Richard Kadrey: Butcher Bird

Description:

Spyder Lee is a happy man who lives in San Francisco and owns a tattoo shop. One night an angry demon tries to bite his head off before he's saved by a stranger. The demon infected Spyder with something awful - the truth. He can suddenly see the world as it really is: full of angels and demons and monsters and monster-hunters. A world full of black magic and mysteries. These are the Dominions, parallel worlds full of wonder, beauty and horror. The Black Clerks, infinitely old and infinitely powerful beings whose job it is to keep the Dominions in balance, seem to have new interests and a whole new agenda. Dropped into the middle of a conflict between the Black Clerks and other forces he doesn't fully understand, Spyder finds himself looking for a magic book with the blind swordswoman who saved him. Their journey will take them from deserts to lush palaces, to underground caverns, to the heart of Hell itself.

This book, that you can also find by the name "Blind Shrike", is really great dark fantasy. My favourite Kadrey's book so far and the first I've really liked a lot. With a writing firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian theology of angels and devils but a vision of these absolutely transversal with Lucifer described as a kind, loyal and charming character. The prose is visceral and the characters realistic people you feel you can care about. You'll find here a lot of heaven, hell, and different spheres of existence highly imaginative and very well developed and a couple of very interesting and innovative cosmogonies. All sorts of weird supernatural denizens, maybe a little too "smartass" at times, interpersed with normal living and weapon wielding maniacs and manically evil bad things.

Pretty entertaining stuff, all along. And this one has a lyric quality and a "heart" that I found Sand Slim missed. And it's full of clever ideas and original ones. And witty dialogues and touching characters. Yes, I think I've liked this one. And don't forget you can read it for free so...

You can download Richard Kadrey’s novel Butcher Bird:
PDF – HTML – Rich Text Format – Plucker – Mobipocket – Enhanced MobiPocket*

Richard Kadrey: Metrophage

Let's hear what Kadrey has to say about Metrophage:


"You may read these files, copy, distribute them, or print them out
and make them into little hats. You may do anything you like with
them as long as you do not change them in any way or receive
money for them.


I've put METROPHAGE and HORSE LATITUDES into free distribution
on the Net, but I retain all copyrights to the works.


If you have any problems or comments on the works or their
distribution, you can email me at: kadrey@well.com


And remember, if you charge anyone money for these files you are
the nothing but ambulatory puke, and I hope a passing jet drops a 15
pound radar magnet on your hard drive."


Richard Kadrey
May 1995

And this:

The protagonist of METROPHAGE is Jonny Qabbala, a drug dealer in
his early 20s. When I wrote the book, I denied hugely that it was in
any way autobiographical. This was, of course, a stinking lie.

Aside from the fact I've never shot anyone or used cobra venom as a
recreational drug, METROPHAGE is a distillation of everything I'd
done, seen, read, heard or thought about up until the time I wrote it,
and is as purely autobiographical as anything I'm ever likely to
write. Which isn't to say you should read the book literally. Some of
what happens in METROPHAGE is straight reportage, and while some
of the events in the book happened to me, some of them happened to
friends. The things you think are the obvious truths probably aren't.
The most ridiculous and unbelievable things are quite possibly true.

Plus, the book is full of lies. It's a work of fiction. I made up a lot of
it. Yet it remains the psychological story of my life up into my mid-
twenties. This is not meant to dazzle anyone with my
accomplishments. If you read the book, you'll quickly discover an
unflattering truth: Jonny Qabbala is a jerk. He's not evil or stupid or
even a bad guy, he's just young and clueless. Jonny finds it difficult
to act decisively or take a stand, and when he does either, he's
usually wrong. Even when I was writing the book, when I was closer
to Jonny's age and temperament, I frequently wanted to crack his
skull with the collected works of Iggy Pop (which is another bit of
trivia: Iggy is in the book, but I won't tell you what character he
plays; if you've ever seen Iggy perform, you'll know).

Time passes, though, and I no longer want to slap Jonny around. I'm
not so far from Jonny that I can see him as my offspring, but I can
easily imagine him as a kid brother. As such, I can forgive him a lot
of his faults because as lame as he is, he's usually trying to do the
right thing."

You can read Metrophage here for free:

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/metrophage.shtml

Or downloading it ere: free download of Metrophage


Not bad but not Gibson either. But, as Man Ray told Groucho, "everybody is a critic" and giving that this one is free and full of imagination, we can conclude that it's unbeatable value for the money you're spending. Didn't like the deliberately open ending, though.

Richard Kadrey: Sandman Slim

As read in Richard Kadrey's website:

"Life sucks, and then you die. Or, if you're James Stark, you spend eleven years in Hell as a hitman before finally escaping, only to land back in the hell-on-earth that is Los Angeles.

Now Stark's back, and ready for revenge. And absolution, and maybe even love. But Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than you'd expect, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future. Resurrection sucks. Saving the world is worse."

"Kill the dead", the 2nd and last for the moment book in the series is 10th in the Amazon List of Best Fantasy Books of 2010.

This is dark and dirty fantasy with a complete badass as starring hero, a novel of brute force, cynical dark humor, and visceral fun, and Kadrey thumbs his nose, and yours too if you'll permit him, at god, the angels and the devil himself. Described by some as violent noir-slash-Gothic-punk hard-boiled detective action story and by other like a book representative of the general trend of urban fantasy to be a peeing contest to see who can create the most sharp-edged antihero.

Possibly more interesting that his book, Kadrey describes himself as a freelance writer living in San Francisco and also a fetish photographer and digital artist whose work can be seen at KaosBeautyKlinik.com (Warning: Adult Content; 18+ only!)

Some of his novels are available to download here:

Download Richard Kadrey’s novel Butcher Bird:
PDF – HTML – Rich Text Format – Plucker – Mobipocket – Enhanced MobiPocket*

And you can also enjoy this free download of Metrophage, his first novel published in 1988.