When you see blurbs from Pat Cadigan and William Gibson on a book, it better be something special. And Richard Kadrey’s BUTCHER BIRD does manage to live up to its blurbage, providing a remarkably edgy look at alternative worlds living in concert with our human experience.

Yes, this is one of those books where the protagonist’s eyes are opened to the fact that demons and hellbeasts walk among us. But sometimes they are actually in our world under a disguise, and sometimes their world impinges on ours, but we are completely unaware as to their existence. There are multiple spheres of existence that overlap, each with the other, and only certain individuals are able to see these other spheres, and move between their respective planes of existence.

When the book begins, tattoo artist Spyder Lee is not one of these people. He is perfectly encapsulated by one of Kadrey’s brilliantly concise and precise descriptions as he lasers in with this: “He was one of those lanky Texas boys you see working on cars in oil-stained driveways, a cooler full of Coors, his only concession to the summer heat. A perpetually messy mop of black hair and long arms covered in grease working on the transmission of a vintage Mustang of questionable ownership.” Exactly.

This is our hero. Spyder apparently has a tattoo on his body that actually draws a demon from another parallel sphere. This demon attacks, and Spyder would be one dead tattoo artist, except for a very weird, beautiful blind woman named Shrike, who materializes and kills the demon with her combo white cane/bloodsucking sword.

And from here, it gets a little strange. We are drawn into Spyder and Shrike’s quest to enter the very jaws of Hell and retrieve a stolen book that will help free Shrike’s father from madness, and perhaps restore Spyder’s equilibrium.

This is one of those works that take a few pages to get into, but once you’re involved, you’re not going to stop reading. Unfortunately, Kadrey has a lot of ideas in his head, some of which only come out half-formed. When he describes some of his insane creations, they don’t always get the room to explain their significance or symbolism. But the journey into Hell is exciting, the twists and turns along the road completely unforeseeable, and the final outcome very satisfying.

This is the second title from Night Shade Books I’ve read, the first being Nathalie Mallet’s THE PRINCES OF THE GOLDEN CAGE. I really like what this small publishing company is doing, putting out fantasy books that are just slightly out-of-kilter with the mainstream. They’re not traditional hack-’n'-slash dungeon romps, and they’re willing to take a few chances. Maybe you should take a chance and read one. –Mark Rose

Buy it at Amazon.