Viator [Hardcover]

Lucius Shepard (Author), John Picacio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2005

Quartered aboard the freighter, Viator, run aground twenty years before on a remote section of the Alaskan coast, the four men hired to determine the ship's worth at salvage have begun to exhibit a variety of eccentric behaviors. They've become obsessed with Viator to the point that the world beyond seems of consequence only as it relates to the ship. When their putative leader, Thomas Willander, is afflicted by a series of disturbing dreams, he concludes that something on board may be responsible for their erraticism. He seeks the help of a woman in the nearby village of Kaliaska and together they initiate an investigation into the history of Viator, hoping to learn, among other things, why the ship was run aground and who was the mysterious man who hired the four. But their efforts may be too late. The men, whose eccentrities are now verging on the insane, show no sign of intending to abandon their new home, compelled by Viator's eerie allure. To make matters worse, winter will soon be setting in, ominous incidences of sound and light are issuing from the forest surrounding the ship, and Willander's dreams may be coming true...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Filled with long, beautiful sentences that play out like never-ending riffs from a jazz musician's horn, the new novel by World Fantasy Award–winner Shepard works as a stylistic experiment and as a short, edgy look at the intricacies of fate and the power each individual may or may not have over his own destiny. Housed aboard Viator, an abandoned ship off the coast of Alaska, Thomas Wilander is a man with a failed past and an uncertain future. Hoping the salvage job on Viator will be a springboard to a new life, Wilander is disturbed to find that his four workmates are behaving erratically, perhaps suffering from mental instability. When Wilander strikes up a relationship with Arlene, a woman in the nearby town of Kaliaska, the four men resent it and retreat further from Wilander and reality. With Arlene's help, Wilander investigates Viator's past and the origins of the mysterious man who hired him, eventually learning that some of the answers may lie in his own dreams, which seem to be coming true. Shepard's smooth, flowing prose aptly mirrors Wilander's delusion-laden mind and makes for an enriching read.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 170 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Edition edition (July 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892389444
• ISBN-13: 978-1892389442
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,355,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but gorgeous., April 27, 2005

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Viator (Hardcover)

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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slender novel is another great work by Shepard, May 19, 2005

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Viator (Hardcover)

Lucius Shepard is yet another of science fiction's elegant stylists, and a founding member of its cyberpunk movement. Unfortunately he may be the least known, most underrated American writer of elegant fictional prose. "Viator" is an excellent meditation of madness and love as seen through the eyes of Thomas Wilander, who wonders whether he is losing his mind while living aboard the nearly derelict freightor Viator, now beached permanently in an Alaskan coastal forest. We are thrust into a surrealistic fantastical landscape that's most reminiscent of tales penned by Edgar Allen Poe and especially, H. P. Lovecraft. Wilander finds some solace and love in Arlene, a local resident. And yet, having found reality in the form of Arlene, Wilander still wonders whether the strange dreams he has nightly are visions of his future, and that of the beached freightor. He finally obtains the truth about the ship's enigmatic history from the vessel's mysterious absentee owner. But is this sufficient knowledge enough for Wilander to save his mind, soul, and his love for Arlene? Long-time admirers of Shepard's fiction, as well as those new to it, will enjoy greatly this fine little novel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars risks of wonder, February 16, 2005

By 

Vince Scoggins (Taylors, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Viator (Hardcover)

VIATOR is a lovely outing, with some of Shepard's most luminous prose to date. The plot of the novel is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's flawed masterpiece, "Arthur Gordon Pym," and like "Pym," VIATOR's ending is far from satisfying. But this ending accounts for only 14 or so of the book's 170 pages and in no way dims the lush and illuminant prose that precedes.

A gorgeous meditation on how the landscapes of the psyche, of madness, of love, of self-loathing, and--just perhaps--of other worlds can line up in precise moments of synchronicity and violence. One of the few true novels of the sublime to appear in some time: mindful on every page that the purest wonder is always shot through with danger, doubt, and despair.