Golem 100 / Alfred Bester (1981)

Book Details
Publication Date 13-02-1981
Nr of Pages 384
Format (size) Paperback
Publisher Macmillan

Plot
With too much time on their hands, a group of well to do ladies conspire to summon the devil. This they unknowingly do, unleashing a chain of unlikely and gruesome murders. During the outbreak of the murders the perfume designer, Blaise Shima, who has an extraordinary sensitivity to odours, is drawn in by way of the strong smell of death that is coincidental with the creature / Golem that the ladies have set loose.
Police investigator, Subador Ind'dni is baffled by the killings but learns the truth when he is eventually confronted by the strange goings on between Blaise Shima and the Psychodynamicist, Gretchen Nunn, who has been employed by Blaise Shima's employers to discover why their top perfume designer is acting oddly.

Attempts to destroy the Golem appear to have succeded, but Gretchen Nunn is ultimately a replacement to the ladies that instigated the problem, and Subador Indin'dni becomes the Golem.

Notes
Much of this book is very similar to Iain M Banks' material, a couple of sections pretty much a precursor to sections of Use of Weapons and Against a Dark Background. The opening chapter is similar to John Updike's, The Witches of Eastwick. Overall, Golem 100 was a straightforward read apart from a few parts toward the final pages, which were a bit tiresome and which can be skimmed through. A section in which a number of murders were taking place was awkwardly handled: the break from Suabador Indin'dni to a sequence of murders and back again, taking a page or two to figure out what the intended effect was supposed to be, since it was a stylistic divergence from the preceding text.

More Details
Index 96
Read It Yes
ISBN 0330262580
Cover Price kr 1,75
Links Amazon UK