Reminiscent of the edgy, offbeat humor of Chris Moore and Matt Ruff, the first entry in a whimsical, fast-paced supernatural series from the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim novels—a dark and humorous story involving a doomsday gizmo, a horde of baddies determined to possess its power, and a clever thief who must steal it back . . . again and again.
22000 B.C. A beautiful, ambitious angel stands on a mountaintop, surveying the world and its little inhabitants below. He smiles because soon, the last of humanity who survived the great flood will meet its end, too. And he should know. He’s going to play a big part in it. Our angel usually doesn’t get to do field work, and if he does well, he’s certain he’ll get a big promotion.
And now it’s time . . . .
The angel reaches into his pocket for the instrument of humanity’s doom. Must be in the other pocket. Then he frantically begins to pat himself down. Dejected, he realizes he has lost the object. Looking over the Earth at all that could have been, the majestic angel utters a single word.
“Crap.”
2015. A thief named Coop—a specialist in purloining magic objects—steals and delivers a small box to the mysterious client who engaged his services. Coop doesn’t know that his latest job could be the end of him—and the rest of the world. Suddenly he finds himself in the company of The Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome enforcement agency that polices the odd and strange. The box isn’t just a supernatural heirloom with quaint powers, they tell him.
Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir books. Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s “100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime,” and is in development as a feature film. Some of his other books include The Wrong Dead Guy, The Everything Box, Metrophage, and Butcher Bird. He also writes the Vertigo comic Lucifer.
It’s the greatest pain and greatest pleasure of our reading lives: no matter how many wonderful novels we read, more are always rolling off the printing presses. We’ll never be finished reading—but we’d never want to be, either. Here are eight highly anticipated new books threatening the integrity of our nightstands and coffee tables in April.
Most holidays, by dint of sheer repetition, become pretty predictable, and Father’s Day is no exception. Every year there will be an incompetently prepared breakfast, perhaps a special dinner out, and then a small gift offered as a token of appreciation for everything Dad does. There is a statistical probability this gift will be a […]
In sci-fi and fantasy stories, the simplest of objects—a ring, a statue, a severed primate limb—can cause the greatest upheaval, and things don’t get much simpler than the humble box: four sides, three dimensions, and infinite mystery (cue requisite “what’s in the booooox?” jokes). Pandora’s aside, there are more boxes in SF/F than you might think—without […]
For nearly two decades, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. At the end of each month, he’ll be sharing the lists of B&N’s bestsellers in the genre, from new hardbacks, to trade paperbacks, to mass markets and media tie-ins, to graphic novels and manga. These are the […]
After the end-of-the-world antics of 2016’s The Everything Box, I figured Richard Kadrey would have a tough time out-apocalypsing himself with the second book in his series about the misadventures of the agents of the Department of Peculiar Science. The Wrong Dead Guy has taught me never to underestimate an author who has been immortalized with his own action figure.
