It was fun, but boy was it sloppy. I'm pretty sure one minor incident accidentally happened twice at the end. Things happen rapidly and often without logic or transition. A few bits were rote cliches, and occasionally the dialogue was, as well.

But, hey, it was full of neat stuff and amusing characters. Good enough. ( )

I went through, and maybe still am in, a cyberpunk phase. One title that keeps coming up over and over again is Metrophage by Richard Kadrey (1988)

"one of the quintessential 1980s cyberpunk novels," going on to describe "a gritty acid-trip through an ultraviolent L.A. where nothing is what it seems.... Alongside novels such as [William Gibson's] Neuromancer and Lewis Shiner's debut novel Frontera, Metrophage helped establish the cyberpunk aesthetic: relentless, paranoid and playfully cynical."

I still haven't gotten my hands on a copy, but I did grab his latest book, "Butcher Bird". And it has dampened my enthusiasm. I didn't like this book. It had demons, hidden realities, hell, tattoos, hot deadly chics, and a secret cadre of evil men in suits. And somehow... I still didn't like it.

You've got Spyder Lee, the tattoo artist who accidentally picks a fight with a demon in a bar one night.
You've Lulu, Spyder's best friend who he has known for years. But after surviving said fight with said demon, he sees her with new eyes. And he's drawn into her mysterious, hidden reality.
You've got Shrike. She's a hot chic who is a mysterious deadly assasin as well. ...well of course she is.

Only once have I seen an author make his "warrior chic" a big socially awkward troll of a woman (George R.R. Martin). And even though I didn't find myself picturing her in a leather bikini, I found that take so refreshing.

What kills me, and maybe this is where my strong reaction comes from, is that there are all the elements for a great story. But they just aren't there.

From page one, Kadrey takes the stance that he is cooler than you. He knows more about the counter culture than you, he's more bad ass and yet more artistically sensitive than you. And you know what, that might be true. But it makes for a bad book. I just very strong got the feeling that this entire novel is Kadrey's little counter-culture wet dream. He is Spyder. A character who tries to be every cool cliche
at once, and fails. And Shrike is the ninja-clad Lara Croft that kadrey jerks off to at night.

I bet he has a friend that very closely resembled the mostly useless sidekick Lulu.

Kadrey tried very hard to make his characters anti-heroes, anti-cliches, anti-society, anti-everything. But he missed the mark. We've had all these anti characters already. And here we are, coming back to the

place i feel personally insulted. I usually love these anti characters. You wouldn't have to do much to

get me to fall in love with an anti-character.

"The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself. He had begun the evening by enjoying himself: he had enjoyed reading the good-bye cards, and receiving hugs form several not entirely unattractive young ladies of his acquaintance; he had enjoyed the warnings about the evils and dangers of London, and the gift of the white umbrella with the map of London Underground on it that his friends had chipped in money to buy; he had enjoyed the first few pints of ale; but then, with each successive pint he found that he was enjoying himself significantly less; until now he was sitting and shivering on the sidewalk outside the pub in a small Scottish town, weighing the relative merits of being sick and not being sick, and not enjoying himself at all."

That's all it takes, and I love Richard Mayhew. Richard Mayhew could start eating babies in the next paragraph and I'd still love him. Hell, I want to have Richard Mayhew's baby. (He's from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere)


Here's the opening to Butcher Bird, you tell me if there's a difference in tone, or if I'm being too sensitive about it all.

'They say that when your head gets chopped off, it can still see and hear for a few seconds, so I'll have to go with beheading,' said Spyder to Lulu Garou.
Spyder Lee was drinking shots of Patron Anejo tequila with Lulu, his business partner, at the Bardo Lounge just off Market Street in San Francisco.
Lulu looked into her empy glass and thought for some time, took a drag off her Marlboro Light and winked at the woman tending bar. 'Being beaten to death,' said Lulu. 'Badly. I don't mean like with a baseball bat or rebar so you're out cold, but something small.' She crushed out her Marlboro in the ashtray the bartender slid in front of her. 'An eight ball in a sweat sock. That'd give your killer a good workout'."

Overall, it's not a bad book, it's not a good book. It would have been a classic middle of the road book. Except for this posturing that may have been there, or I might have imagined. ( )

This is similar in flavor to Clive Barker's Imagica.


( )

If you like Kadrey's Sandman Slim series then I don't know why you're even reading this review when you could be reading this book. It has the same horror feel, that of creepy underpinnings and the evil lying right beneath the good, but it also has a fantasy element that adds a ... well, I won't say lighter touch, but a different touch to things. Read it, it's creepy and cool. ( )

I downloaded this from the publisher's website, and was very glad I did. It's gripping, intelligent, gritty, cynical, but manages to be very real and touching at the same time.

It's hard to say much about it giving away things better found in the course of the text. Iill say I think I'll have to track down the rest of his books - I've been very impressed with what I've read so far. ( )