Viator

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...

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Filled with long, beautiful sentences that play out like never-ending riffs from a jazz musician's horn, the new novel by World Fantasy Award–winner Shepard works as a stylistic experiment and as a short, edgy look at the intricacies of fate and the power each individual may or may not have over his own destiny. Housed aboard Viator, an abandoned ship off the coast of Alaska, Thomas Wilander is a man with a failed past and an uncertain future. Hoping the salvage job on Viator will be a springboard to a new life, Wilander is disturbed to find that his four workmates are behaving erratically, perhaps suffering from mental instability. When Wilander strikes up a relationship with Arlene, a woman in the nearby town of Kaliaska, the four men resent it and retreat further from Wilander and reality. With Arlene's help, Wilander investigates Viator's past and the origins of the mysterious man who hired him, eventually learning that some of the answers may lie in his own dreams, which seem to be coming true. Shepard's smooth, flowing prose aptly mirrors Wilander's delusion-laden mind and makes for an enriching read.
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