Sandman Slim audiobook: magical hardboiled revenge story

Last month I blogged about Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim, a glorious, gritty revenge novel from hell, tinged with Aleister Crowley, Tom Waits and Raymond Chandler. Sandman Slim, AKA Stark, is one of Los Angeles's magicians, and 11 years ago, his fellow magicians sent him to hell because they were jealous of his power. He's spent the past 11 years fighting in Hell's gladiator pits and working as an assassin for one of Hell's Dukes, but now he has escaped to Earth and is on a quest to hunt down and execute his betrayers.

I've just finished listening to the unabridged, 10-hour audiobook of Sandman Slim, which is available on a single MP3 CD without DRM from Brilliance Audio. The reading is performed by Macleod Andrews, who does the narration in a perfect whiskey voice that's 80 percent Tom Waits, 20 percent Clint Eastwood. The performance and production are marvellous, a great interpretive reading that really brought the novel to life for me. I also love that I could get it without having to suffer through either DRM through one of the audiobook download stores or through ripping ten CDs' worth of material, which is how I normally get my audiobooks onto my computer.

Sandman Slim Audiobook MP3 CD

[toyg August 28, 2009 3:41 AM]

Sorry, I'm new at this. If I get it from Audible.com, will it also be DRM-free ?

[Cory Doctorow August 28, 2009 3:44 AM]

Emphatically not. All Audible books are crippled with DRM.

[Anonymous August 28, 2009 4:21 AM]

Regardless, this is an awesome book. I ordered it after the last post about it and loved it. A lot of parallels between this and butcher bird, though. I'd love to see something from Kadrey that didn't just reuse the same elements, but either continued the story of either of these books or went in a new direction.

[Larem August 28, 2009 8:29 AM]

Awww.... crap. I just bought it from audible.com. I thought it was amazon until I went back and looked at the above question and then relooked at the amazon listing.
crap...
I was lured and hooked by the $9.99 price tag.

/i'm a sucker

I hope I can find a 'fix' for it.

[Brainspore August 28, 2009 9:26 AM]

That book is one of three pieces of fiction I've enjoyed this week that used the Bradbury building in L.A. as a backdrop. The other two were "Blade Runner: The Final Cut" (as Sebastian's apartment building) and "Pushing Daisies" (as Ned's apartment building). It's amazing how a piece of architecture can take on such radically different personalities through simple lighting, set dressing and (in the case of Sandman Slim) narration.

[The_Walt August 28, 2009 9:31 AM]

I'm reading the book now. I'd like to like it (i like the story), but it's full of misprints and grammar issues. It's like listening to a cool song and just as it starts to grow on you, the guitarist hits a wrong note or chord - it's very distracting.

Pages 22, 49, 102, 178, 181, 213, and 223 have blatant errors that are not dialogue related (I anticipate more as I continue reading). My copy isn't an advance proof copy, but it does feel like I'm reading a first draft at times.

Did HarperCollins foolishly fire their editor(s)?

[Anonymous August 28, 2009 3:08 PM]

The Walt: I agree. I figured there'd be several of these distractions when the veritas coin changed material in the first few pages (gold? silver?)...

I did give the author some license with SUVs being called vans; could be a cultural thing there (or an editing foible as mentioned).

[Anonymous August 28, 2009 5:47 PM]

Why do audio books always cost so much more than the paper version? Sure there is a cost of recording the audio and mixing it, but it is far less than writing the story and on par with costs of digital books for reproducing... I think I would be more into buying audio books if there were not so marked up on price...than I might buy it instead of the paper version. This is not always the case, since some of Neil Gaiman's audio books are reasonably priced, or at least at the time of being just released discount, but that seems to be not too common from what I have seen.

[Anonymous August 28, 2009 6:42 PM]

The book kicks ass, I finished it about two weeks ago. I kept reading great passages out loud for coworkers.
(and wincing. It's NOT a *nice* book)

[Anonymous August 29, 2009 6:19 AM]

It's very likely that you could download this audiobook from your local Library for free. Check and see if they offer such a thing. http://search.overdrive.com/

[Larem August 31, 2009 8:08 AM]

I just made CD's. I'm listening in my car anyways... I am liking it so far. I keep having scenes from the Nightside, by Simon Green show up during the reading. Which is a good thing since the Nightside books rock.

[Anonymous September 2, 2009 9:48 AM]

Really try to get the DRM free version of the Audiobook. This Macleod dude really hit the tone of the book on the head. I wonder if he could play the character in a movie, if it were ever made...

[Anonymous September 17, 2009 7:32 PM]

Audiobooks cost more because in addition to the professional expertise of producing, the person who records the audiobook must be paid. These are professionals who spend way more than the 11 plus hours that it takes for you to listen to the book.