Kill the Dead

Sandman Slim, Book 2

By: Richard Kadrey

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend’s murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It’s a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse.

Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard. Sandman Slim has to swim with the human and inhuman sharks of L.A.’s underground power elite. That’s before the murders start. And before he runs into the Czech porn star who isn’t quite what she seems. Even before all those murdered people start coming back from the dead and join a zombie army that will change our world and Stark’s forever.

Death bites. Life is worse. All things considered, Hell’s not looking so bad.

More mayhem? Try another eerie earful of Sandman Slim.

©2010 Richard Kadrey (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Profane, intensely metaphoric language somehow makes self-tortured monster Stark sympathetic and turns a simple story into a powerful noir thriller." ( Publishers Weekly)

Fantastic book, INCREDIBLE performance

I've been a fan of the Sandman Slim series for a while. The series is just fantastic. But hearing Mr. Andrews performance if the books has been like experiencing the story for the first time all over again.

Every character has a truly unique voice (tone, accent, speech cadence, everything), all of the action and emotion is intense, he clearly takes time and care in preparing and editing his reading so there's never a single slip or stumble.

It's been an absolute joy listening to his performance and I'm excited to hear the rest of the series and to find other works he's narrated.

There is, however, one MAJOR flaw to listening to Mr. Andrews's performance: he makes listening to other audio books kind of a let-down.

Another hit for the Sandman!

This was a fantastic follow-up to the first book! The plot was engaging and the characters as always were well written and very entertaining to watch. The big picture plot gets a good bit of development as well making you eager to find out what's going to happen and I can't wait to see it. The performance, like in the first one, was top quality and thankfully the reader made the french accent of one of the characters much more easier to understand this time around. I'm very eager to move on to book 3! 10/10

Goth Superhero!

Loved the first book. The second was just as good. I'm ready to buy the third. Can't wait for what's next for Stark!

Sandman Slim is back.

Dark, edgy, snarky.

Sandman Slim is a Harry Dresden meets John Constantine kind of character. Equal parts demon, angel, hero, asshole, alcoholic, punk, and zombie hunter.

Love it.

Moral compass broken. It's dead reckoning now!

Narrator makes a great book an absolute stone cold killer! You feel what he feels, and then you go numb as he does, what humanity he had ripped out and replaced with something far simpler, leaner, crueler. Plus, zombie-hunting pornstars may come close to toppling Harry Dresden's benchmark of riding a zombie T-Rex through the city center of Chicago.

High plains drifters (zombies) abound.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, it is a fast paced interesting book with lots of punk attitude.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Kill the Dead?

The zombie havoc in LA was well done. Also, the little girl ghost was really creepy.

What does MacLeod Andrews bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

he just has the attitude of this series down pat. He also has a great range of voices and makes the whole greater han the sum of its parts.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

No.

Any additional comments?

Two things I generally don't like are stories about time travel or zombies. In this case the author made a zombie story that was actually interesting and fun. You can't go wrong with this book or the series as a whole.

How did that happen?

great overall performance. I cringed every single time the narrator kept calling the video store Max Overload instead of it's actual name, Max Overdrive. small error in delivery, but I stands out like a sore thumb.

I can describe this book perfectly in one sentence.

“The Dresden Files” meets “Dead Pool”. I usually hate it when someone describes books this way but this fits nearly perfectly. Not very original, but definitely entertaining.

lurved it

Solidsnake is back with another amazing performance narrating. The story is a fun ride frz+ 1om start to finish.

perfect narrator

I have read the series before and was a bit skeptical about hearing someone narrate it. Luckily, he does a better job bringing Stark to life than I envisioned. I recommend the series, the writer and the storyteller.