Golem 100 [Hardcover]

Alfred Bester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1980

Regina and her bee-ladies, bored members of the elite, while away the idle hours by playing at conjuring the Devil - a game which leads to horrifying consequences. Alfred Bester's other novels include "Tiger, Tiger", "Extro" and "The Demolished Man".

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (April 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671253212
• ISBN-13: 978-0671253219
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,627,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark, twisted foray into the world of the subconcious, November 17, 2001

By 

Michael_GR "preacher_mg" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Golem 100 (Paperback)

This book represents all of Bester's trademarks - psychology. twisted humor, fast action, eccentric characters - taken to the extreme. The book is about a group of bored rich houswifes who dabble in magic to avert tedium and manage, without their knowing, to actually summon a demon. A small group of misfits - BLaise Shima, a scent expert, Gretchen Nunn, a detective, and Inspector Ind'dni, hunt for the source of the Demon who terrorizes the city.
The Science in this science fiction book is psychology, mainly Jungian psychoanalysis. In this book the world of the collective subconcious comes to life.
The world in Golem^100 is the sort of demented corporate-run future described in Bester's earlier work, The Computer Connection. Here it's described in even darker tones.
There's a lot of dark humor in Golem^100, and some of it may not be to everyone's liking - if you're offended by necrophilia jokes don't read this book. If you can stomach some VERY graphic violence (with innards all over the place), twisted humor and a plot that involves mutants, demons and radioactive drugs, read this book. While not a masterwork, it's a very original, inventive, thrilling read.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun read, but inconsistent and repulsive., April 24, 2000

By 

Kenneth Thomas (Dallas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Golem 100 (Hardcover)

This is the first Bester book I have read - I've always disliked the juxtaposition of humor and horror, so there is much for me to dislike in Golem100. Quick synopsis: Several horrible murders occur in New York of 2175, and 3 dissimilar personalites come together to try to find the culprit. Golem100 occasionally succeeds as a detective/crime novel, and I found it hard to put down. It is NOT science fiction - it's more of a hallucinogenic-psycho-drama set in the future. Some of the stylistic devices are very inventive. I've heard that this book is hard to fathom - I didn't find it a difficult read, but be prepared to have your intellect taxed. It's basically a pornographic version of "Fantasic Planet".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Senseeing and Seesensing, September 11, 2005

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Golem 100 (Paperback)

This old book doesn't quite have the immortal greatness of Bester's two masterpieces, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man. Those two classics deserve to be rediscovered due to their sheer relentless weirdness and Bester's very strange and vivid imagination. After one has digested those two novels, Golem^100 becomes a little easier to handle, though that weirdness is still there in spades. This one does have Bester's most fully-realized and well-crafted characters, as these unique personalities try to battle an interdimensional demon by trying to travel to its world, through the use of weird drugs and esoteric rituals. Bester does incredible things with human (and inhuman) psychology here, as mind expansion starts to cross the lines between psychic realms and even between good and evil. The illustrated portions of the novel, highlighting trips to these dark realms, could be better artistically, but this is a very audacious method of visual storytelling. Note that this book does have some scenes of horrendous brutality and degradation that could be a turn-off for some readers, and a few sections written in stream-of-consciousness or hipster slang are getting pretty dated. But this is another case of Bester's truly cracked and bizarre imagination, and his very small number of novels places him far above sci-fi writers who have written dozens and dozens. But sometimes you really have to wonder what this guy was on... [~doomsdayer520~]