Review: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Published: Doubleday 1967/ Gollancz 1999

Awards Won: Hugo Award

Awards Nominated: Nebula Award

The Book:

“A group of humans with impressive technology have colonized an alien planet.  With the ability to reincarnate into new bodies, the original colonists live long lives and populate the world with multitudes of their children. 

However, rather than raise these citizens of the new world to their standard of living, many of the powerful want to maintain their own dominance.  In the guise of shepherding an unready population, they impede the development of technology among their subjects, and tightly control the means of reincarnation.  They model themselves after the Hindu pantheon, and manipulate the population through their enforcement of a system of ‘karma’.

A threat to their control comes from one of the first colonists, a man named Sam.  To many, he is a great religious leader and a legend—the Buddha of this new world—though others see him for a fraud.  For all of those who wish to bring down the Lords of Karma, though, he may be the only hope.” ~Allie

It’s time for some more Zelazny!  I seem to have a bit of a theme with religious science fiction going on, and it will be continued with A Canticle for Leibowitz.

 My Thoughts:

Lord of Light continues many trends I’ve seen in other Zelazny works, though I think this one might be my favorite. As in This Immortal, Zelazny deliberately mixes the feel of science fiction and fantasy in the novel.  On the side of science fiction, there is some justification for the technology and abilities of Sam and the others, and the general setup is of a colonized alien planet.  On the fantasy side, almost none of the technology is explicitly described, and many details of the world and characters’ past adventures are left vague.  The technology is essentially like magic, and the world the humans inhabit has a rich, mostly unexplored history.  The prose and dialogue are also very stylistic, in a kind of archaic, mythological way. 

The style of writing seems to fit well with the focus on Buddhism and Hinduism.  I am not an expert in either religion, but I don’t think that was a barrier to understanding the story.  There is quite a lot of information included, though, so I expect that I missed some allusions or references. Each chapter begins with and excerpt from Hindu or Buddhist literature, along with an excerpt from the legend Sam had built as the Buddha of a new world. There are descriptions of many gods and goddesses, and the native creatures of the planet, energy beings called “Rakasha”, reflect the Hindu Rakshasas. I don’t know how the story would appear to a follower of either faith, but I felt Zelazny treated the religions with respect.  It is made very clear within the story that the Hindu pantheon and the new Buddha are not actually true gods or religious figures, but simply humans using the doctrines to achieve their ends.  In that sense, the story was less about the faiths than it was about how religion can be used as a tool to affect human society for good or evil.        

Many of the numerous characters were a little one-note, but I think that was deliberate.  The members of the pantheon were honing their personalities down to a major characteristic, in order to better personify their chosen deity.  Things could get a little confusing sometimes, as most characters had gathered a number of names over the years, and they occasionally even switched to different bodies.  I enjoyed the discussion about how access to reincarnation technology would affect identity and relationships, but it ran into a little too much gender essentialism for my taste at some points. The main character, Sam, is a pretty standard Zelazny hero.  He’s an intelligent, flawed, immortal super-human (he can control electromagnetic fields).  He also has a sense of humor, is a pretty decent person, and is instrumental to the fate of his world. In the case of Lord of Light, this involves his struggle to defeat the established pantheon and bring technology to the people.

The story begins near the end, but then cuts back to tell the story from the beginning of Sam’s long struggle against the self-appointed gods.  While there is a lot of interesting theological trappings, and entertaining debates on freedom of technology and the effects of reincarnation, I felt like the story was an adventure at heart. There are dramatic fights, battles, betrayals, some romance, and ill-fated gambling with Rakasha. As in several other of Zelazny’s novels, the individual adventures sometimes seemed episodic, but I found them entertaining in themselves as well as in the context of the larger story.

My Rating: 4/5

Lord of Light is pretty well representative of what I think of as Zelazny’s usual kind of story, with a combination of aspects of science fiction and fantasy, an immortal, super-human, but likeable hero, and plenty of exciting adventures. The hero, Sam, is the irreverent founder of Buddhism, a faith that he chose to oppose the self-styled Hindu pantheon that controlled the populace through their monopoly on reincarnation technology.  I enjoyed the focus on Hinduism and Buddhism within the story, though story was less about the religions themselves than about their use by humans.  Overall, Lord of Light is my favorite Zelazny novel so far, though I should warn that it was a little confusing to get into at first!       

Review: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

Published: Ace Books 1966

Awards Won: Hugo Award

The Book:

“Radiation has ravaged the Earth, and the surviving humans live on islands, away from the hot spots of the mainland.  Mutants and monstrous creatures roam the wilds, making travel even more dangerous.  In humanity’s darkest hour, an alien civilization from Vega came to their rescue.  Humans moved in droves to the worlds of the Vegans, willing to live as second-class citizens in exchange for a home in a comfortable and highly advanced society.  Those who remained on the Earth saw their home slowly turned into an exotic Vegan vacation spot, despite their violent efforts to stop the process. 

Conrad Nomikos, Earth’s Commissioner of Arts, Monuments and Archives, is a mysterious, close-lipped figure with a long history.  He is not especially happy to find himself impressed into the service of a visiting Vegan, Cort Myshtigo, especially when he finds the alien insisted on him personally.  Myshtigo plans to tour the remains of the Earth, ostensibly for a book he intends to write.  Some humans believe there’s more to his trip than meets the eye, and they are not willing to watch more of their home slip into the hands of aliens.  Conrad may be the only thing that can stand between Myshtigo and an untimely death, but should he?” ~Allie

Zelazny is an author I’m rather familiar with, as I have read his Amber novels.  I believe this was actually Zelazny’s first published novel, though I wouldn’t have guessed it from reading.  It’s pretty impressive that he was able to win a Hugo Award with a debut novel, and tied with Frank Herbert’s Dune, no less!

My Thoughts:

 This Immortal or …And Call Me Conrad, as Zelazny preferred the novel to be titled, is a book that works on several different levels.  The intrigue surrounding Myshtigo’s presence provides an undercurrent of tension throughout the story.  There’s very little evidence along the way about Myshtigo’s true intentions, but speculation on them illuminates parts of Conrad’s history and the continuing political situation of the remaining humans.  It also provides an interesting moral dilemma for Conrad, who is hired to protect Myshtigo but driven to protect the Earth.   On top of this mystery, the basic plot concerns the adventure of the journey Conrad and the others undertake.   There’s plenty of well-written action to move the story along, as they encounter mutants and dangerous creatures.  The action segments seemed episodic to me, but I appreciated how they were used to highlight information about the world, the characters, and the situation with Myshtigo.

Of the characters, Conrad is the most memorable.  He seemed somewhat similar to Corwin, from the later Amber books—both of them are flawed, (probably) immortal super-humans, who have a wry sense of humor and seem like fundamentally decent people. Conrad also appears to be instrumental in the fate of his world, shown both through his role as commissioner and Myshtigo’s guide, and through his comparison to the Greek kallikanzaros.  I am not usually a fan of main characters that are vastly more powerful than everyone around them, but Conrad’s down-to-earth personality made this story work for me.  While he is undeniably physically strong and long-lived, he is not untouchable.  Conrad is also very invested in the future of Earth and the lives of his friends, and even his superhuman abilities cannot assure positive outcomes for either of them.

Aside from the surface plot and characters, I also enjoyed the confluence of science fiction and fantasy atmosphere in the story.  One can see this clearly in the case of Conrad, who can be seen as either a kind of god (or kallikanzaros), or as simply an extraordinarily long-lived mutant.  In a similar vein, the monstrous and mutated animals of the irradiated Earth are often compared to mythological creatures, as if the ruined planet was sinking back into times of myth and legend. There are actually quite a lot of Greek mythological references throughout the story, which were pretty fun to pick out.  On the science fiction side of the story, I enjoyed piecing together the future history that led to the current situation for humanity and their home planet. The future history was also quite interesting, and I enjoyed piecing together the events that led to the current Earth.       

My Rating: 4/5

This Immortal (or ….And Call Me Conrad) is a highly entertaining novel from early in Zelazny’s writing career.  The superhuman Conrad is rather similar to future Zelazny heroes, such as Corwin of Amber.  The story features a ruined future Earth, where many mutated creatures seem almost mythological.  The references to Greek mythology and the nature of Conrad’s identity also give the story an atmosphere that seems like a mix of fantasy and science fiction influences. Conrad’s task of escorting the alien Myshtigo around the Earth is full of conflict and action, but the story is also underpinned by the tension surrounding Myshtigo’s true purpose.  I think the novel has stood up well to the test of time, and will undoubtedly be enjoyed by many more readers in the future.