The Taborin Scale - Hardcover

Lucius Shepard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1596062886 ISBN 13: 9781596062887

Publisher: Subterranean, 2010

Synopsis

In the Carbonales Valley, a remote region separated from this world by the thinnest margin of possibility, there is an ancient, incredibly large creature known as the Dragon Griaule. For twenty-five years, in stories ranging from The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule through Liar's House, Lucius Shepard has brought us extraordinary accounts of lives shaped by the dragon's undying influence. The Taborin Scale is the latest installment in this ongoing epic, and it is an astonishing and revelatory accomplishment.

The story begins when George Taborin numismatist, collector, and solid citizen travels to the valley on his annual vacation. There, he encounters a prostitute named Sylvia and acquires a tiny dragon's scale with unexpected properties. With shocking suddenness, George is removed from his everyday life and thrust into a primal world of violence and cruelty. In the course of an adventure that will change his life in fundamental ways, he is forced to bear witness to the gradual unfolding of a vast, implacable design.

The Taborin Scale is Lucius Shepard at his absolute best. Bizarre, horrifying, and strangely beautiful, it is both a gripping, self-contained narrative and a pivotal moment in what might be the most singular fantasy of our time.

About this title

From Booklist:

During his annual solo spring holiday in Teocinte, maritally disgruntled numismatist George Tabarin finds the scale of a young dragon. At least, that’s what the young hooker he hires with the promise of giving it to her says it is. When he starts cleaning the scale, suddenly, he’s on a hot, grassy plain—fortunately, briefly. When he does it again, pressing harder, he and “Sylvia” (a name they agree upon) are both transported, then chased by a 25-foot dragon to a place they set up as a home camp. Dangerous encounters with neighbors lead to the addition of sexually abused 12-year-old Peony to their arrangement. Also, they ascertain that their dragon is somehow Griaule, upon whose fully grown, mile-long, paralyzed body Teocinte and its surroundings depend—in the case of a few hamlets built on the beast, literally—and that it has gathered them and some 60 others to witness something. To the wealth of literary color and psychological penetration Shepard normally affords, he adds a dollop of unsettling theological speculation to produce a small, portentously gleaming jewel. --Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: Subterranean
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1596062886
• ISBN 13: 9781596062887
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 104
• Illustrator: J. K. Potter