Roger Zelazny

[Simon]

I thought the time had come to start a thread on the "new to me" writer who had the biggest impact on me in 2007...  Back in February I was hacking my way through the Gollancz Masterworks series (pretty much my default buy in an SF book shop) and picked up Lord Of Light...

Lord of Light absolutely blew me away, I don't know how to go about describing that book...  For those who haven't read it, it's a stunningly lyrical (really beautiful language) novel about Hindu gods.  These deities are found in a futuristic colony world where they posess divine powers that can be visualised either as high-tech tools or mystical forces (his mystical description of an H-Bomb is terrific - "the tall man of smoke who wears a wide hat").  I can't tell if its religious fiction, or if it is blasphemy, or if it is a bit of both.  I am wary of the way he sets Buddha up against the Hindu gods, but then Buddha is a figure in the Hindu tradition as well, so maybe his all-conquering heroism isn't blasphemous...  Whatever it is, it's a cracking good story.

On the other hand, I am extremely glad I read a short summary of the story before hand... There are a number of stylistic stunts Zelazny pulls that throw the time-frame of the story all over the place.  If you can't spot when he time-shifts then this book is going to completely lose you, often.  But because I was expecting them, I could follow it, tho it still makes for very strange reading.

What I am sure of, is that I love it utterly... So I then went on to read Creatures Of Light And Darkness (similar set-up but with less-controversial Egyptian deities), Roadmarks (terrific time-travel story that reminded me a lot of To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Farmer in it's structure and plot, but better written), I Am Legion (not very good) and I've now got Mindswap to look forward to.

His style is gorgeous, so I thought I'd kick it up to the collective...  I am firmly more an SF fan than fantasy, so are the Amber series worth taking a crack at?

I haven't had a love affair like this with an SF writer since I discovered Richard Matheson.

[stePH]

... I Am Legion (not very good) ...

That would be My Name is Legion.  Less a novel than an anthology of three stories featuring the same main character. 

Speaking of which, do you notice that Zelazny's protagonists are all rather similar?  They're invariably self-serving and amoral bastards, at least in all of his novels that I've read.

I haven't had a love affair like this with an SF writer since I discovered Richard Matheson.

I suppose that explains your getting the title of Legion slightly wrong 

[Ocicat]

Yes, I'd say the Amber series is well worth picking up.  At least the first series... many years later he did another trilogy or so in that universe (megaverse?) that I just couldn't get into...

[ClintMemo]

A few years ago, I listened to an audiobook version of "A Night in the Lonesome October" - very imaginative and very cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Night_in_the_Lonesome_October

[stePH]

Yes, I'd say the Amber series is well worth picking up.  At least the first series... many years later he did another trilogy or so in that universe (megaverse?) that I just couldn't get into...

It was another five, making a total of ten.

[colt]

Back to your original question...  Would the Amber series please a purist-SF fan?

IMHO, No...  but if you give it a chance, it will make you appreciate Sci-Fantasy more.

Zelazny doesn't spend a lot of time explaining how the Princes do what they can do, leaving the nature of their special abilities and the power of the trumps as a mystery.  That's not to say that they are cheaply explained off as magic.  Rather, they are born of a science which the primary characters don't understand.  Dworkin knows how it all works and all of the Princes can make it work but the reader is never offered any explanation of why or how.

So for an absolute SF purist, No... these amazing stories are not for them.  But for everyone else...  this is a must read.

The best analogy I can offer is this...  If you couldn't enjoy the original Star Trek series until after you read Jimmy Duhan's Scotty's Guide to the Enterprise (sp.) then Amber might not be for you.  Otherwise...  GET READING!

BTW : I read each of the Amber books (both series) when they were new (yes I'm that old).  I haven't re-read any of them because there is just too much to read in one lifetime.  I can still remember the story and characters clearly enough to give the review above.  I've also give away Nine Princes of Amber to young readers several times.  I can't say that about too many books.  I just wish there were more of them.

Peace,
Colt

[stePH]

Zelazny doesn't spend a lot of time explaining how the Princes do what they can do, leaving the nature of their special abilities and the power of the trumps as a mystery.  That's not to say that they are cheaply explained off as magic.  Rather, they are born of a science which the primary characters don't understand.  Dworkin knows how it all works and all of the Princes can make it work but the reader is never offered any explanation of why or how.

I've always considered it a fantasy series.  There are little touches that make it seem pseudo-scientific, like the matter of gunpowder not burning in Amber or its closest shadows (but jeweler's rouge combusting in exactly the way that gunpowder does in our world), or Merlin's "Ghostwheel" sentient computer in the second series, but I can't see it as anything other than fantasy for all that. 

Nothing wrong with that; it's still about as far from EFP as you can get. 

(oh, and I'm in the minority that liked the second series.  I think it ties up most of the loose ends that I found so frustrating at the end of The Courts of Chaos without leaving too many new ones.)

[Czhorat]

For me there is a science fictional feel in the rigor with which the rules of various magics are consistent and limited, whereas fantasy tends to have a less empirically-based tone. Someone - and it kills me that I can't remember who - once took issue with Clarke's law about the indistinguishability of sufficiently advanced science with magic. Magic has a certain tone and mystery to it, while any idiot can flip a light switch. The magic in Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber felt a bit like Saberhagen's Empire of the East and related books of swords to me in the the magic felt science-y, as if there was some backstory about lost technology that we didn't quite see all of.

I enjoyed much of Zelazny's work, but think that in retrospect he's a bit over-rated. His stylistic tricks didn't always add much to the themes he was trying to develop, and I found some of the time-skipping in Creatures of Light and Darkness, for example, to be gratuitous and clumsy. It felt as if he was giving us images out of sequence for the pure purpose of creating an artificial sense of strangeness as opposed to a real craftsman who could play fair and create true strangeness without cheating. He also had a tendency, as stePH said, of recycling characters. I recall some books that re-used bits of plotlines and even seemed to lift some prose directly from other works. I see Zelazny as a writerwith great ideas,  but by no means a great writer.

[Nobilis]

Lots said, not much to add except that I love the Amber series.  What I like MOST about it is the plethora of loose ends and variant interpretations.  It's a great world for roleplaying.

[Planish]

Yes, I'd say the Amber series is well worth picking up.  At least the first series... many years later he did another trilogy or so in that universe (megaverse?) that I just couldn't get into...

It was another five, making a total of ten.

That really messed me up. I had read "all of the Amber novels" long ago, and recently bought the "The Great Book of Amber", with all ten novels. I got halfway through and was thinking "I don't remember any of this stuff!" Then I read the info about the publication dates.

(slightly off topic)
Even more recently, I've been reading a bit about turf mazes, and the significance of some mazes in cathedral floor tile patterns; and the business of the Pattern and the Logrus came to mind.

My plan this summer is to mow a maze in my lawn, a simplified version of the Chartres maze. I will alternate between mowing the path and mowing the barrier walls, so as not to let the grass grow too high.