Viator
by Lucius Shepard, John Picacio
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Book Summary Information
Author: John Picacio, Lucius ShepardEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-07-19
ISBN: 1892389444
Number of pages: 170
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Book Reviews of Viator
Book Review: Flawed, but gorgeous.
Summary: 4 Stars
Lucius Shepard, Viator (Night Shade Books, 2004)
Lucius Shepard is one of America's most underrated writers by any standards. The man comes out with book after book of gorgeous prose and gets, for the most part, not a breath of press about it. Viator, his latest offering (but not for long; Shepard has two coming out in 2005), continues the trend both of wonderful writing and lack of anything even remotely resembling press coverage.
Thomas Wilander, homeless, rootless, and unstable (his own word), has been hired by a Manpower temp agency in Alaska to go out to a wrecked ship called Viator and head up a team of four other men in assessing the value of the wreckage as scrap. Wilander goes about his business, rarely seeing the four other men, and eventually striking up a relationship with the owner of the trading post in the nearest town, Kaliaska. The other man, all of whom have been on the ship longer than Wilander, have become absorbed in obsessions with various parts of the ship (one is fascinated with the formations of the rust, one with the ship's glass, etc). As time goes on, Wilander starts to feel the tug of the ship as well, and becomes absorbed in his own obsessions, while those around him become ever more fearful of his sanity.
The book has almost a Heart of Darkness feel to it, though granted the ship here is washed up on shore. Shepard's lush descriptions and deliberate pacing keep the reader always wondering what's just over the horizon, while simultaneously not wanting to leave whatever details Shepard is inking at the time. It's beautiful, beautiful prose, and it demands to be savored.
The book's only real letdown is the ending, as other reviewers have noted; the book jumps from Heart of Darkness to The X-Files a little too quickly, and it's likely to jar the unsuspecting reader. Still, there is a good deal to be liked here; this is Shepard doing what Shepard does best, and he does it very well indeed. *** ½
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