Viator

by Lucius Shepard

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...

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Weird Fiction, Science Fiction, Novels, Fiction

170 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Brief biographies are, like history texts, too organized to be other than orderly misrepresentations of the truth. So when it's written that Lucius Shepard was born in August of 1947 to Lucy and William Shepard in Lynchburg, Virginia, and raised thereafter in Daytona Beach, Florida, it provides a statistical hit and gives you nothing of the difficult childhood from which he frequently attempted to escape, eventually succeeding at the age of fifteen, when he traveled to Ireland aboard a freighter and thereafter spent several years in Europe, North Africa, and Asia, working in a cigarette factory in Germany, in the black market of Cairo's Khan al Khalili bazaar, as a night club bouncer in Spain, and in numerous other countries at numerous other occupations. On returning to the United States, Shepard entered the University of North Carolina, where for one semester he served as the co-editor of the Carolina Quarterly. Either he did not feel challenged by the curriculum, or else he found other pursuits more challenging. Whichever the case, he dropped out several times and traveled to Spain, Southeast Asia (at a time when tourism there was generally discouraged), and South and Central America. He ended his academic career as a tenth-semester sophomore with a heightened political sensibility, a fairly extensive knowledge of Latin American culture and some pleasant memories.

Toward the beginning of his stay at the university, Shepard met Joy Wolf, a fellow student, and they were married, a union that eventually produced one son, Gullivar, now an architect in New York City. While traveling cross-country to California, they had their car break down in Detroit and were forced to take jobs in order to pay for repairs. As fortune would have it, Shepard joined a band, and passed the better part of the 1970s playing rock and roll in the Midwest. When an opportunity presented itself, usually in the form of a band break-up, he would revisit Central America, developing a particular affection for the people of Honduras. He intermittently took odd jobs, working as a janitor, a laborer, a sealer of driveways, and, in a nearly soul-destroying few months, a correspondent for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, a position that compelled him to call the infirm and the terminally ill to inform them they had misfiled certain forms and so were being denied their benefits.

In 1980 Shepard attended the Clarion Writers’ Workshop at Michigan State University and thereafter embarked upon a writing career. He sold his first story, "Black Coral," in 1981 to New Dimensions, an anthology edited by Marta Randall. During a prolonged trip to Central America, covering a period from 1981-1982, he worked as a freelance journalist focusing on the civil war in El Salvador. Since that time he has mainly devoted himself to the writing of fiction. His novels and stories have earned numerous awards in both the genre and the mainstream.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well written literary short novel with a distinct feeling of surrealism or perhaps a descent into madness. It has some of the longest sentences I've encountered in the genre, rambling and rococo constructs that circle in and around themselves. Set on a remote Alaskan coast on a freighter which has run aground, it's a character study of the men who have come to study the wreck for possible scrap salvage... but not really. The ending is rather abrupt and unsatisfying, or I would have rated in more favorably.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A derelict ship lies embedded in a forest outside the tiny Alaskan town of Kaliaska. Five damaged men live aboard, hired by an enigmatic Swede ostensibly to prepare the ship for salvage. As the growing mania associated with their so-called 'work' on Viator fuels their existing caginess, the men retreat further into individual obsessions that may or may not be bleeding into a shared vision of a future destination for Viator and its crew. The narrative closely follows Thomas Wilander, the one recruited for the 'captain' role, as he experiences a transformation in his feelings toward this strange new job, moving from initial resistance to grudging adaptation and eventual transcendent embrace. Along the way he establishes a relationship with a woman who operates a trading post in Kaliaska. This human connection to the world outside Viator proves to be both a hindrance and a lifeline as Willander's consciousness fuses ever tighter with the mystical rusting freighter teetering on the edge of two worlds.

Wind swayed the linden boughs; the clustered leaves rustled and appeared to be spinning, clever, shiny green paddles registering the flow of light and air; the hidden metal-throated bird gave its long, declining cry. Wilander had an eerie feeling of dislocation, as if—were he to turn around—he would discover that the walls and body of the ship had dissolved and he would see, instead, a forest and, below, a lagoon and a city.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A troubling(is there any other kind) journey into madness with hints of Lovecraft, Ballard, and John Carpenter’s The Thing, featuring long, winding sentences, bizarre imagery, and great characters. The ending is almost as weak as a “then I woke up” ending, but the journey there is worth it and you can take it or leave it in context of what came before.

[Bbrown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review of the expanded edition of Viator published by Concord Free Press, which has a greatly expanded ending compared to the shorter first edition. Even expanded, though, the ending is not Viator's main strength, instead it's the first four fifths of the book where Lucius Shepard gives a unique twist on a haunted house story that avoids many of the problems that plague the subgenre. Does the book as a whole hold up even after the story takes an abrupt left turn in its final fifth? I would say so, but I understand why many people would disagree.

The setting of the book is the titular Viator, a tanker ship run aground into the woods of the Alaskan coast, now inhabited by five down-and-out men of Scandinavian descent. These five have been tasked by a mysterious employer named Lunde to determine the salvage value of the ship. But, as one of the characters points out early in the story, such a salvage makes no sense, so Lunde must have another reason for sending people to occupy the wrecked vessel. I appreciated the narrative being upfront about this, rather than using it as an unsatisfying "surprise" reveal deeper into the book. It's difficult to speak more about Viator without going into parts of its story, so spoilers ahead:

Of the five men, the most recent addition to the crew is main character Thomas Wilander, sober now after a downward spiral of alcohol and drugs that lasted years and that has left him a shell of his former self. The other four inhabitants of the ship are all some degree of strange, all of them having become obsessed with various aspects of the ship. Wilander, though initially rational, eventually starts experiencing bizarre phenomena himself. In a normal haunted house story, this is the point where you start wondering why the hell the protagonist doesn’t just leave, but in Viator him sticking around is understandable: Wilander was, before Viator, a homeless, jobless recovering drug addict, so his reluctance to leave the ship and lose his newly acquired livelihood makes sense. You also get the feeling that Wilander is the type that hates leaving a job half done. He also tends to intellectualize what he’s experiencing, thus minimizing its importance (the jargon-littered language in the beginning of the book reflects Wilander doing this). Together these factors combine to justify why Wilander stays on the ship long enough for obsession to get its hooks into him as well.

At first, the obsession is subtle, with Wilander seeing images in the splotches of the ships walls and sketching them, mirroring the obsessions of some of the other Scandinavians that haunt the ship. But then Wilander falls deeper under the thrall of what he’s seeing and begins to name the land that is appearing to him, becoming its author. When he does so, the things he envisions begin to manifest in reality, and even people from the nearby town not involved with the Viator seem to witness these manifestations (this is a plot hole given the ending, I believe). In this way Viator is the story of a symbiotic haunted house, one that is shaping, but simultaneously being shaped by, the people inhabiting it.

Near the halfway point of the book, Wilander and fellow salvager Mortensen, almost certainly the most mysterious character in the book, have a conversation that seemingly explains what is happening, namely that the ship Viator has somehow come alive and is straining to reach a different dimension, the dimension that Wilander has been mapping. Wilander becomes devoted to this journey, and the ship and its environs seem to become part of a different world, such that when characters from town suddenly appear aboard Viator it's shocking. Wilander himself devolves, committing disgusting actions, haunted by his own imaginings. Up until this point Viator is a unique haunted house story, with a strange and evocative setting, a protagonist whose actions make more sense than most characters in horror novels, and the nature of the haunting is fascinating in its difference from the average “vengeful spirit” you get in stories like this.

But then we reach the ending, at least what was the ending in the first version of the book.

In a garbled phone call, Wilander speaks to Arlene, his girlfriend from town, whose “hacker friend” (what an incredibly cheap exposition device) found out that the Viator was carrying a bio-weapon in the form of a virus, which is apparently responsible for everything that Wilander and his fellow salvagers have been experiencing. Even the ropey flying creatures are apparently an image of the actual virus, somehow. It’s all been one big shared hallucination. In the first version of the book, after this explanation was dropped, the book abruptly ended after only a couple pages of resolution. I can understand why this would be frustrating to readers, as the original ending pulls the rug out from under you in a not very satisfying way and then it’s over. In the Concord Free Press version, however, there are two more chapters, which make up nearly a fifth of the total book.

In this new conclusion, rather than Wilander getting cured of the virus and having a hasty reconciliation with Arlene, the treatment doesn’t quite stick. Wilander therefore finds himself frequently daydreaming, the narrative entirely jettisoning the haunted house elements in favor of an imagined fantasy world in the vein of Lankhmar or something dreamed up by Clark Ashton Smith. This closing piece of Viator doesn’t attempt to be scary, and it’s not ever really suggested that Wilander is actually glimpsing a parallel world. Instead, it’s Wilander making a mental journey to finally get over his past, failed self and give life a genuine shot once more. This is a better resolution for Wilander’s character, as well as a far more nuanced and satisfying conclusion for Wilander and Arlene’s relationship as well, but it’s still such a departure from what came before it that I imagine many people will still be left dissatisfied even with this extended ending.

For me, it worked. I would have preferred if Shepard came up with a better explanation than “a virus did it,” but even from the beginning Viator was not just the story of a haunted ship, rather it was the story of Wilander and the rest of the salvagers being haunted by their past even before they stepped onto the Viator and got infected. His past failures were such a specter looming over him that Wilander could not move on with his life, could not forge a genuine connection with Arlene, could not even be honest with himself. Any satisfying conclusion required that Wilander grapple with his past, and either conquer it or succumb to it. I just wish that he had done so within the confines of a haunted house story the whole way through, instead of a last minute jaunt through low fantasy.

Beyond the plot and the expanded ending, the prose of Viator is worth mentioning. Shepard is a talented writer, with an extensive vocabulary. This is certainly among the best genre books I’ve read in a long time in terms of prose. Shepard does one thing that I can’t stand in his writing, however: He doesn’t use quotation marks. Quotation marks exist for a reason. Viator would have been better with them.

Viator starts out strong, has good prose throughout, and, while the ending will certainly rub many people the wrong way, I got what it was going for. It’s not nearly as satisfying as what came before it, however, and I certainly wish that Shepard had stuck the landing better. The finale didn’t ruin Viator for me, but it did drag it down a good bit. I’m giving this one a 3.5/5, rounding up by the slimmest of margins.

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suspect a few of my fellow Brian Evenson admirers would find plenty to enjoy here.

[Damir Salkovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review on my website.

[Kaiju Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the dragon Griaule, Viator (the ship, not the novella) is a hulking city-like force, destructive and powerful, but sedentary - hibernating. Shepard seems to go back to this metaphor in various forms, and in this instance, I think gets closest to the prize. What really works is Wikander's slow descent into the changing world around him, much like a writer - or cartographer - who must leave the shores of the normal world in search of the created one. This process, as anyone who's ever embarked on an artistic mission of any kind, can be terrifying and painful, but ultimately reveals itself to be not only necessary, but essential to life. All the more reason why the slight twist at the end of this tale I found so unfortunate. It's a hard slap against the metaphor's prow, which steers it hard back into the shores of the real world, and of course, completely kills it. Even beyond this thematically relevant disappointment, I thoroughly enjoyed the tour Shepard provided.

My primary criticism, and why Viator (3.75 stars) isn't rated higher, is Wikander's relationship with Arlene. Shepard doesn't do relationships well, at least in anything I've read, and the more sex he puts in the story, the more adolescent the relationship appears. Here, again, like in Valentine and Louisiana Breakdown, Shepard describes what's going on as if from the mind of a horny teenager. Multiple times in this short book we get descriptions of Arlene's breasts, skin, pubic area, and while I certainly have no aversion to erotica of any type (if done well) here it just comes across as male fantasy. And even worse, not super relevant to anything else going on, unless you can tie horniness and creativity together, which hell, maybe you can, but even so, it still didn't work for me.

But I hope that didn't turn you off too much, cause Shepard is an excellent writer, and one I'll keep going back to, though sadly not for much longer as I'm coming to the end of his published works. Hopefully someone will someday collect his film writing from F&SF: excellent curmudgeonly stuff.

[Dalibor Dado Ivanovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kratki roman Luciusa, kojega sam najviše upoznao u kratkim pričama. Opisi su mu odlični i zbog tih predivnih opisa dajem četvorku, a inače radnja mi je za tri.
Volio bih Viator plus nabavit ali nigdje ga ...

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read some short stories by Shepard before and liked them; this short novel was a bit more of a slog. This one featured a lot of convoluted sentences where I sometimes lost track of the grammar or sense -- in fact I think there were a couple of errors in them, subjects and verbs failing to agree after six or seven subordinate clauses. But maybe that was part of the point?

This book, weirdly, used the same strange dialogue markers as John Crowley's book-within-a-book in the Ægypt cycle. Coincidence? I imagine Shepard was familiar with Crowley and maybe stole the conceit. But it also contributed to the weird, dreamy texture of Viator. It makes the whole story seem a little further away, removed from our reality.

[Maura Heaphy Dutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise is fascinating, and the prose is as lush and tangled, and as beautiful in its way, as the weird patch of jungle on the Alaskan coast where the Not-So-Good Ship Viator has run aground under mysterious circumstances. However, another reviewer nailed it when she said that this would have made an excellent short story -- almost every scene outstays its welcome, and every exchange of dialogue goes on and on and on.

There's a big difference between stories about madness, and stories that risk driving you mad.

[Raf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could make brilliant short story.

[Heather Mccall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like weird or surreal fiction. My favorite books of the last few years were the Southern Reach Trilogy (at the top of the list) and The Vorrh. If you like that type of weird, surrealist fiction, I think you'll like Viator. It's been some years since I read it, but I remember feeling engrossed in the story and engaged with the characters.

I don't do a lot of reviews because there are others very adept at writing good reviews. But I remember this book fondly (still have it on my bookshelf along with all my Jonathan Carroll books), and it doesn't seem to have a lot a reviews, so I thought I would add my few cents.