Golem 100

by Alfred Bester

In a mega-city of the future...They were nice ladies, really. Just bored. And they never expected to succeed. But intoning ancient rituals to raise the devil, they unwittingly began a rampage of rape, torture and murder. For they concocted a new devil, Golem100. And the Golem continues to grow...Tracking the monstrous path of depravity are three super Gretchen Nunn, beautiful, black master of psychodynamics; Blaise Shima, her brilliant chemist lover; and the shrewd policeman Subadar Ind'dni. Their hunt takes them into real and subliminal worlds of dazzling intensity, through the heart of the collective unconscious and beyond...where they battle for their souls and for the survival of humanity.But even these three super intelligences are up against their limits. For now the Golem has acquired a new identity. And the Golem continues to grow...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Collections, Science Fiction Fantasy, American

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books.

Though successful in all these fields, he is best remembered for his science fiction, including The Demolished Man, winner of the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953, a story about murder in a future society where the police are telepathic, and The Stars My Destination, a 1956 SF classic about a man bent on revenge in a world where people can teleport, that inspired numerous authors in the genre and is considered an early precursor to the cyberpunk movement in the 1980s.

AKA:
Άλφρεντ Μπέστερ (Greek)

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

In praise of the one star rating.

Good reads should have five stars and then a DNF – did not finish. Because just as love is not the opposite of hate, indifference is the opposite of love, the one star is that rarest of accolades, the book so bad you want to finish.

Many people have a favorite book or a list of the best novels they've ever read. This book falls on the opposite side of the spectrum - the worst book. I trudged through and finished this out of morbid curiosity.

So, what is this about? A lot of things really. Bester casts as his protagonist a professional perfume smeller (perhaps unique in all of literature - if not let me know) and about a hive mentality, and the Palestine Liberation Organization being a world power and about over-population, and satanic rituals and demonic summoning. Bester's work is maybe ambitious, maybe absurdist magical realism, maybe it could even be considered by some to be good. I am at heart a to-each-his-own libertarian.

China Miéville described it as "an extraordinary, troublesome, sometimes sadistic work that will shock you with its grotesquerie and sexual violence, but also, with a less uneasy tremor, with its disrespect for text. Several early pages are taken up by a musical score, but Chapter 13 is the revelation. It is structured by Jack Gaughan's full-page illustrations, around and through which words must find their way. The images are the engine, organizing what language there is, invoking awe and, on the last page, an irruption of sudden textless terror… [a] nastily visionary S.F. dystopia."


OK, China, if you say so.

[Tine! · Rating 4 out of 5]

I*F ** U ** D*I*D*N*T ** L*I*K*E ** I*T ** T*H*E*N ** U ** D*I*D*N*T ** G*E*T ** I*T

ha. I’ve always wanted to write a review like that.

This is a book that I am positive Robert Anton Wilson a) has definitely read and b) enjoyed. Containing nearly every sacrilegious and unholy thing, it asks you to consider not only the plot, which itself asks you to consider the psyche of the characters upholding said plot, but also your own psyche and the psyche of your contemporaries upholding the society around you. Ken u handle eet?


Unexpectedly feminist.

[Viggo Hultman Gräslund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alfred Bester you bastard.

This is the most bizarre book I have ever read. Almost every single aspect of it baffles me. It is incredibly dense in different concepts and ideas, all of them batshit insane in at least three different ways. The book throws a googol of different things at the proverbial wall but coats them all in glue beforehand to assure they'll all stick, no matter if they deserve to or not. Absurd ideas are mentioned in passing as if they were the most normal thing in the world, and then never once brought up again.

I, for the most part, thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this book. I am not sure whether I was laughing with it most of the time, or at it. It is at the same time dark and misanthropic, whilst being goofy as all hell and unable to take itself or anything seriously, depicting one of the most bizarre dystopian futures I've ever seen. It is entirely bleak and hopeless, and yet not a single character seems to care at all. The "old world" is referenced heavily, but only to demonstrate how little anyone seems to actually care about it.

A decent chunk of the book is comprised of images, mostly abstract, which are almost all quite visually interesting. One of the very few things I feel confident in my opinion about, is that the illustrations were quite well done and made for an interesting change of pace. The fucking around with different fonts (and the text in general) is something I quite liked in one of Bester's previous novels, The Stars My Destination, but It felt a little overused in this novel, and wasn't as well connected to the narrative.

The book is completely unafraid of shocking the reader. Basically any content warning you could come up with could apply to this book to some extent. Absolutely horrid actions (a decent amount of sexual violence, for instance) and words (a lot of what at least today would be considered slurs) pass by the pages without being given a second glance. And yet this particular part doesn't feel particularly spiteful. I never got the feeling that Bester held any hate towards any particular group (save perhaps humanity as a whole). The competent characters (of which there are few, I might add) are mostly non-white, and having a black woman with plenty of agency be the protagonist of your old-timey sci-fi book was a nice change of pace, even if she was written by a white man. The book also seems to want to be seen as strangely feminist, at least towards the end (which I won't spoil, though I'm not sure if I even could).

The book is an incredible time capsule of the time it was written in. There are tons of references to the pop-psychology of the adult years of Bester's life, with the concepts of Freud and Jung being exhibited multiple times both explicitly and implicitly.

I really don't know what to think of this book. I do not regret reading it, but it is a book that I would essentially never recommend to anyone I know. That being said, I enjoyed because of how god damned insane it was. If you've read this review and thought it sounds interesting, and you're willing to put up with a lot of bullshit, then by all means do give it a look.

For my rating, I've decided to eschew trying to determine any kind of "objective quality" and am going purely on enjoyment in the moment of reading. Trying to rate this book on quality is a task I leave for any soul brave enough to try it (braver than me, at least).

[The Final Song ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alfred how much drugs did you take?
ALL OF THEM
I appreciate what was he trying to do with all the typography changes and illustrations but damn it really gets confusing at the end.
I liked mostly because of that thought.
It had been a long time since i read something so strange and fascinating.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read three other books by Sci-Fi author Alfred Bester before I tried Golem100. His stories, so far anyway, are quirky and strange. Golem took awhile for me to get into and was easy to put down, but that is partially due to my reading habits of late. I think I can safely say that Golem is style over substance.

OK, so what's it about? Sheesh! Trick questions much. The story is set in a future New York City, now call The Guff. A group of women get together and try to summon the devil, unsuccessfully in their minds. But at the same time a series of horrendous murders take place in the city. A trio of individuals, beautiful Gretchen Nunn, a master of psychodynamics, Blaise Shima, a chemist and her lover and finally homicide policeman Subadar Ind-Dni. They discover that what they call a Golem is committing the murders.

OK, so that's the gist of the story, which will delve into a drug that is powerful and brings the experimenters, Blaise and Gretchen at first, into some other dimension. This is described in such an interesting fashion with drawings by Sci-Fi artist Jack Gaughan. As I mentioned, style over substance. Does the story matter? Well, yes, of course, but it's presented in a fascinating fashion, stream of consciousness, songs in all languages, drawings, etc. Does the ending matter? Well, it does end. The characters are quirky, intelligent, sexy... the city is kind of like Philip Dick's portrayal of, is it LA?, in Blade Runner, but on steroids.

Check it out anyway. Bester is worth trying. (3.5 stars)

[Temucano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compleja obra. El comienzo es difícil, lento, además que ya había leído "La fuga de cuatro horas", cuento insertado en los primeros capítulos, por lo que tampoco había mucha novedad. Sin embargo a medida que avanza la trama y se llega a los viajes con Prometio, la cosa cambia, se ligan las ideas y se le agarra el gusto a la vida en la Patraña. Igual es una voladura de aquellas, con páginas enteras de manchas y dibujos raros, producto de la ingesta de esa peligrosa droga, utilizada para encontrar al asesino pero con la que nunca volverás a ser el mismo.

Puede ser extraña y violenta , pero creo la última parte arregla todo el libro. Lo mejor, las "fiestecitas" de la Patraña, los crímenes del Golem y Gretchen Nunn, por supuesto.
(14.10.2004)

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of this novel deserves the highest rating possible, but the ending is so inexplicably demented (even for Bester) that I can't call it perfect. An absolutely bizarre and unique work. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to this author.

[VanHalen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite my love of all things weird in modern majickal horror/sci-fi, there seems to be a limit of crazy hodge-podge ideas that one can cram into approximately 400 pages. I suspect that the limit is learned from my prior exposure to authors such as Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers, Raymond Feist and Roger Zelazny.

I am certain that I heard all of them indicate that Alfred Bester was amongst the best in this style of writing... but Golem 100 reaches my tolerance of scientific/majickal riffing craziness about 12 memes before the end of the book. TOO MUCH... TOO SENSITIVE... GAH!

There is no doubt of the brilliance of the man. This shit is tight and fast, but so overwhelming that I am amazed that I completed the book.

[John Tye · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite his prominent status in the science fiction world, Bester produced a relatively small volume of work in the genre. That makes it a treat to find something of his you've not previously read. Unless, of course, it turns out to be this book.

The novel's concept is not completely without merit, with an interesting combination of characters. Unfortunately, the writing does not rise to a particularly high standard, and what is obviously meant to pass for cleverness feels forced and contrived. The sex and violence that fill the pages seem worse than gratuitous--the kinds of things that work in Bester's other novels are just poorly executed here.

[Peteralee1 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely odd. I've some of Bester's other works and really enjoyed it, but this was just too disjointed and strange for me to get in into. I forced myself to finish, hoping that something coherent would emerge, but unfortunately it never did.

Skip it.

[Jonathan Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frenetic, acid trip. Compellingly satirical and spontaneous but too often sadistic and self-indulgent. 3 stars for the sheer curiosity.

[Eros Fratini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bester ha scritto cose decisamente più interessanti.

Questo Golem 100 (che poi sarebbe Golem^100) è un grottesco esperimento stilistico così tipico del periodo in cui è stato scritto, la fine degli anni settanta, da risultare quasi prevedibile nei suoi "effetti speciali", e pure nei contenuti.
Contenuti che poi ci sono, molti, forse troppi. Bester qui tratta gli argomenti più disparati: droghe, criminalità, sovrappopolazione, ricerca d'identità, psicanalisi, subconscio, inconscio collettivo, e chi più ne ha più ne metta.
Il romanzo si sviluppa attorno agli omicidi e le violenze efferate compiute da un'entità evocata da un gruppo di distinte signore tramite un'anacronistica messa nera nella New York del 2175. Il Golem così liberato è una specie di incarnazione dell'Id dell'umanità, che semina distruzione nella soddisfazione delle sue pulsioni primarie: quelle erotiche e quelle aggressive.

Niente da eccepire, fin qui. Quello che realmente non và in questo romanzo è la forma, più che la sostanza.
Lo stile di scrittura è scanzonato, musicale, fatto di ripetizioni e di dialoghi con una ritmica che ricorda quella del teatro. I personaggi sono necessariamente delle macchiette. Sono VOLUTAMENTE delle macchiette, che recitano un copione in una parodia spinta fino al grottesco dell'ideale umano che incarnano.
Il testo è inoltre intervallato da molte illustrazioni di Jack Gaughan, che ne accentuano il carattere psichedelico, ma che contribuiscono in realtà solo a rafforzare l'aspetto avant-garde dell'opera.

In sintesi: arrivare alla fine è stato un atto di volontà. L'idea nuda e cruda che è alla base del "romanzo" è interessante, ma lo stile manieristico e artificioso lo rendono veramente ostico.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the 90s JMS named a character Alfred Bester. I went and found everything I could written by him and I enjoyed it as classic scifi. I thought I had read everything by him, as there were only 3 books in the reprint series I had. Then I randomly found this in the oxfam last week. Written in 1980 and totally fucked up! The main characters were a Black woman, a French/Japanese/Irish man and an Indian policeman who was also gay. There was also a butch character married to a (woman) rabbi.
I had not been expecting that! The story was a little insane kinda like PKD in that it was a distopian future, with all kinds of craziness, and a bunch of bored rich women trying to summon the devil but creating an evil golem instead. The book incorporates a bunch of pictures as the characters travel to a different dimension and I loved that. There is also a LOT of rape, and slurs of every description. The ending was a little dissatisfying. Like poor things there seemed to be freedom through a lot of sex (and death) and it ended up being as destructive as the original group. So it could be a message that women cause trouble even when they are trying to do good? But it was too incoherent for much of a message. I just enjoyed the wildness of it. And it gave me nightmares. So I didn't enjoy it all. But I'm really glad I found it.

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

A experiment gone heinously awry. Tell me that I can read a book about detective work in a psychedelically-induced alternate existence where a coven of accidental witches have conjured a monster from the subconscious and I'll be signing on the dotted line every single time. Unfortunately, Bester is so convinced of his cleverness that scenes consist mainly of limp repartee, and when he's not finding a way to make racially charged comments, he's almost inevitably bringing up sexual assault.

There are a staggering number of references to sexual assault that seem to be intended as jokes. Including an entire chapter dedicated to it near the end of the book. It's not satire, not a social commentary, half the time it doesn't feel like he's trying to shock the reader. It just feels like he legitimately finds it funny. Tough to get through.

Apparently he took a long break from writing and then this was published about a year before he died at the age of 73. Contemporary critics suggested that it never should have been published, and I can't say I disagree.

If you happen on a copy, there's some good psychedelic art interspersed through the acid trip scenes, but I don't recommend venturing any further.

[Kyle Trimper · Rating 3 out of 5]

In an overcrowded New York of the distant future in which society has become even more stratified and water is the ultimate luxury, a group of bored housewives decide to try to summon the Devil using black magic rituals. Meanwhile, a chemist who creates new products for perfume company finds himself having memory lapses and finding himself involved in a series of horrific murders. Together with the private investigator hired by his employers to follow him, he discovers that the ladies have created some sort of psychic demon that acts out the unconscious desires of their collective psyche.

"Weird" is an understatement for this novel, full of psychobabble gobbledygook and awkward, expositional dialogue, but the premise is interesting, even if the end result doesn't live up to its promised potential, and the use of illustrations to show the protagonists' voyage into the world of their subconscious is novel and unique. Furthermore, the three main protagonists being persons of colour makes this novel a bit ahead of its time, and should make it ultra-readable to today's audiences.

It's certainly strange and certainly transgressive, but think of it as a William Burroughs story a la Naked Lunch, adapted into something resembling a conventional narrative structure.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very different book. Set in a futuristic dystopia, Northeastern US ultra-megapolis. A small group (coven?) of women conjures up a demon who is committing murder -- or maybe one of the protagonists is committing the murders?

Good points about the book: the word-play; the hectic flow of ideas and memes. There were quite a few places where I found words and concepts that were new to me.

Less good points: the plot starts of off nice, but goes of in somewhat weird tangents. The excessive violence and sex and sixties counterculture, albeit done light-heartedly, get somewhat tiresome after a while. The ending seems to not have that much to do with the beginning.

The plot is somewhat along the lines of Stranger Things (the netflix show) blended with Neuromancer. It probably deserves four stars, but I would have problems recommending to someone, so I downgraded it to three stars.

[Paul Raised · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10 I find the book full of hilarious ideas. I mean there’s someone named Yenta Calienta... I don't see why some people hate it so much. It's a bit out there, but once you get used to the style of the narrative, it flows fine for the most part.

That said, the main characters are completely bonkers and the others even more so. In a way it makes them so alien that no one is relatable, not even remotely.
The ending comes apart and fails to deliver a satisfying answer to the main plot, dropping the score from 6 to a 4.

Some parts of the book go a bit mad with surreal stuff, and the writing turns a bit convoluted.

Perhaps taking key concepts from the plot and rewriting everything might work better. As it is I would not recommend this.

[Kunal Lal · Rating 2 out of 5]

An odd and remarkable book, more of a literary experiment than a novel. The 2 star rating is for the plot, ideas, characters etc. The sort of things you expect from a fantasy novel. But this isn't a novel, its a desperate attempt by an aging artist to re-invent story telling. Pages of unreadable stream of consciousness ramblings, eye-catching art work in place of paragraphs, strange and abrupt shifts of narrative. At times brilliant, at times maddeningly convoluted, at times just silly.
You can read it if you fancy something different.

[Ian Kinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid Bester, fast-paced, constantly imaginative and going in unexpected directions, and loaded with little touches to paint the medium--maybe too many, in fact. Still not up to the heights of The Stars My Destination or The Demolished Man, but a good second-string novel alongside The Computer Connection. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it if you aren't already interested in Bester's style, though.

[Soraya]

This is weird. Similar to Harlan Ellison, Bester uses words I have to keep the dictionary handy for. And it's weird. But - if I concentrated, I could follow it. Unlike Harlan's weirdest writings, many of which I finish and still have no idea what they're about. I haven't figured out if I want to keep this in my library or not.

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I'm not as into psychedelia as I once was. Fun premise, tons of sex and violence, all major characters people of color or white women... but ultimately the spectacle didn't sustain the narrative. Well, hey, it got me through a plane ride...

[Michael Ciucci · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book SUCKS! Written as if Bester were on LSD. It took all my Intestinal Fortitude to actually finish this crap. I don't mind weird but al least make it semi-comprehensible. I get it but I just hated it!

[Daragh O'Toole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this sometime in the mid to late 80's. A quick review of the review here will give you a hint of why this wasn't a book any impressionable teenager should be reading. I remember thinking it was brilliant. Which explains a lot.

[Monty Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it. Sorry.

[Vanyo666 · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a train wreck of a book. Bizarre and undercooked, it is a cringe-fest with tons of filler. What is one to make of those graphics pages? Or the characters' "apology tour" adding unnecessary anecdotes?

Let's say, for all I loved about for instance Computer Connection, this is a jumbled mess of gimmicks and silly games that ultimately do not make much sense in the service of a pseudo psychological romp.

Mildly entertaning but only sporadically, this feels like a brilliant mind going to waste.

[A B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completely unhinged.

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We can't all be monsters," Shima protested.
"Deep down inside, in our Underworld, we are. Up here, at the top of the iceberg, we censor and control it; but what happens when that brute beast in us escapes control, breaks out of the cage, and runs wild? Then you have Golem 100."
"How does it break out of the cage?"
"Sharpen a wit, baby. the bee-ladies get together in Regina's hive. They play witchcraft games. Of course they never succeed in raising the Devil because he doesn't exist. That's just folklore."
Shima nodded.
"But their ids combine to form a different demon. there isn't any inferno, but there is an Infraworld, and our remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless ids live down there. The ladies' libidos merge down there and that's the genesis of the Golem."

It must be over twenty-five years since the first time I read this book, but I had always wanted to find another copy and re-readit, even though I didn't remember much about it at all; just the the idea of women as bees with a Queen Bee called Regina and a couple of memorable scenes (bumping into the furniture and what happened to Shima at the end). Gretchen and Regina had merged together in my memory and I didn't remember any of the other characters, or what the Golem was, or any of the many other scenes of sex and violence. Eventually I posted what I did remember on a book identification site, and someone recognised it as Golem 100 so I was able to buy a secondhand copy online.

To start with, I was finding my re-read a disappointment, as the characters are very arch and pretentious, not just the bee ladies, but also Gretchen and especially Subadar, and every time they spoke I was grinding my teeth in irritation. But when Gretchen and Shima started their investigation into the Phasmaworld and whole chapters of the book were filled with illustrations of what they were senseeing (sensing/seeing) there, with only a sentence or two per page, my interest grew.

I may be being generous, but I think I'll give it 4 stars for being the weirdest book I have ever read and because I really liked the illustrated sections.

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

My rule, when I’m not enjoying as book, is to read the first fifty pages before I stop reading it. (The rule is Nancy Pearl’s from her Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason.) I couldn’t even read that much of this dreck; I read to page 39.

The plot as far as I read: A group of wealthy ladies get together to summon Satan because they are bored. And they keep doing it, because they think they have been unsuccessful. Meanwhile, there are a series of awful, horrific crimes. I love the author’s The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man. I bought this from Mysteries & More in Hobart, NY for $2.80 on 11/27/15.

[Woolsyzygy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crazy and horrifying. His prose and use of illustration make it a frantic mess, but by the end, it congeals into a haunting, thought-provoking conclusion. Bester has always speculated about how the human race will take its next evolutionary step and has never been afraid to explore bizarre possibilities. The 23rd century New York is a dystopia swallowed by the hip, tragic, and goofy drug/refugee culture; The Golem100 is a pretty far-fetched, almost absurd, monster; the characters who rise against it are clever and stereotypical libertines. Yet however crazy his settings and characters are, he arranges it in such a way that makes me deliberate over the themes of sexuality, primal urges, and human evolution.

[Logan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crap. I only read about 120 pages and then skipped around to see if it ever started making any sense, but, no. It's just crap. Poorly written, uninteresting crap with terrible dialogue and ridiculous characters and a stoooopid premise. Hard to believe the same guy that wrote THE DEMOLISHED MAN and THE STARS MY DESTINATION and all those dozens of great short stories could spread his legs and drop a load like this one. Ah well.