Kill 'Em All is billed as the sequel to Kill Your Friends, but differs significantly in its narrative technique and focus. While Niven's debut read more like an interior-monologue rant about everything Stelfox perceived to be wrong with the world, Kill 'Em All jumps from character to character, switching up its prose style in the process. As such, Steven isn't granted quite as much free rein to attack - although since his scorn is mostly directed at people worse off than him, and since that's now basically everyone, that may not be a bad thing. Instead, we're given a much more plot-driven book, following the tribulations of Lucius Du Pre, once the world's biggest pop star but now broke, reclusive and hopelessly addicted to prescription medication. Any similarities to real persons living or dead are of course purely coincidental, but he lives in a mansion complex called Narnia, has had repeated surgeries to change his skin colour and spends his ample free time hosting "sleepovers" for pre-teen boys, so you can draw your own conclusions as to who the inspiration may have been. Anyway, Lucius' reckless spending habits have left his record label in debt, and he's in no state to enter the comeback tour that might help earn something back. On top of that, the parents of one of his young companions have managed to acquire some pretty damning video evidence against him, which needs to be made to disappear - just think of the shareholders.
Head of Du Pre's label is James Trellick, who appeared in Kill Your Friends as Steven's lawyer co-worker and the closest thing he had to an actual friend, and so Steven is called in to sort things out. From there the plot spirals outwards in an increasingly ridiculous manner, taking in blackmail upon blackmail, a palace in the desert, conspiracy theories and perhaps the most over-powered professional hitman ever committed to paper. It's just all a bit silly and overblown, the action sequences in particular border on laughable, and Niven ultimately has to give up trying to resolve things in a catastrophically weak ending that manages to be both predictable and disappointing. Unlikable characters abound, none of whom quite manage to tip over into Stelfox's territory of subversive admirability.
All serious issues with the book, and they keep it from being anything like as good as Kill Your Friends in my eyes. Yet there's just something about Niven's writing that kept me crawling back for more - all of which, really, can be found in those interior monologue passages where Stelfox lays waste to everything and everyone. And while Kill Your Friends was a nice reminder of a moment in time at the end of the last century, Kill 'Em All is a relentless, brutal dissection of the world we live in now. From Trump to Brexit, ISIS to insider trading, nothing is safe from Niven's satirical barbs, a cascade of one-liners leaving the reader in tears of laughter and then tears of despair. Because Stelfox loves it all - after all, it's all making him even richer - but for the rest of us it's just another reminder that the gap - any gap you would care to name - is growing. You can call Niven cynical, but there's no denying that he's uncomfortably right about a lot of things.
So as weak as the plot of Kill 'Em All might be, it actually works better if you don't read it as a story at all. If Niven were to delve into non-fiction writing, that is certainly where I'd head next with his work.
4/5
The book's title is a reference to Metallica's debut album, and this has to be the most appropriate track from it:
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