The Golden

by Lucius Shepard

Deviating from traditional tales that feature lonely vampires who prowl through human society in search of victims or solace, this account of vampires flourishing in their own "inhuman society" takes place in the year 1860, when their centuries-long breeding experiments have finally produced "The Golden," a mortal whose blood is perfect and powerful. Mobilized by the news of this discovery, aristocratic vampire clans arrive at the looming Castle Banat, where they plan to partake of the sublime blood. To their shock, the guests find that The Golden, a young girl, has been brutally murdered and her blood already drained. The story also follows the Inspector Michael Beheim—a recent vampire—assigned to track down the killer. Recounted in full 19th-century literary style with gothic elements and foreshadowing, the inspector navigates his way through the vampire world and the crime therein.

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Gothic, Historical Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

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

[Jack Tripper · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason I think I don’t like vampire fiction, or at least there’s a slight bias against them when choosing what to read. And yet Salem’s Lot, Let the Right One In, Gary Raisor’s Less Than Human, and Skipp & Spector’s Light At the End are among my all-time favorite horror novels. Add this one to the list. I suppose a great story is a great story. But The Golden’s greatness for me was less about the story and more about the fantastic setting and creepy gothic atmosphere.

Picture a gigantic labyrinthine castle, an impossible architectural wonder filled with endless passageways (both secret and non) and staircases and underground towers and bridges which one can seemingly explore for days on end and never see it all, or even glimpse any sunlight. In fact, it’s so huge that there are forgotten people who’ve scrabbled about in the dark lower depths for ages and none of the main residents ever see them. Those main residents are a large, extended family of vampires, gathered together in the Romanian mountains in the mid-19th century for a sacred ceremony known as the Decanting, as well as to discuss the future of their race.

Only, a murder has taken place, one so egregious that it can’t go unsolved and unpunished. Young-ish vampire Roland Beheim, a Parisian policeman in his former life, is tasked by the Patriarch with solving the mystery, and he’ll have complete access to the castle, as well as to all the prominent lord and lady vampires within. Some of his cousins appear willing to aid in the investigation, while others are hiding something. But no one can be trusted.

There is so much wordbuilding and lore hinted at in these 291 pages*, enough for several books. But there are no real exposition dumps; everything is learned in snippets of conversations or in the thoughts of Beheim sprinkled here and there. There are no likable characters, unless you count the castle itself, which reminded me of Mervyn Peake’s sprawling Gormenghast in both its vastness and its many secrets within. I wanted to keep exploring it in potential future installments, but in a way it’s probably best that Shepard left a bit to the imagination.

If you need relatable characters to enjoy a story then this might not be for you. But if you think you’d fancy an intriguing whodunnit while getting lost in an endless maze of halls and secret passageways, with hints of phantasmagorical elements as well as metal automatons and possibly even a portal to Hell — oh and femmes fatales and sexual shenanigans aplenty — all with high quality 19th century-style prose, then you could do much worse than The Golden

*The 1993 Bantam mass-market is 291 pages, not the 196 listed for this edition.

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wordy. Weird. Somewhat wonderful.

Set in a huge, old castle a former human detective, now a rather new vampire, is given the task of investigating the murder of a Golden. What is a Golden? You will have to read this to find out!

I love a good vampire novel. Salem's Lot set me off, Fevre Dream, (by GRRM), set a new standard, The Delicate Dependency taught me there are entirely new places for vampires to go, and The Golden opened up an entire new world called Mystery.

Like The Delicate Dependency, Shepard brings new light to an old trope. What do you do for eternity?? Rip and tear humans or search for knowledge? In this case, fight and plot against each other and have a lot of sex? Heehee, count me in!

This is beautifully written, (albeit with some of the most run-on sentences I've ever encountered in nearly 50 years of reading.) To be honest, there were times when I sighed, faced with page after page of solid text with no dialogue. But at other times, I was fascinated with the beautiful prose, Shepard's way with words, and the descriptions of the behemoth that is Castle Banat. The descriptions of the rooms, worlds and universes within were so vivid, I had no problems visualizing the place.

Overall, I'm glad that I took the word of a few online book friends and gave this one a shot. It was unique and imaginative and now I'm kind of sad because I wanted to see what happened next.

Recommended!

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

shepard is a hell of an author. in The Golden, he almost appears to be slumming a bit... but shepard slumming is better than many a hack's best efforts. this novel combines vampires, police procedural, and historical fiction in an elegant little mystery set in the 19th century, in one of the most foreboding, mindboggling, and just plain gigantic castles this side of Gormenghast. which of the nefarious vampires slaughtered the lovely Golden before her decanting? what a waste of a ceremonial victim and certainly an upsetting way to start a vampire reunion! edgy new vampire and former detective michel is tasked with finding the killer. for such a slim tale, the mythology is notably complex and the basis for and origin of vampirism is like nothing i've read before. the prose is gorgeous and ornate, the mystery absorbing, the inevitable love story both romantic and fascinatingly sick. overall: slim... but rather brilliant.

[Maria Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

No es ningún secreto que me gustan las novelas de vampiros, y tampoco lo es que evito las de terror; así que cuando vi este libro, no tuve ningún problema en hacerme con él. (Sinceramente, llega un momento que has leído tanto sobre vampiros, que dudas que una novela de este género pueda asustarte). Y, por lo menos, en este caso ha sido así.

Lo que me ha llamado la atención de la historia es el modo en que el autor enfoca el mítico mundo de los vampiros: seres despreciables, colericos, orgullosos, dados a cualquier vicio... En fin, en cuanto a la parte romántica, que la hay, muy bien lograda.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to use this review to critic vampire fiction in general, but then I realized I haven’t really read any since reading Dracula in middle school. Anyways I believe this book is different from probably most anything in that school, as it is on one level such a parade of delirious, freakish imagery that if this was written in late 19th or early 20th century by some French guy we would all be drooling over its small print reissue by Daedelus or Exact Change. A detective story, set in a bizarre castle with more than a hint of Peake’s Gormenghast, Borges’ Library of Babel, or Shepard’s own Dragon Griaule stories, it’s a picaresque of savage and hallucinatory encounters with gates to hell, mad bibliophiles, fighting automatons, human cultists, and the odd civilization of vampires. Pulpy and literary in equal strides. Lots explicit sex and gore alongside a dearth of loveable characters may make this a bit of niche book.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange, intriguing and graced with poetic prose, The Golden effortlessly transcends genres to create a unique reading experience. After the first few pages, I expected a vampire tale, but this quickly blended fantasy, gothic and noir and ultimately became more of an existentialist tale than anything else. That stated, I get the feeling that people will take strong opinions of this one way or another.

Our main protagonist, Michel Beheim, is a recent 'convert' to the Family, having been 'turned' only a few years ago. In his prior life, Beheim had risen at a young age to become the chief of detectives in Paris circa "186-" (loved the gothic 'hat tip' so early on). The Golden begins with a grand convocation of the extended Family. The occasion? The 'decanting' of The Golden-- a human child breed for 20 generations for her exquisite blood. Factions and rifts constitute Family life, however, and soon Beheim will start peeling away the the outer layers of these divisions like an onion, only to discover deeper questions of the human condition, or should I say the undead condition, that overshadow the crime altogether.

Shortly after the novel opens, The Golden is found slaughtered atop one of the castle's towers. Beheim's mentor (and the one who turned him) manages to get him appointed (by the Patriarch no less) to solve the crime. He faces many constrains, with time being a huge factor as the Family will start to disperse in only a few days. Further, while he may have the Patriarch's 'blessing' to solve the 'affront' (crime would be the wrong word here), Beheim is still a young vampire, just coming into his powers, while his 'cousins' have had decades and centuries to polish their arts; lets just say he will face some pretty hostile suspects!

Not content with a stylish, sensual novel of vampire noir, Shephard creates a marvelous castle where this takes place. Built in the 13th century by some mad Hungarian architect, the castle is a massive edifice, standing a mile tall, filled with whimsical follies, massive caverns, strange passages (hidden or not), bizarre rooms and even strange creatures living in the depths.

Beheim has very few clues but soon a 'cousin' offers her assistance, but how far can he trust her? He knows he is playing in some larger game, one that his 'cousins' have been playing for centuries, and Beheim does not even know the rules!

Brace yourself for this one! Shephard gives us lots of twists and turns, some bizarre 'Mysteries' his cousins, and indeed, the very Patriarch flirt with, strange but beautiful depictions of a fantasy castle like no other, this really is a flight of imagination. I really enjoyed this one, but at times I got bogged down a little with the prose, so I will round this 4.5 star read down to 4. I may have to check out some of Shepherd's other work; I have only read is Life During Wartime and that was at least a few decades ago.

[Maika · Rating 1 out of 5]

Adoro los vampiros, pero esto es un folletín sexual pomposo, con palabras rimbombantes y pseudo teorías analíticas sobre la personalidad y atribulaciones del personaje, que, a propósito, es más soso que John Wayne.
Aburrriiiiidoooooo.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1860 the vampire elite gathers at Castle Banat, deep in the Carpathian mountains. They are there for The Decanting, a ceremony in which a chosen few will drink the blood of The Golden, a virgin specially bred to produce an intoxicating, subtle vintage.

OK, this sound like the setup for a 1970's Eurotrash horror film, but Shepard's tale is in my limited reading the best vampire novel since Dracula. His vampires are the traditional variety susceptible to sunlight, fire, and wooden stakes, but the society he creates for them is complex, grotesques, and always entertaining.When The Golden is found murdered, drained of blood and savagely mauled, Michel Beheim, a vampire that was once the Parisian Chief of Police, is put on the case.

One of the many genres Shepard plays with is the conventional English country house mystery, although Castle Banat is an architectural marvel that makes Gormenghast seem like a weekend getaway. It is a multi-story, multi-dimensional edifice that accomodates not only The Patriarch and the convocation of vampires, but over the centuries has become the home of a society of those who once served vampires but never made the cut to become full-fledged members of the family. These debased beings live like rats in the walls, but as is often the case with servants, they know more about what's going on than do their masters. Beheim's junior status among the aristocratic vampires also makes The Golden a coming-of-age novel. As Beheim is warned early on, he has much to learn.

Shepard's language is a balancing act of realistic narrative and purple prose. The vampires engage in decadent, sophisticated banter that is part Noel Coward and part Marquis de Sade. The violent passages are graphic and it turns out that vampires like to have a lot of sex, both with one another and their servants. Shepard writes excellent prolonged sex scenes that might be laughable if looked at a second time but fit neatly into his story.

Shepard reels off similes, metaphors, and over-the-top descriptions that seldom flag or weigh down the narrative. The only passage that falls flat is Beheim's trip into The Mysteries, an episode that reads like a ride through a carnival spook house, although admittedly one with excellent special effects.

Beheim endures a very long night packed with incidents that are at times erotic, suspenseful, repulsive, or majestic. By its conclusion readers find themselves, like its hero, shaken, disheveled, and dealing with a world that has been irremediably transformed.

[Mona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some Amazing Writing in a Fantasy Vampire Novel Marred by Major Issues



I really wish I could give this book a higher rating.

Lucius Shepard is a very gifted writer.

His baroque descriptions of the labyrinthine grotesqueries of the huge vampire stronghold in Carpathia, Castle Banat, are worth the price of admission. He's kind of the Hieronymous Bosch of fantasy writing (I mean the bizarre medieval painter, not Michael Connolly's detective who's named after him).

I could live with his often purple prose.

But...this novel had so many other issues for me.

The first problem was the characters. I never really understood or empathized with the main characters. There is Michel Beheim, the former Paris policeman turned vampire. He's courageous, ethical, and a thorough investigator, but I had trouble caring about him. He's supposed to have a conscience, and he does, until his vampire instincts take over. There's Alexandra, his beautiful vampire lover. I found her inscrutable and unsympathetic.

Then there is the dialogue. I'm guessing Shepard was going for a formality suggesting aristocrats in an indeterminate time in the past. But most of it just came off as stilted and unrealistic. Here's an example:

" 'I disagree,' she said. 'It's the easiest of all questions to answer, unless one has something to hide.'

'I don't wish to appear foolish,' he said".

The story involved Beheim in a murder investigation. A beautiful human girl, the Golden, is bred especially for the complexity and appeal of her blood. There is to be a ceremony called a "Decanting" in which she is turned into a vampire. However, her brutally murdered corpse is found in Castle Banat before the Decanting ceremony. Beheim is charged with finding the murderer.

The story did hold my attention until Beheim's descent into a hell-like dimension in search of The Patriarch, the mysterious creature in charge of Castle Banat. Things just got so incoherent there that I lost interest in the novel.

Beheim does catch the crook and it's no one you would expect it to be. But at that point, I no longer cared.

Shepard writes well enough that I'd definitely give him another chance, though. He writes in a lot of different sub-genres of fantasy. I'm hoping that he did better in another of his novels.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had my heart set on reading a vampire novel (other than Dracula) set in the Carpathians.  The Golden by Lucius Shepard is what I found.  This novel is set in the Carpathian hills of the 1860s, in the enormous, bizarre, creepy and strange Castle Banat that makes Gormenghast look tame and boring.  The vampires are sensual, conniving, not particularly nice, no longer human and they do not sparkle.  These are vampires that lust after blood (and sex - lots of it), can be killed by a wooden stake and go up in flames on contact with torches and sunlight.  There is also a fair amount of explicit sex and some gore in this book.  The murder investigation by a former Parisian police chief detective, now vampire Michel Beheim, is something of a vehicle to explore this fascinating castle and its inhabitants (residents and visitors), as well as for the main character to explore his relatively new state of being an immortal.  There is also Alexandra, his new acquaintance.  The novel is recounted in 19th century literary style, with gothic elements and foreshadowing.  The vampire mythology and world-building for this novel is particularly complex, and fairly different from anything else I've read about vampires.  I found this novel to be different and interesting, providing an entertaining reading experience.  I was absolutely thrilled when the vampires turned out to be of the nasty variety that see humans as food.

[DoctorM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucius Shepard's "Green Eyes" gave us the first Lacanian faux-zombie existential romance--- a wonderful and wonderfully different kind of zombie tale. "The Golden" is his vampire tale, and while I liked it...or liked it in small doses...it's not "Green Eyes". There is something of "Anno Dracula" and "Empire of Fear" here--- the vampire society and its own culture and rituals ---as well as Peake's Gormenghast or any number of Gothick romances, with the characters encased in a surreal building (castle, manor house, Library of Babel)...which makes the story a bit creaky and formalised. So, then--- a vampire murder mystery, complete with ex-police detective vampire and a host of suspects and diversionary clues and subplots. Shepard allows the dialogue to become a bit stilted and tries unsuccessfully to expand the world he's creating past its initial Poirot-amidst-vampires ideas. Still, though, not a bad read. Worth a winter's night.

[Toolshed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a bit undecided on this one. The premise seems cool AF: a neogothic tale with vampires, set in a huge castle, and with a murder mystery on top of that? But the execution was somehow lacking. I love Shepard's style and language, and hate to be the one playing this card as I feel this is such a low-blow from reviewers with short attention span, but there indeed WERE too many descriptions for such an intimate story. The whole thing was way too wordy at times - and consequently the pacing was virtually non-existent. Also, it was leaning a bit too heavily on the side of eroticism and sensuality for my liking (though fortunately due to Shepard's expressive abilities it managed to stay somewhat tasteful and not too embarassing).

[Cheryl]

Not sure if I want to read this, but it is on openlibrary.org free for anyone to borrow, and I was wowed by his novelette "The Dragon Griaule."

[Seizure Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the books that led to my vampire novel addiction (along with Anno-Dracula, The Book of Common Dread and Suckers). The Golden is a murder mystery, but one with a unique premise and an emphasis on the relationships and power struggles played out between vampires in the course of the investigation. It's a good story; it just happens to have vampires as the characters.

[Sarah Keizer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably one of the best vampire books I've ever read. It's a shame this book isn't more well-known, or easier to obtain. Shepard is, imo, a master of prose and had my head swirling with his imagery. The dialogue was just too damn clever.
Taking a star off for the oversexualized depictions of every single female introduced in the story, which I'd like to attribute to the book being a product of its time but is probably more apt to plain old timeless misogyny. The characters being vampires doesnt absolve him of this. We get it, pretty lady has boobies and it makes your pee pee hard.
Shepard also gets a bit too caught up with his own languorous metaphors, and my eyes glazed over a few times trying to keep up with the frequent page-long sentences.

[essie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 20%

This just bored me... the stale sexual "tension" between Beheim and Alexandra is tiresome if anything... it reads as a badly acted romance in a action movie from 2003. Characters seemed to try to be elusive but just came across as petulant. I was expecting a lot more and got so little. Maybe I'll try again one day? Doubt it tho..

[Michael O · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite vampire story even though (or because?) unonventional

[Outis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird. Garish, brillant, ludicrous, insane. To Excess.
The reviews aren't conveying how crazy half of this nightmare of a book is. The other half has a logical plot and they didn't always mix too well, as if the shiny parody of a fallen god had read the numinous recipe for a black swan curry backwards. Or something.

The first flowery chapters of The Golden are deceptive. Except for some details, it didn't seem it was a Shepard. Oh but it was!
The hero was all angsty about his relationship with the adoring victim he seduced into enacting an overly literal metaphor of stereotypical gender roles. I've never read Twilight but I was concerned for a moment it was going to mine that same vein. My lack of faith is disturbing, isn't it?
It soon became clear the setting was a dreamworld and the monsters started showing their ugly side. By the way of a WARNING, shortly before being double-kneecapped with a blunt weapon, one of them even volunteered a description of how he raped a child, something even authors who are trying to be edgy often shy away from.

One of the good thins about The Golden is the unusally convincing portrayal of ridiculously powerful and immortal sociopaths. Shepard shows and his characters tell. The hypocritical rants are pretty decent actually. Prepare from some predictable Christian-bashing though.
The interminable psychological struggle of the angsty hero who needs to come to terms with who he has become is also well done, considering. There might be too much monologue for some tastes but it does tie in with the plot and the gory scenes.

The mystery aspect is competently done, with solid foreshadowing. The hero was a bit slow in piecing together the clues but that was the only way I was going to get the satisfaction of figuring it out a step or two ahead of him.
The transitions between these logical parts and the Lynchian dream sequences was sometimes jarring. And the transitions with the nightmare sequences more so.
But the mix of dream logic and action thriller isn't all bad. For one thing, it's easier to sell a ridiculous amount of fun twists in an all-out fantastical story.

If you don't know how Shepard writes, his showy style is often badly over the top. But it's evocative or at least intriguing.
In this book, I got annyoned by the overuse of a particular construction, as if the author got tired of a more pedestrian word which was to be oversued in social media as well. He probably did it on purpose.
I can't shake the impression that the book was littered with literary references I didn't get. But then I don't particularly care.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW*

Amazingly, the romance worked for me. This is no small feat!
I'm mentionning this in the spoilery section because it's clever enough that for much of the book, it's not clear it's a romance.
I also enjoyed the way some popular metaphors are given a literal twist.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 Jorge Luis Borges or William 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 (containing one of the best sex scenes I’ve read in recent years; a good thing that it’s good, too, since it lasts for an entire chapter, and that takes some “balls” to accomplish as well), 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 plot.

This is probably a great antidote to the Anne Rice fan (not that Rice can’t write well; although she hasn’t shown as much of a tendency to do so since Interview with a Vampire). This is also well worth reading if you are a Shepard fan. But I’d hesitate to recommend this blindly. Speaking of recommendations, however, Charles Stross recommended this to me. Although I had already purchased it, his recommendation proved the goad to read it.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strange book, but extremely well written and incredibly interesting. It was recommended to me by a friend and I'm glad I read it. It started off a bit slow. It reminded me of The Picture of Dorian Gray as far as style and dialogue. At first, there didn't seem to be anything vampiric about it at all (other than the characters being vampires, obviously), but as it progressed, it was dark and haunting. I liked the philosophies presented and I think I will pick up a few more of Shepard's novels. I liked his writing a lot. There were many parts of the books that stayed with me because of how eloquently written they were.

[Ignacio Senao f · Rating 3 out of 5]

Si ya de por si los vampiros me aburren todos salvo el original Drácula, esto no iba a ser una excepción. El escritor coge una reunión de vampiros en el siglo 19 y hay una muerte extraña. Le encargarán a uno de los vampiros que investigue. Y tan solo sera marear la perdiz.

[Rea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decadence, sweet decadence, thy stench permeates the pages of this book.

[Catherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and stupid.

[Jon goode · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful Vampire/ murder mystery

There are many books that flirt with the idea of Vampires. This book is no flirtation this book is a marriage to the concept.

[Nancy Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been seeking a really great vampire novel since I read Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I still haven't found one. I won't recap the story, because the synopsis is sufficient for that. The book is full of purple prose. Where Bram Stoker and Anne Rice wrote beautiful, flowing prose, this book just tries too hard in my opinion. The descriptions of everything are too grandiose and try to weave in stream of consciousness, but the stream is so disjointed that it just ends up sounding like a desperate attempt at sounding cool. But that's just my opinion. Reading is so subjective. There are a lot of reviews giving this book 5 stars and singing the praises of the author's prose. But you be the judge. Here is a passage where the protagonist, Beheim, has just had an ugly encounter with another vampire, Kostolec. This is the description of Kostolec's exit after their verbal altercation:

"As they (Beheim and a female vampire named Alexandra,) ascended the stair leading to the next level, moved by some sense of wrongness, he (Beheim) paused and stooped and peered back down through the railing. The rays of lantern light had grown sharply defined, blades of radiance that spread to touch the ranks of books and folios on the opposite wall, and as they brightened further Kostolec himself began to darken, his flesh and his clothing losing detail and color as if he had fallen under a deep shadow, until at last the light dimmed to its normal brilliance, and what stood by the railing beneath it had itself become no more than a a shadow, a figure of absolute, unfractionated black. This absence of a man stood without moving, but within a matter of seconds, the figure flew apart into paper-looking scraps of black vitality, like bats and ashes, and these remnants fluttered off into the darkness; then, like a seam of gleaming anthracite exposed in midair, a shiny surface manifested at the center of the well, seeming to pour both upward and downward, to be measuring in reflection the passage of a light in motion."

So what say you? Stunning or annoying? That passage also reminds me of another problem I have with this book. While the author launches into long-winded descriptions of some things, he doesn't give us information about others. For example, looking the above excerpt, no other vampire in the book can fade into these bat-like scraps and just disappear. At least you don't think they can because nobody else ever does, and there are several times when various vampires are in situations where they need to escape and this would be a good way to do it, but they don't. So apparently, no one else can. And we never know why Kostolec can. Another complaint I have about this book is that I never liked or had any sympathy for any of the characters. Anne Rice built her characters to the point where you loved them, liked them, were shocked by them, or all of the above. Lastly, for most of the book, I found it easy to leave it frequently and go do something else. When I love a book, I am lost in it. I am teleported into the story. I've never scuba dived, but surfacing from a book I am loving is like what I imagine surfacing from the depths of the ocean is like. As I imagine that would feel, I am momentarily disoriented and disappointed. I didn't feel that with this book. I gave it 3 stars, though, because the story was good enough that I finished it, and in fact, the last few chapters were suspenseful and captivating.

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always feel some trepidation when reading my second work by an author after I liked the first, and that trepidation was magnified here: the blurb on the front of this book, "a sensual novel of vampires and blood lust," identifies The Golden by Lucius Shepard as not the type of book I usually read. I liked Shepard's Life During Wartime enough to try it, though, and it quickly becomes apparent that, despite the blurb, this isn't a work that would belong in a grocery store check-out line, or even the romance section of a bookstore. It is far too tinged with violence, death, cruelty, and madness for that, and it is these features that are emphasized in such a way that distinguish The Golden from other books featuring vampires. Unfortunately, there are some structural problems that prevent The Golden from being truly good, instead of merely exceeding expectations for a book like this.

The premise is generally strong: a congregation of vampires is meeting in a castle to taste the exquisite blood of the titular Golden, when that woman is murdered. It is up to a recent addition to the vampire fold, a man who was a Paris detective before he was turned, to solve the case. His task, assigned by the powerful patriarch of all vampires, is made more difficult by the various political and social intrigues among the immortal bloodsuckers. A solid foundation for a book, but the murder mystery nature of the book is exactly what leads to the book's largest flaws. Shepard unfortunately botches key structural elements of a mystery by not providing readers with a pool of suspects, an understanding of potential motivations, or an explanation that readers could suss out for themselves.

Though it takes place in a massive castle, the very architecture of which is infused with insanity, this murder mystery is very similar in setup to an Agatha Christie-style whodunit, with a group of suspects in one set location and a detective trying to uncover the murderer by looking for clues and interviewing potential culprits. Agatha Christie's works, and many other successful mysteries, make a point of introducing you to all of the suspects either before the murder or shortly thereafter, so that readers can begin to develop their own theories. The Golden, however, trickles in characters one or two at a time, often never revisiting them after initially introduced, so no suspect pool is ever created and there is never a real opportunity to develop a theory to the murder's solution with any textual support. Not that it would be possible to develop a strong theory early on, because The Golden only gradually introduces the political and social tensions I referenced earlier, so for a substantial part of the story you are left with an incomplete view of the layout and rules of this world. Also, The Golden features a cast of characters where "[e]ven the most reasonable among them were infected with madness," making it difficult to ascribe motive or even to make reasonable predictions about the behavior of the characters. Such madness also provides the motive for the perpetrator, making his actions impossible to predict. There is no way to solve The Golden's mystery prior to the reveal given just the text, though you can put forth a pretty good guess if you're genre-savvy.

So the book's mystery element is largely undercut. Thankfully there are other virtues to this work, like the prose. I expect most people will not like it, finding it to be overwritten and too obsessed with descriptions:

The rays of lantern light had grown sharply defined, blades of radiance that spread to touch the ranks of books and folios on the opposite wall, and as they brightened further Kostolec himself began to darken, his flesh and his clothing losing detail and color as if he had fallen under a deep shadow, until at last the light dimmed to its normal brilliance, and what stood by the railing beneath it had itself become no more than a shadow, a figure of absolute, unfractionated black. This absence of a man stood without moving, but within a matter of seconds the figure flew apart into papery-looking scraps of black vitality, like bats and ashes, and these remnants fluttered off into the darkness; then, like a seam of gleaming anthracite exposed in midair, a shiny surface manifested at the center of the well, seeming to pour both upward and downward, to be measuring in reflection the passage of a light in motion. Beheim felt a shiver in his flesh, as if some just-less-than-physical thing had passed through him. And with that the gleam faded and everything was as before, except that Kostolec was gone and in his stead were only a few dust motes eddying slowly in the orange glow of the lantern, glittering like the ghosts of nebulae and stars.

I get if that isn't your cup of tea, but I consistently enjoyed Shepard's writing. The setting is also a high point for me, flawed in its initial introduction since it's a few chapters before you're told that this is no standard gothic castle but a reinterpretation of such a castle through the lens of insanity that has lasted millennia, but once it is established it's a fascinating ecosystem. Perhaps my favorite part of The Golden is how Shepard uses many of the vampire tropes that have become common, such as a connection between vampires and magic, a hierarchy based on age, and other elements, and twists them in inventive ways such as the Illumination, the realm of death, the idea of vampire colonies, and the nightmare that the patriarch has become.

In addition to its flaws and its virtues, this second work by Shepard allowed me to better key into him as a writer. Much like Life During Wartime, The Golden devotes large amounts of time to depictions of sex and desires of the flesh, which is again justified, but this made clear to me that it's a topic Shepard enjoys writing about, possibly going out of his way to do so. The Golden also showed me that Shepard has range to his works, something I appreciate. While The Golden was not as strong as Life During Wartime, with much of that being because it didn't succeed at its central premise of being a murder mystery, it was interesting and had enough redeeming qualities that I expect I'll read more Shepard in the future. It's certainly better than you would expect from a book that says "a sensual novel of vampires and blood lust" on the cover.

[AoC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine the following scenario – important vampires of Europe are gathering in old castle Banat in the middle of the 19th century for an event that's been in the making for the longest of time. So called Decanting where they'll partake in the finest blood that centuries of breeding and grooming can produce, contained in what is merely one mortal vessel – the Golden. Mark of prestige on its own, yet this gathering of immortals provides numerous other opportunities such as the ever-growing question of should the bloodlines spread out across the world further and set out to form new colonies as the Old World grows tiresome and stagnant. In the middle of all of this a tragedy strikes as the Golden is brutally murdered before sampling can take place, and our fledgling vampire Michael Beheim has to put his former Parisian inspector background to use in order to figure out who committed the deed before the Patriarch's time limit expires and potential suspects disperse never to be seen again. Will he succeed in navigating all the obstacles and rivals that stand in his way?

As you've surmised from the above it's a mystery story and protagonist fits the genre like a glove. In essence this is a perfect mystery premise with supernatural elements added on top of it, but aside from couple of trippy parts that really left me wondering “what's going on here?” towards the end I don't think the vampire element added that much to the work. Characters involved still fit general archetypes genre savvy readers will recognize and appreciate, but it sort of detracts from the puzzle at hand. It doesn't help you can figure out relatively early on who the culprit is if you've read these sorts of stories, though. Then again later on you can clearly tell there's more going on here than just hedonistic excess and loss of life. Maybe I would've been content if the book pulled more of a twist on me? Still, I would argue this is a matter of preference on my part and might depend entirely on the reader's experiences so far.

One notable aspect that struck me as rather is the way the book is written and I had to look it up to put into words because I'm not that experienced with old time-y English literature and it flew past me the novel was written in period-appropriate style with lots of foreshadowing and almost overbearing focus on gothic mood. I don't know what to think of it except that it may be the reason why The Golden is predictable if you start thinking about what is transpiring, but is also richly dense in conjuring imagery. Descriptions of the mysterious castle Banat with its purposefully nonsensical layout not really built for mortal lives, nature of vampiric Mysteries and vague tonality of what they are, etc. It seeps throughout the novel and really draws you in.

You might wonder why would I give this a middling recommendation if the summary is generally positive? Mainly due to mystery not holding up and resorting to pulling a rug under you towards the end to keep going. Maybe I'm not explaining it succinctly enough, though. I was also surprised at how a major discovery that could change lives of all vampires is almost hand-waived to keep the current events going.

[Jouni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Takakannen lupauksista huolimatta ei tässä kirjassa juurikaan dekkaria ollut (sääli), ennemminkin sellaista "viitta ja tikari" henkistä juonittelua kylläkin (sekin kyllä kelpaa). Ja lisäksi tietysti modernien vampyyrikirjojen kaanoniin kuuluvaa seksiä ja väkivaltaa, mutta ei onneksi liiaksi. Ja kaikki tuo esitettynä lavealla, maalailevalla, sanoja säästelemättömällä, mutta hetkittäin kovinkin harhailevalla kielellä; joka ei kuitenkaan tuntunut liian raskaalta, edes niissä muutamissa kohdissa, joissa virkkeiden pituudet olivat yli sivun mittaisia.
Paikoitellen vampyyrien Mysteerin kuvailu ja selittely moni kyllä niin metafyysiselle tasolle, että enemmän juonivetoisuudesta pitävänä lukijana minua alkoi kyllästyttää, mistä hyvästä arvosanasta yksi tähti vähennettäköön.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder mystery set in a ginormous, psychedelic vampire castle. Yeah, another one. Yawn ;)

The most interesting thing about the book is the surreal tableaux Shepard creates when describing, for instance, the rooms of the castle; these have, if I'm being generous, echoes of Lynch and of Anna Kavan's 'Ice' in their bleak weirdness.

But there are things he does less well; the characters are never especially interesting, and the solution to the murder mystery was so obvious that even I solved it in the first couple of chapters.

Distinctive, but not nearly as good as his Dragon Griaule stories.

[Rob Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shepard was a brilliant craftsman of short stories, and excelled at novella-length works, and plot-wise The Golden would have worked beautifully as a novella - the story itself just doesn’t have the energy to fuel a whole novel, and is gasping a bit by the end. But then to make it work as a novella he’d have had to cut much of the descriptive writing about Castle Banat... and that would have been a real loss. Banat is the true protagonist of this book, an architectural nightmare-marvel of surreal Piranesi-esque proportions, large enough to have its own internal weather. It’s Gormenghast on steroids, and easily worth the price of admission on its own.