This is one of my top collections of 2024. It gathers four short novels—including one of his best works, “Colonel Rutherford’s Colt”—by Lucius Shepard, who died a decade ago.

Shepard wrote unlike any genre author of his time or now. His voice was distinctive, a full frontal blast of image-laden, maximalist prose. You don’t come to Shepard for a short, sharp sentence. Here’s a random quote from “Skull City”, the second novella in the collection: 

“The nearest place, thus the one I chose, was the Blitz Cafe, a Hudson Street oasis that catered to Eurotrash and served an indifferent nouvelle cuisine. The bar was decorated in an insipid post-modern style. Pink neon sculptures on the walls, black leatherette padding on the bar-facing, music videos on large-screen TVs, an abstract photo-mural, and a few pertinently situated potted palms. Everything squeaky clean and shiny. The sort of place that implies life is a germ-free cabaret, that American culture can be reduced to an oblique statement of hipness and cool youth atremble.” 

You either like this shit, or you don’t. I love it.

Shepard travelled widely, fascinated with other cultures and people, bringing those experiences and those cultures into his fiction. “Kalimantan”, published over three decades ago, is an example. It’s set in Borneo, the plot centres on the Dayak people, and a hallucinatory drug used by the Dayak, seribu, plays a key role in the story. It’s a textbook example of cultural appropriation. Is it racist? Some (maybe many) will say definitely yes. In my humble opinion, given the story is about the evils of Western imperialism and given Shepard’s strong views on American imperialism, it’s hard to argue that he saw himself as superior to any culture.* Shepard was passionate about the diverse communities he met and, through his work, strove to articulate that passion.

I’m able to accommodate these flaws—including Shepard’s less-than-sterling treatment of women, a point that Michael Swanwick makes in his introduction to the book—because I love Shepard’s voice and enjoy his pulpish plots. I also think Colonel Rutherford’s Colt is a masterpiece that deserves wider recognition (I explain why in my Locus review).

Shepard’s work is accessible via Subterranean Press and SF Gateway. In the short term, he won’t be forgotten. But whether he has a sustained legacy is anyone’s guess. I hope so.

[My Locus review of Crows and Silences will be out in February. The books will be available on the last day of 2024]

*Writing about another culture is arguably an act of superiority. This is not how I read Shepard, but you might.