This was one of those books that had a low thrum of tension throughout the whole thing, that feeling that things were weird and wrong even though you didn’t yet know what. But since I didn’t really know what the plot was working toward, I didn’t have this sense of things building, and the book felt slow for about the first 2/3. The beginning of the book also seemed to be more world-building and descriptions of settings than plot, and the articles and things that were between chapters sometimes only slowed the pace more. That being said, once things did really start building and take off around the last third, they got pretty twisty and complex.

Largo’s characterization was really well done though. He was so flawed, yet also a character I sympathized with. He had dreams, but he just kind of settled with his life as it was. He had a pretty dead-end job and a crappy apartment, and he spent most of his free time and money on drugs, including one called morphia that he was addicted to. Largo didn’t always make great decisions in life, but he had a good heart. He cared about others. He wasn’t as judgmental as many people around him were. And when he came across an opportunity to better himself and maybe one day achieve his dreams, he jumped on it. He also realized some things about himself and changed throughout the story. The supporting characters felt believable too, even if they weren’t explored as much. This book also did a great job showing how situations and lives and people can spiral down or out of control.

I’m not sure if this is considered sci-fi or fantasy or some combo of the two. Personally I’d say it’s kind of dystopian. It’s got robotic technology and government conspiracies and plague and strange creatures made with eugenics all set in a darkly decadent and vice-ridden city.

I struggled with what rating to give this book because it wasn’t a bad book, but it still wasn’t quite right for me. I struggled with all the description and with not knowing where the plot was going, but the characterization of the main character was strong and there was a lot of complexity put into the story, and I think some readers will really enjoy this!

Kadrey has created a dark world, with little hope. The setting is developed in great depth but I had a hard time staying engaged in plot.

This story twisted me so I’m so many directions that I don’t even know how to review! I definitely recommend checking this book out if you love historical fiction with a twist.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this to me in exchange for my open and honest review.

First off, I want to say that Richard Kadrey is the man and hands down one of my favorite authors. The Sandman Slim saga is a story that has made me cheer for the dark antihero, the fallible Slim. It is dark and twisted, and in my opinion, one of the perfect urban fantasy series out there. It has it all, which is why I did backflips when I got approved. The Grand Dark was my most anticipated release of this year so far. That is why it pains me to DNF this at 50%.

The Grand Dark is not a bad book in any stretch of the word. Kadrey is a master worldbuilder. The world he creates here is rich, lusty, and dark. It has vice and wonder, with just a tinge of steampunk. The pervasive drug use and the bisection of classes add a very interesting visual to an already cool world. What made me stop was the pacing. The pacing is slow, plodding. At times it is so slow that I can't find a plot amidst the rich language and description. The intercuts of the story between chapters would have added a great backstory to a faster-paced book, but in this book, it turns things into a slog. I stopped reading it because I was not the right reader for this type of storytelling, but the correct reader is out there. If you like languid storytelling very much in the vein of Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, this is a good fit for you.

If you would like to read more of my reviews, check out my page on beforewegoblog.com

The Grand Dark is a new standalone novel from Richard Kadrey. Due out 11th June 2019 from Harper Voyager, it's 432 pages and will be available in hardback, ebook, and audio formats.

I requested this eARC because of my familiarity with the author from his other work (especially the Sandman Slim series). This book quite impressively different. It's always interesting to see authors whose work one admires releasing different styles of work. It's a credit to Kadrey that this book is -so- different from his established characters and series. The entire style is different, it's a serious, philosophical, brooding book, with lightning flashes of real horror. The pacing is much slower and the dramatic tension simply builds and builds instead of building and releasing. In a lot of ways, technically, this is a much different exercise (and more challenging). There's no easy banter, very little snark. Other reviewers have said it has a Kafkaesque feel, and I would say that's apposite. I saw flashes of Lang's Metropolis in there as well, certainly intentional.

In a lot of ways, this was an uncomfortable read for me. The pacing was very slow, almost ponderous, and the story arc felt as though it were grinding inevitably along (dragging me with it to a destination I wasn't at all sure I wanted to visit). There was no sarcastic banter. There was a lot of brooding atmosphere and sporadic violence. The world building and atmosphere were masterfully done; I really liked the inclusion of background information and setting through news items, diary entries, and notes/letters.

Four stars. Beautifully written, divisive, uncomfortable, difficult, important.

I've been a fan of Kadrey since stumbling on Sandman Slim back in 2013, and hating myself for missing such a great story for four years.  The beginning of this series was enticing, but it didn't meet my hopes and dreams.

I loved the blurbs and summary of this story, but I just couldn't get excited or care about the characters.  The setting reminded me of a chintzy WWII story, with the "Herr"s and faux German names, but I can ignore that, that's just setting the scene... very Soviet/Nazi feeling, like the movie "Enemy at the Gates" if you ever saw that.  
While forgiving the scene-setting and world-building, I can't forgive the characters.  The main characters are drug addicts, and while I haven't known many addicts, I can believe these. 

Let me tell you a story:

I'm a high-school teacher, among other things.  We teachers once sat through a presentation that was going to be given to our students; we were shown prior so we were prepared to talk to our kids and answers questions, etc.  The presentations was about the rise in popularity of synthetic marijuana (sometimes called K2) and the presentation was HILARIOUS.  The school nurse had never written anything for kids, apparently, and did a horrible job.

I kept my shit together until the PowerPoint slide said something along the lines of "Synthetic Marijuana can have 10x the amount of THC", and I just started laughing.  When my principal asked why, I had to tell him, "That's like an advertisement for the dealers... why would a kid buy weed when K2 has 10x the THC?  That's not going to scare a kid, that's going to get them to experiment with something new." 

The nurse wrote things that scared her, not realizing the kids wouldn't be scared at all.  

These characters are written like I imagine that school nurse would write about addicts... I've never known an addict to call their drug of choice by its formal name, none of the drugs have a nickname (smack, dope, Mary Jane, etc) for common usage, none of the people in the story have an attachment to their dealer (or even a dealer, drugs just magically appear for most of the story)... maybe Kadrey has more or different experience with drugs or addicts, but nothing here felt relatable or believable.  Could be my fault.

Too many things left unexplained, just dropped in my lap.  Ghosts are real, and the medium who can talk to the dead gets involved, but only on the periphery, and then disappears from the story.  A super rich warmonger sells his country for a girl.  Things like that, don't want to spoil anything.

I LOVED parts of this story.  The way the Grand Dark plays a role, the Iron Dandies, the parallels with current American politics being introduced and discussed, so much went well, but I just can't like it.

I recommended "Sandman Slim" to a friend who hated it... so Kadrey isn't for everyone.  His first series buttered my eggroll, this one may do it for you.

**This ARC was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who is a fan of Richard Kadrey and has had read all of the Sandman Slim novels, I was excited that Kadrey was introducing a new world with his new book The Grad Dark.

The Grand Dark takes its name from a theater known for its violent and rather bloody stage shows. The story itself centers on a young bicycle courier named Largo. Largo didn't grow up in the best parts of Lower Proszawa, but he has used his knowledge of all parts of the city to make himself very efficient. At the beginning of the story, Largo receives a promotion to head courier after the previous one was arrested on sedition and going against the government. Largo is very proud of his promotion, but it doesn't take him long to realize that certain things about his promotion are not as good as they seem. In addition to the wonders of Largo's job, he's also involved with an actress named Remy, who works at The Grand Dark. Remy, like many characters in the book, may or may not be all that she seems.

The world of Lower Proszawa is one ravaged by war. The vestiges of this war from the Dandy's, veterans who wear metal masks to cover up missing parts of their faces, to an economy that is just starting to pull itself out of the war years slump. In many ways, Kadrey's depiction of Lower Proszawa reminds me of the images of post-World War II. City blocks have been decimated, unexploded ordinances are a problem, and the world ravaged by the worst of the war, Upper Proszawa, can be seen on the horizon as a ghostland where plague bombs and other military weapons have demolished the world. Personally, it's in the depiction of this world that I think Kadrey's narrative truly soars.

I also think Kadrey does a really interesting job of discussing the pros and cons of the modern military-industrial complex. In this world, He talks quite a lot about the importance of keeping the citizenry in their place and the use of propaganda as a tool of the government to keep citizens uninformed. One of the central figures of the establishment is Baron Rudolf Hellswarth, the head of Schöne Maschinen, the primary organization that does research and development on a range of military technologies. Hellswarth to some is an industrious old man who has saved Lower Proszawa, but others see him in a much more sinister light, known as The Beast.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. Although a few plot twists were somewhat predictable. I wasn't quite sure where the story was going most of the book. I found it fast paced and easy to read, which is a hallmark of Kadrey's writing.

My review is based on a pre-publication ebook provided me by the publisher.

I have been following Kadrey's writing since first reading and loving Sandman Slim almost ten years ago. I have enjoyed that series quite a bit - and even have read some of the earlier volumes multiple times. The is standalone novel is quite separate from that series - and set in a fantastical land that is richly detailed. In fact, I hope that this will end up being the start of a new series rather than just a single volume - the amount of world-building that has gone into this surely justifies more stories set in such a visually lush place.

This grim fantasy city is dark, and only sort of recovering from the Great War. It's easy to draw parallels between our own society post-WWI and here - a time marked with an almost desperate debauchery in the midst of alarming politics. The narrator, Largo, is a courier and knows his city better than most. The book opens with his unexpected promotion - and while this is certainly life-changing, it is also the catalyst for even more change than Largo could have ever predicted.

Despite real-life allusions, the book feels very unique and the descriptions of the landscape of the city and its surrounds are so visual that the book has a cinematic quality to it. I think that a TV series or a movie adaptation would certainly be something to behold! From its chimera creatures to the robot-like Maras, the puppet theater of the Grand Dark itself to the plasma-driven machinery, this is all slick and cool. The supporting cast of characters is interesting too - and interspersed throughout the book are multi-media documents filling in more details about this fascinating landscape.

The plot does end in a satisfying way, but there are some unanswered questions that I sincerely hope will provide the foundation for a sequel! I really enjoyed this book - the pacing does get bogged down a bit in some of the details, but the wold building itself I think is something that is impressive in its own right and would be all the more successful if Kadrey continues to set stories here. There is plenty of action and excitement here too, in the plot - I gasped aloud a few times - but really, I think that a sequel could be even stronger!

THE GRAND DARK, by Richard Kadrey, is an epic tale of Largo, a wide-eyed young courier with a beautiful girlfriend, who despite his problems with drugs, is promoted to chief courier at his company. No sooner does that promotion happen does a series of events unlock more problems and more secrets than Largo even knew there was in the world and by then end of the book, Largo has struggled through countless obstacles and deceitful people. In the end, Largo has to figure out what kind of person he really wants to be.
Kadrey creates a world of paradox. Decadence and decimation go hand in hand within the book. There is also wonderful steampunk meets dark science aspect to the world Largo lives in. A informative style choice Kadrey makes is to sprinkle throughout the book pieces of either historical events or propaganda or advertisement to help paint the picture of the world Kadrey had created. It gives the story the ability to push forward at all times and meanwhile the reader still becomes more informed. The story takes Largo all over this world in THE GRAND DARK and while at times it was hard to keep the geography and all of the different names of regions straight, I appreciated the detail that went into creating this world and the regions within it. I found myself have emotional responses to each place along with Largo and I think that goes to how well the reader attaches to and pulls for Largo and the ability of Kadrey to help the reader feel the environments that Kadrey describes. The book builds and build towards an exciting and monumental conclusion that leaves the reader satisfied.
A uniquely dark world is created in THE GRAND DARK and by the end of the book, I felt not only did I understand this world, but I relished it and hoped to return to it the future.

Solid, plot driven, dystopian/steampunk adventure.
I loved the setting and world building. A germanesqe, 1984 dystopia with AI robots and genetically engineered beasts.
The pacing was a bit start and stop in the first half but the story really takes off around halfway and is exciting all the way until the end.
The main character is likable and when thrown into the machinations of a city where he doesn't know who to trust and everyone is trying to use him to further their own agenda's, I found myself rooting for him. The secondary characters were interesting enough to keep me wondering about their motivations.
All around, a fun, stand-alone story.
I received a review copy in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

There is nothing worse to a reader than a book with a great opening line and a terrible follow-through. And The Grand Dark has a fantastic opening line: "The Great War was over, but everyone knew another war was coming and it drove the city a little mad." That's a line with promise. That's a line that beckons you to read on.

And so I read on . . . and almost immediately, my eyes started glazing over. I'm not sure what the opposite of a gripping story is--a loose story? A slippery story? Words like "tedious" really don't capture the thing--but suffice to say, this is that. Things began happening in the last quarter or so, which isn't a compliment.

I bumped this up from one to two stars only because the writing, though numbing, is at least technically competent. I generally reserve one-star reviews for books that I legitimately believe shouldn't have been published as-is. This book is far from skillfully written, and it wasn't nearly as interesting as it meant to be, but at least it seemed professionally produced.

Overall: not recommended.

2 / 5 ✪

Reviewed on https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/

The Grand Dark is a roaring-20’s dark, film noir set in a fictional world with robots, chimeras and more drugs than an entire nation must know what to do with. This vibrant, dark world brings us to the banks of Lower Proszawa, a city at the end of the world. Its populace now revel, having survived the Great War which stole away their sister city, High Proszawa, formerly set across the bay. Though the city can be incredibly vivid and detailed, the lore surrounding it is anything but. The lead POV, Largo, though possessed of visions for his future, is happy now just living for tomorrow. His lover, Remy, stars at the Grand Darkness Theatre itself, and shortly into the tale, Largo lands himself a new gig, complete with higher pay and all the advantages it brings him. Unfortunately, he is soon confronted with a mystery the likes of which he doesn’t even seem to pick up on for over half the book.

The Grand Dark is a perfect example of a good idea let down by its own lofty expectations. Its blurb describes the book as “a subversive tale that immerses us in a world where the extremes of bleakness and beauty exist together in dangerous harmony in a city on the edge of civility and chaos”. Indeed, it is the world itself that makes The Grand Dark a triumph, if for but a moment. Kadrey does well to paint an alluring picture of a nation ravaged by war, on the brink of chaos, its hedonistic populace living for the day rather than saving for the ‘morrow. Except for a few key details.

Despite the mention of the Great War haunting near each and every page in the book, we really never find out anything about it. High Proszawa was reduced to rubble; the Lower city survived; veterans of the war—known as ‘Iron Dandies’—skulk about, their mutilated faces hidden beneath iron masks; and… that’s about it. The enemy is just referred to as “the enemy”, if at all. The cause of the war is never mentioned, or questioned.

In the prompt, and indeed later on in the text, it states the city is on the brink of chaos. Except it doesn’t really feel as though it is. Largo sure as hell never notices it. Or, at least, never points it out. Until one day it pops up and he doesn’t question it. Sure, there is dissenting literature, and a police force attempting to clamp down on it. But Largo isn’t really a political sort, so he pays it no mind. And when the chaos begins, it was as if he knew it would happen eventually.

The hedonism is definitely shown. For roughly 70% of the book, if you’d have told me this was a story of a guy who would alternating riding around on a bike with having sex, only to fill the other 90% in with drugs and booze, I wouldn’t’ve questioned it. Thing is, while there was a bit of mystery lurking around, to that two-thirds mark, no clear plot had emerged.

I have to give the drugs their own mention. From what I’ve read in a number of other reviews, I was not alone in feeling put off by the sheer amount of narcotic paraphernalia. But Largo is obviously an addict, and addicts often do devote an awful lot of time to whatever they’re addicted to. The thing is, for the amount of time Kadrey dwelt on this, I left the book feeling like he didn’t actually know what he was talking about. Later in the story, Largo gives up morphia—it’s not really a plot point, so I don’t feel bad spoiling it. He’s pretty much hopelessly addicted by this point, having been on it pretty much since the war ended. He kicks it, cold-turkey and in a couple days, is feeling no adverse side-effects. I mean… none. It doesn’t seem like the author understands how addiction and withdrawal work. Which is impressive from the sheer amount of cocaine, morphia, hashish and whatnot that is present in the text.

One thing Richard Kadrey has always done well is his dialogue. The Sandman Slim books championed the foul, sarcastic asshole that was James Stark. At first, Largo is a sweet talking, playful scamp, and the entire world around him bends to his will. Despite having so many issues, The Grand Dark benefits from generally interesting conversations—even if the mostly revolve around hallucinogens. Towards the end, this all changes. No spoilers; it just devolves to a quick, dirty way to relay information. It seems that, after the three-quarters mark, Richard Kadrey was just as impatient to get it over with as I was.

Even the positive points I listed for the novel soon fell through. While initially I was entertained by the detailed city, the snippets of lore introduced between chapters, and Largo himself—the appeal of these quickly faded. The further I got in, the more cramped the world felt; nothing outside Lower (and High) Proszawa is even mentioned. The flashes of randomness between chapters became just that—introducing nothing new, just more sex, drugs and more drugs. As for Largo himself… he’s not right for this tale. It just doesn’t work well as told through him. He’s too naïve, too slow on the uptake; it’s almost as if he’s fighting the story that tries to take hold of him.

The bottomline: The Grand Dark is a highly ambitious project—one that just didn’t work out. The author spends overly long developing a story that seems amateurish when it finally comes together. The abundance of narcotics (half the damn book was a constant cocktail of morphia and cocaine), detracted from rather than added to the story. Little to no character development, a city surrounded by fog, references to things that are never revealed, a story that couldn’t wait to finish—are all reasons to skip this book. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read, but far, faaar from the best.

Largo Moorden is a bike messenger in the grimy city of Lower Proszawa in the aftermath of The Great War. By day, Largo is meek, obsequious, determined to cycle as far below the radar as possible -- a requisite skill in a paranoid world of feckless bureaucrats, strong-arm police, all-knowing secret service, scheming industrialists, and the like. But by night, Largo inhabits the hedonistic drug-addled world of his lover, a star actress in the theater of the title, The Grand Dark.

Largo is an Italian musical term that means slow -- and yes, the pace of this book is largo. Moorden is dutch for murder. This may feel like murder if you find the pace too slow, but more to the point, it is about the slow burn of our protagonist as the world he tries to navigate (laying low by day, living it up after dark) starts to unravel.

The payoff here is subtle. There is some action that drives the final third of the book, some revelations, some of them horrific. But until then, Kadrey is all about world building and character development. The character of Largo unfolds in an interesting manner -- as servile as he is in both aspects of his life, letting everyone around him dictate terms, we nevertheless get to see Largo's internal monologue as he cynically cuts through to the heart of the matter but only ever says something neutral (at best, with a touch of passive aggressive sarcasm), recognizing harsh truths in his mind but only ever taking the path of least resistance in his words and deeds.

Until the slow burn finally explodes.

Language is as much a character for Kadrey as Largo and Company. He seems to have taken great pains to capture the cadence and syntax of the era -- Germany between the wars, as it is often translated into English. The formalities of speech lend an indelible tone of calm and order that belies a social structure fractured by war and anticipating complete breakdown with the inevitable arrival of the next war. That Kadrey borrows so many terms from various European languages, particularly Germanic, adds to the exotic air, and makes for a fun game of trying to figure out the meanings (especially when it comes to names).

The city itself, as is so common in noirish nightmare scenarios, becomes a character in its own right, each neighborhood described in detail, each with its own personality. The architecture, the street life, the very quality of the air, the color scheme -- a world with all of its tints in the latter stages of fading to sepia tones.

Put it all together, and you have Kafkaesque terror-vision in a steampunk world (as Kadrey himself has called this book), the distorted perspectives and madness of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the silent scream of Edvard Munch. Add in the opiated revelry of Cabaret, the urban dystopia of Metropolis, the revolutionary world of Potemkim, the bloodletting of Nosferau, and you have a German Expressionist fever dream that recalls Berlin between the wars but, secreted between the layers of the onion, hints darkly at the world we live in now.

I have the advantage of not having read Kadrey before. Apparently, The Grand Dark is completely different than anything else he has written. Thus, I did not come in bearing expectations of Sandman Slim. I have also found myself learning more this year about World War I (our Great War) than I ever have before, so I found myself fascinated by this steampunk fantasy vision of post-WWI Germany.

If you come at this with the proper expectations -- a slowly evolving, atmospheric, character-driven dreamscape -- you should enjoy it, as I did. The story came to a satisfactory ending, but it did seem to leave the door open to continuation -- where are Largo, Remy and Anita sailing to? I'm hoping for the kaleidoscopic equivalent of America in the 20s, 30s, 40s. Bring it on!

So this is kind of a tough review to write. After getting through about 20% of this book I can't get myself to finish. Maybe if I had read the previous (unrelated) series I would have been able to enjoy it more but I just felt so disconnected by everything. I couldn't find any reason to actually care about the main character. The world building was written like you already know what everything is. It's also extremely slow. Nothing really happened but lots of people doing lots of drugs.

Well... I hate saying it but I'm glad this is over.

I wanted to love this so badly. The cover! The description! This seemed like it was exactly up my alley and the dark fantasy book that I truly needed to get out of my adult fantasy slump I've been in for a while. But, unfortunately, I just could not get into this story like I'd hoped. It was just too slow. I don't mind when books don't immediately jump into the action and grab your attention. Not every book needs to start off with a bang and just keep going. Some books require build up before the action starts. But this just felt SO. SLOW. The world building is beautiful but I was just bored.

I keep hearing about this authors' other series - the Sandman Slim - and I think I might eventually pick that up as the reviews I've looked up make it sound like a bit better paced for me.

I so wanted to like The Grand Dark, but it didn't work out that way. This is a seriously slow going story, and the pace caused disinterest for me. I read and skimmed some because I could not connect with this story. Unfortunately, this one is a miss. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoy Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim novels, so I was looking forward to reading this book. I got a copy from NetGalley and dug in.

This is a bit of a departure in style and tone from the author’s usual work. Very reminiscent of China Mievelle’s work, The Grand Dark is a brooding look at a dystopian steampunk society.

The world building is top notch and the main character- a drug addicted bike messenger- makes for a good point of view character. The writing is assured and flows nicely.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit.

I got this from NetGalley and I really enjoy the Sandman Slim books, but I gave up on this. I love world building, but all I was getting out of this book was descriptions of drugs. Nothing was sticking with me and I had no desire to keep reading. Oh well.

A new book in Richard Kadrey's repertoire, he out-does himself AGAIN! Darker than my usual fare, I nonetheless completely enjoyed this complete departure from the Sandman Slim series! Way to go Richard! Another winner here!

The world building is beautifully and cleverly done in this novel. The insertion of news articles, diary entries and the like between the chapters of the narrative is a great way of giving the reader some history of the city and the world without boring them. The grimy atmosphere the whole novel has sets just the right tone.
The problem I found was the pacing. The plot takes much too long to start and nothing that happens to the protagonist for the first 2/3s of the novel is really all that interesting. There is a sense of disjointed pacing, too, when the action does take off. The scenes in Higher Proszawa are really rushed. I would have liked more world building there, to give us a sense of the horrors that lurked, but the author takes us through it at breakneck speed. Too much happens in the last 1/3 of the novel. It is packed with action that feels off when the rest has been so sedate. I mean, following a bike messenger on his errands is not all that captivating, especially since the author does not manage to tie all of those meetings and errands together in a way that actually matters.
It really feels much more like the first part of a series than a stand-alone novel. Even Remy's storyline gets cut off abruptly, without any real explanation to the changes that have been forced on her.
If this were part of a series, I could excuse some of the faults and would probably pick up the next installment to see what happens. As a stand-alone...eh.