The first Lucius Shepard book I ever bought and read was Green Eyes, which happened to be his first novel. This was probably around 1989-1990, when I vacuumed up any and all cheap SF books I could find at the time in new and used book stores in Austin, TX. Shepard (1943-2014) wrote fantasy and science fiction, and often was linked to the Cyberpunk movement in SF. He also was noted for writing about Central America and war from a leftist perspective. I bought his novella, Kalimantan, in the Strand Bookstore in New York City, back in 1992 or 1994. Then, a pair of novellas from Golden Gryphon, a publisher whose books of whom I attempted to collect a complete set. A few years later, I bought a collection of his stories published Arkham House, called The Jaguar Hunter. Many years passed until I came across another of Shepard’s books, but between 2023 and 2025 I amassed half a dozen of his books.
Several of the books I bought are novellas set in his Dragon Griaule “universe.” This is a fantasy world centered around a dragon that’s a mile long. While it appears to be dead, it still exerts influence in the world around it (usually malign). There’s also an entire ecosystem inside the dragon. Several of the novellas have been published in book form by Subterranean Press and other small press publishers. These include “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter,” “The Father of Stones,” “Liar’s House,” and “The Taborin Scale.” I have the first three, but as I’ve sort of picked up the books at random, have so far not seen any copies of the last one.
The Dragon Griaule, published by Subterranean Press in 2012, collects six Griaule stories, including the first one, “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule,” as well as “Skull,” which appears to be his last story in this universe. Two years after the publication of this collection, Shepard died at the age of 70 from the complications of a stroke. “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule” appears in his Arkham House collection, The Jaguar Hunter. I don’t know if it’s been published as a stand alone novella like some of the others. This edition also includes a section with story notes: short snippets about the origin of each of the stories. I enjoy reading these notes almost as much as the stories themselves.
Shepard led an interesting and peripatetic life, which he hints at in some of these story notes. Some of the locations and events at the time he wrote the stories influence the tales, which is inevitable.
I probably over-paid for my copy of the book, even though it’s signed by Shepard, but having read many of those Griaule stories recently, and, as it was in my hands in a book store, I could not put it down. The special signed edition states that it was limited to 300 copies, but there must have been an overlap, as mine is numbered “PC,” which means it was a presentation copy. The artwork is by J. K. Potter, a noted SF/Fantasy illustrator. Two of the stories are new to me, so I look forward to reading them. There are other Shepard books out there that I don’t have, but I expect that if I get them, they’ll be spur-of-the moment buys vs. deliberate actions.
