Blind Shrike
With the help of a blind swordswoman, tattooed Spyder begins a gleefully dark journey from the alleys of San Francisco to the depths of Hell, from the Bardo Lounge to the Bardo Realm.... [First published in the Infinite Matrix, www.infinitematrix.net, April 2005.]
lying nearby in the alley. Together, -Spyder and Lulu got very, very drunk.
Four
Traffic Jam
It was light out when Spyder woke up, but his eyes refused to focus, so he couldn't read the time on the Badtz-Maru clock-radio near the bed.
His head felt as if someone had scooped out his brains and filled his skull with broken glass and thumb tacks. When he tried to sit up, every part of his body ached. He rose slowly to his feet and walked stiffly to the bathroom. Spyder's shoulder throbbed and when he switched on the bathroom light he saw why.
There was a long gash running across his shoulder and down his chest. He had a black eye, a swollen lip and his arms and ribs were spotted in livid purple bruises. Spyder remembered the scene in the alley. It wasn't a dream. He had been mugged.
Blood from the gash had dried on his skin, gluing part of his white wife-beater to his chest. Spyder stood under the hot shower until the blood softened and the water soothed his kn
Reviews
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Quite good. Somewhat reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
A very good story line. It gets a hold of you and you don't want to put it down. I really injoyed it. There are a lot of typos and words not in the proper order, but not enough to bother you to much>
An absolutely wonderful story. Great characters, great plot. Pure fun the whole way through. Who knew you could fall in love with a couple of punks with tattoos and piercing, who just happen to save the universe and become best buds with the devil along the way.
Great story that is an exciting read. You will love this book! I was sorry that it wasn't longer.
To stay in character of the book: "this is some serious shit!" (in a positive sense).
The world in this book is indeed made out of three "spheres" - one mainly contains us ordinary humans, one angels and daemons and one to exotic beasts like phoenix or vampires. The three spheres overlap and of all creatures we humans are (mostly) blissfully unaware of the other spheres: all kinds of creatures from other spheres do all types of ...weird shit... all over the place in our neighborhood, but we somehow don't notice. The same is true for "Spyder" until he gets mugged by a monster from another sphere - and rescued by a girl from another sphere one day - after that he suddenly sees creatures from all spheres.
At first I thought everything becomes a bit too nauseating for my taste - some "Black Clerks" go around stealing eyes, lips and all kinds of organs from people, somehow replacing their functions by... magic(??), thus leaving the people alive... kind of. To my relief, the yuck-factor goes down a bit - paradoxically when the hero(s) decide to go to hell.....
The book is overall well written and the story is gripping. I should probably give a PG-rating in this case: as you suspected, there is bad language and for those of you who will easily tolerate excessive amounts of violence, but are offended by the slightest mention of sex: yes, there is also sex in this book, although not in a and-he-thrust-deep-into-her kind of way (and don't get wrong ideas now, it's not a main theme either).
There are some conversion errors in the current PDF version for apostrophes or the like
Some deep-down humor is also involved (e.g. the boss of hell turns out... somehow, in a way, to be a good guy)
Perhaps a little bit is missing for all 5 stars, but not much - overall a very amusing and gripping book - perhaps the genre is more fantasy than science fiction.
