Green Eyes

This is Shepard's first book, and he knocks it out of the park. It begins with a fascinating concept: if you can revive the recently dead, for just a few minutes, what will they tell you? What have they seen while dead? And then, the story takes off in completely unexpected ways, and the book becomes completely unique, spanning genres and confounding expectations. If you like horror, if you like SF, if you like fantasy, this will fulfill your expectations.

I read this book when it was first published because of a Damon Knight Blurb on the cover: "I wonder if anyone else knows what a good writer Lucius Shepard is?" Being a Damon Knight fan I bought the book on his recommedation. Because of the book I read all of Shepard's books. Green Eyes was one of those delightful books you find now and then that you read non-stop. It appears to be three novelettes of differing genres put together to make a novel, but woven together with such skill it becomes a whole. Because of the three separate parts to the novel I had no idea where Shepard was going with this story. If you are lucky enough to find a copy of this book I envy your first reading.

Never having heard of Lucius Shepard, I bought a used paperback copy of "Green Eyes" on the strength of its unusual back-cover plot synopsis and the fact that it could be had for 50 cents...a somewhat ordinary procedure of mine for reasons I'll not go into. In other words, I approached this novel with very little in the way of expectations and, perhaps for that very reason, was simply amazed at my good fortune. This story, itself one that does not easily fit into any genre niche, is without a doubt one of the two or three most poignant modern novels this reader has ever had the pleasure of encountering...made "Papa Kurt"(Vonnegut) sound tired and blase'. Embued with vivid, striking imagery...plot turns impossible to forsee, yet satisfyingly logical...complex in its multilayerings, but as smooth as a luminous egg...an absolutely staggering ending, very hard to describe. I finished the book feeling awed and humbled. Snippets of dialogue, fantastic scenes, emotional depths, these and more swirled through my mind for weeks afterword. If Lucius Shepard's powers were not yet fully matured when he wrote this, I daresay he may write THE best fantastic story of our generation.