Customer Reviews

The Golden

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to agree with the sentiments of a reviewer that can't believe this thorougly entertaining novel is not in print. What a shame. If you enjoyed Anne Rice's vampire novels or "Tap Tap" or "The Book of Common Dread"; you'll enjoy this. Shepard's prose is very lush & rich. His characters are suitably creepy and dark. Without giving too much away-this not only a superb murder mystery; but a frightening vampire love story.

I would recommend this book to any fan of vampire novels.

I can't believe this book is out of print--or maybe I should not be surprised. Lucius Shepard is a giant, one of our best living writers. This book is a masterpiece. Forget the fact that it is about vampires. Track down a copy of this, and check out "Life During Wartime", "Green Eyes", and "The Ends of the Earth" while you're at it. Lucius, where are you? We need some new books!

The product of generations of breeding, a young woman exists to provide blood best described as "The Golden," an elixir that can get the most jaded vampire drunk as a skunk from just a taste. For years the creme de la creme of vampire society has been waiting for just a sip of her.

She's just been found murdered and drained.

And so, in a castle full of grumpy, snobby, ancient vampires, a young-blood with a police background is charged with finding the murderer. Granted, his suspects could easily tear him to pieces, but Michel is eager to bring the murderer to justice because our young detective was one of the few who sampled The Golden before she died.

Shepard manages to use elegant writing to evoke a mood and period without creating a 500-plus page exercise in listening to himself talk. The book and the world it shows feels lush and decadent. I find this book unique in that it has the single best description of the sun as an enemy that I have ever read.

I recommend this book for people interested in 80's and 90's vampire novels that have a historical feel to them.

I can't believe there hasn't been a 2nd book published after The Golden's ending!! It begs for a sequel...I need to know what happens in the East! Anyway, I loved everything about this book, from the prose to the setting to the characters to the story. It was a gritty, dark, gothic, sensual, harrowing, creative journey that pulled me in from the beginning. From "the Mystery" to the Patriarch, from the dark castle to Alexandra, it was a great vampire read. I loved how Mr. Shepard hinted at various powers the vampires had, showing us some but only imagining others. A great read that I recommend to any fans of vampire novels, the supernatural, the gothic setting and overall dark fantasy/horror.

This is a beautifully written novel. The Golden has replaced George R.R. Martin's Fevre Dream as my favorite vampire novel ever. I would love to see a sequel to this book, too.

This wonderfully entertaining novel was my first exposure to Shepard's writing, and it most definitely won't be the last. Some readers may complain about Shepard's verbose style, but I thought that the prose was pitch-perfect: The novel appears almost as if it were written in the mid-nineteenth century, which is appropriate (and convincing) considering the setting. Shepard only falters once or twice. For example, I don't recall too many nineteenth-century novels containing the f-word. (I have nothing against profanity, but its use here jarred me out of the tale.) Nevertheless, I give the book five stars, because it is 1) tremendously entertaining and 2) a great introduction to Lucius Shepard. I cannot wait to read more of his works.

I found the plot and images entertaining enough to keep my interest throughout the story, but I couldn't help thinking that I was really reading a murder mystery instead of a horror novel. The basis of the story seemed like the classic 'a body was found in a room where all of the windows and doors where locked from the inside'. The only difference being that some of the cast of characters where vampires.

That being said I really would give it a 4 star rating as a pure mystery novel. I was guessing until the end and I thought all of the loose ends were very neatly wrapped-up. It is just that as a pure horror novel that I would only give it a 2 star rating. I suppose my 3 star rating is the average of the two.

My original comparison for this book was Gene Wolfe writing an issue of Marvel Comics' "Tomb of Dracula." This is not a "mean" comparison. I tend to use Wolfe when I want to compare a someone to the pinnacle of excellent writing in a genre (I compare Wolfe himself to Borges or Shakespeare, depending on how effusive I'm feeling). And, as far as comics go, I liked "Tomb of Dracula." But, on the other hand, I am damning Shepard with faint praise as well. Although The Golden has some excellent writing in it the novel ultimately strikes me as unfulfilling. There's a lot of wonderful visuals and high language, but underneath that, it's still a comic book This is also well worth reading if you are a Shepard fan. But I'd hesitate to recommend this blindly.

I honestly have no idea what The Golden was about. I remember some irrelevant "mistery", I recall some ultra-cliche ancient vampire called The Patriarch, some interesting writing style which often spawned pointless paragraphs, and the thing I remember the most is that I really liked to book cover. And its the only thing I truly liked about this book... except the writing style... at times.

Oh and it feels as if the writer really wanted to write about sex, but didn't have the courage to actualy go into details so he settled for kid-friendly descriptions of his fantasies.

As for all else... one thing is certain: Lucius Shepard ain't my writer of choice and I sure won't be buying any more of his works.