, and he keeps existing by not pushing people too far, and occasionally doing an unexpected ballsy thing that gets him seriously injured or dead. It's great for smug rear end in a top hat (who actually has consequences) urban fantasy.
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Apr 10, 2021 06:03
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ClydeFrog posted:I just finished Between Two Fires. Chris is a good dude, go buy and read The Blacktongue Thief if you like fantasy, and also so he can afford to quit touring so hard. Unrelated: New (final?) Sandman Slim on Tuesday. I had a vague memory that I series I loved had a next book in August and did a loving happy dance when I just looked it up. I'm excited. I also think I'm going to read Verus, because I want to be able to chat in this thread and can't stand Dresden.
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Aug 16, 2021 04:28
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