 First edition cover Cover art by Rowena Morrill | |
| Author | Alfred Bester |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | April 1, 1980 |
Golem100 is a science fiction novel by American writer Alfred Bester. Currently out of print, it was published by Simon & Schuster in 1980. It was based on Bester's short story "The Four-Hour Fugue".
The story is set in 2175 in "The Guff," an ugly and violent metropolis grown from the northeastern United States. Corporations run the government, cannibalism is common, and corruption is everywhere. One character, Droney Lafferty, turns out to be a "celebrated necrophiliac." [1] A "hive" of eight bored wealthy women (who call themselves the "Bee-Women," with Regina the queen bee) thinks it would be fun to raise the Devil, so they begin dabbling in ancient satanic rituals — much of which Bester portrays through musical notation. Unaware that their rites are actually working, they do not summon Satan, but create a new, interdimensional demon: the Golem100.
A beast of pure evil, it is raised again each time the group practices their ritual. Growing and expanding each time, it then embarks on a rampage of rape, torture and murder. The demon is tracked through the physical and spirit worlds by three unusual people. Blaise Shima is a famous chemist with an exceptional sense of smell, which makes him invaluable to his perfumery company. When he begins behaving oddly, taking midnight walks and losing chunks of his time to amnesia, the company brings in Gretchen Nunn, a blind woman who can "see" through the eyes of those around her, but can also can also see into parts of the spectrum beyond normal human ability. She is also an expert in psychodynamics. She keeps finding Shima adjacent to the crimes which are apparently extra-violent, extra-gory, or otherwise extra-special compared with the other violent, gory crimes of the novel. Shima eventually proves that his nose is drawn to the death-smell of the Golem100.
A local police officer, Subadar Ind'dni, joins them to find out what is causing the spike in violence. Ind'dni, a high-caste Hindu philosopher, is skeptical but is eventually convinced. The investigators take "radioactive isotope" drugs to help them with their search for the Golem100's alternate-dimensional origin. The Golem100 turns out to be a monster from the collective unconscious of the Bee-Women, who have raised a monster from their ids. Gretchen takes over from Regina the position of hive queen, and they mutilate and murder Shima. The power of the Golem100 ultimately possesses Ind'dni and he becomes the Golem101.
Bester's sense of playfulness begins with the title: its use of a superscript seems to elevate the monster's strength — not just more demonic, but more demonic to the 100th power! — much as it would a constant or variable in algebra. However, it is all of a piece with the mathematical equations used to describe the characters in the opening scene, and the musical notations in the Bee-Women's demon-raising rituals.
Similarly, the way that Bester uses non-alphanumeric features of the keyboard, or straggles dialogue at different angles across the page, appears in others of his stories, most notably in his first novel The Demolished Man , in which Mr. Atkins spells his name @tkins, and the sentences in a conversation among telepathic people is displayed as a lattice of rights, lefts, ups, downs, and diagonals. The Stars My Destination likewise brightens the text with spangles, asterisked (***) boxes, and colored phrases (green, red and indigo). In Golem100, as the investigators delve into their pursuit of the killer, the text uses changing fonts and becomes intertwined with illustrations by Jack Gaughan.
Bester's dialogue has always featured the hipster slang of the 1940s and '50s — or neologisms which suggest it — but here he adds stream-of-consciousness narration, new to his oeuvre since his short story "Fondly Fahrenheit."
Arthur D. Hlavaty, an editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction , wrote that Bester returned to writing science fiction "in the Seventies, only to give an unintentional example of his own theme of the unrecoverability of the past. His long-awaited novel, variously called The Indian Giver, Extro, and The Computer Connection , was a major disappointment—a confused farrago of old ideas and gimmicks. The next one, Golem100, was worse, nasty as well as incoherent. Bester seemed to be haranguing his audience about the general evil of humanity and—a theme that had been much more tangential before—the war of the sexes. Either he had now decided to give the message straight, or he felt that the Jack Gaughan illustrations—the best part of the book—provided enough dazzlement and enchantment by themselves. (Charles Platt informs me that Bester provided his own illos, but there were copyright problems. In any event, his talent had decayed to the point where he could no longer get his message across in mere words.)" [2]
Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Outrageous, erratic, brilliant Bester is back — with a generous, ultimately unsatisfying mix of fantasy, occult, science-fiction, and psycho-babble... There is much to be admired in this fantasy — its satire and spontaneity — but somewhere along the line the high spirits congeal into massive self-indulgence and an attractively literate talent slips into doggerel. A juicy curiosity that only diehard golem-watchers will want to see through to the mangled finale." [3]
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." [4] David Langford called the book "truly dire." [5]
A golem is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."
The Heechee Saga, also known as the Gateway series, is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Frederik Pohl. The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously disappeared. They left behind bases containing artifacts, including working starships, which are discovered and exploited by humanity.
China Tom Miéville is a British speculative fiction writer and literary critic. He often describes his work as "weird fiction", and is allied to the loosely associated movement of writers called New Weird.
The Scar is a weird fantasy novel by British writer China Miéville, the second set in his Bas-Lag universe. The Scar won the 2003 British Fantasy Award and was shortlisted for the 2003 Arthur C. Clarke Award. The Scar was additionally nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 2002 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2003. It is set directly after the events described in Perdido Street Station.
Michael Shea was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author. His novel Nifft the Lean won the World Fantasy Award, as did his novella Growlimb.
Perdido Street Station is a novel by British writer China Miéville, published in 2000 by Macmillan. Often described as weird fiction, it is set in a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was ranked by Locus as the 6th all-time best fantasy novel published in the 20th century.
Wayne Douglas Barlowe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, painter, and concept artist. Barlowe's work focuses on esoteric landscapes and creatures such as citizens of hell and alien worlds. He has painted over 300 books, magazine covers and illustrations for many major book publishers, as well as Life magazine, Time magazine, and Newsweek. His 1979 book Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials was nominated in 1980 for the Hugo Award for Best Related Non-Fiction Book, the first year that award category was awarded. It also won the 1980 Locus Award for Best Art or Illustrated Book. His 1991 speculative evolution book Expedition was nominated for the 1991 Chesley Award for Artistic Achievement.
In science fiction and fantasy literatures, the term insectoid ("insect-like") denotes any fantastical fictional creature sharing physical or other traits with ordinary insects. Most frequently, insect-like or spider-like extraterrestrial life forms is meant; in such cases convergent evolution may presumably be responsible for the existence of such creatures. Occasionally, an earth-bound setting — such as in the film The Fly (1958), in which a scientist is accidentally transformed into a grotesque human–fly hybrid, or Kafka's famous novella The Metamorphosis (1915), which does not bother to explain how a man becomes an enormous insect — is the venue.
The Fallible Fiend is a fantasy novel by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, the third book of his Novarian series. It was first published as a two-part serial in the magazine Fantastic for December 1972 and February 1973, and subsequently expanded and revised for book publication. The novel was first published in book form as a paperback by Signet Books in 1973; it was later reprinted by Remploy (1974), Sphere (1978), Del Rey/Ballantine (1981), Baen (1992) and the Thorndike Press (2002). The Remploy edition was both the first British and first hardcover edition. An e-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. It has also been translated into German and Italian.
Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls is a humorous book first published by Methuen in 1974 which purports to have been written by a psychopathic character, Dr. Fegg. In fact, the book is the work of Terry Jones and Michael Palin, who adapted a range of material from scripts written for the television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. Some material was later used in the duo's later TV series, Ripping Yarns (1975–78). The first edition was sold bearing a sticker on the front cover which read "A Monty Python Educational Product".
Night's Master is a 1978 fantasy novel by British writer Tanith Lee, the first in the Tales from the Flat Earth series. It has been translated into Dutch, Italian, French, German and Spanish. It was published with illustrations by George Barr in 1978 and by Alicia Austin in 1985. It was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1979.
The City & the City is a novel by British author China Miéville that follows a wide-reaching murder investigation in two cities that exist side by side, each of whose citizens are forbidden to go into or acknowledge the other city, combining weird fiction with the police procedural. It was written as a gift for Miéville's terminally ill mother, who was a fan of the latter genre. The novel was published by Macmillan on 15 May 2009.
The Goetic demon Astaroth, whose name is derived from Ashtoreth, the biblical spelling of the name of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, has appeared many times in modern popular culture.
Frankenstein is a text adventure game released by CRL in 1987 for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum home computers. The game is based on the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.
Mr. Monster is a young adult horror novel by Dan Wells, published in 2010 by Tor Books and by Headline. It is the sequel to I Am Not a Serial Killer and the second book in the John Wayne Cleaver series. The book focuses on the dual threats of the conflict between John and his darker side, which he calls "Mr. Monster", as well as the emergence of a second serial killer in Clayton County. Reviewers have praised both the continuation of the series' plot and the depth found in John's characterization. The novel was the co-winner of the 2010 Whitney Award for Novel of the Year. It has been published in English, Spanish, French, Russian, Czech, and Croatian. An audiobook of the novel is available, narrated by Kirby Heyborne. The sequel to this book, I Don't Want to Kill You, was released in March 2011.
Embassytown is a science fiction novel by British author China Miéville. It was published in the UK by Pan Macmillan on 6 May 2011, and in the US by Del Rey Books on 17 May 2011. A limited edition was released by Subterranean Press. The novel's plot involves the town of Embassytown, the native alien residents known as Ariekei, their Language, and humans' interaction with them. The novel was well reviewed and won the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the term monster refers to a variety of creatures, some adapted from folklore and legends and others invented specifically for the game. Included are traditional monsters such as dragons, supernatural creatures such as ghosts, and mundane or fantastic animals. A defining feature of the game is that monsters are typically obstacles that players must overcome to progress through the game. Beginning with the first edition in 1974, a catalog of game monsters (bestiary) was included along with other game manuals, first called Monsters & Treasure and now called the Monster Manual. As an essential part of Dungeons & Dragons, many of its monsters have become iconic and recognizable even outside D&D, becoming influential in video games, fiction, and popular culture.
Fonda Lee is a Canadian-American author of speculative fiction. She is best known for writing The Green Bone Saga, the first of which, Jade City, won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by Time magazine. The Green Bone Saga was also included on NPR's list, "50 Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade".
"The Pi Man" is a science fiction short story by American writer Alfred Bester. It was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, in 1959. Bester subsequently revised it extensively for his 1976 collection Star Light, Star Bright, changing the characters' names, "develop(ing) minor scenes", modifying the typographical "word pictures", and deleting several "stale references to beatnik culture".
Nifft the Lean is a fantasy novel by Michael Shea published in 1982.