1986 Locus Fantasy – THE TRUMPS OF DOOM by Roger Zelazny

The Trumps of Doom is the sixth novel in Zelazny’s beloved Amber series of fantasy novels. The first quintet of short books is narrated by Corwyn, a man who wakes up with amnesia in 20^th century America. As Corwyn begins to explore his lost past, he discovers that he is from the royal family of Amber, a majestic city that is the true world – Earth is only a shadow. The series begins with a noir feel – Corwyn is tough, street smart, and morally flexible and he moves through a world of femme fatales and seedy lowlifes. By the end, it’s sword and sorcery, as Corwyn gathers armies, clobbers demons, and goes on spirit quests to fight mystical plots and contest the throne of Amber. The genre shifts dramatically, but Corwyn is always hyper-macho.

This novel starts a new quintet, and resets the table with a new narrator: Merlin. Merlin has his own connections to Amber (which I won’t get into too much, so as not to spoil the earlier books), but at the novel’s beginning he’s living on our Earth, working for an IT company, and someone is trying to kill him. As he attempts to find the would-be assassin, he uncovers an underground of sorcery based on the magic of Amber, and learns that many of his friends know more about his origins than seems possible. Eventually, he journeys back to Amber to learn more about what’s happening, and ends up in the same colossal and cosmic conflicts that always occur at the climax of these novels.

Zelazny’s hitting on a lot of the same themes here that we’ve seen him take on before: tough guy anti-heroes with connections to mythical figures (Earth mythology is an echo of the “real” princes and princesses of Amber) fighting brutal-but-cosmic battles. The female characters are marginal (the princesses of Amber scheme, but the princes are the true center of the conflicts). The ever-escalating stakes and fuzzy nature of “reality” get old after a while, and the series as a whole felt a bit repetitive to me. They are fun though, and I especially like these first books that spend a lot of time on Earth and introduce a lot of mysteries. After six books, however, I think I’m finished with the series, despite this entry ending on a cliffhanger.

Grade: B

1968 Hugo – LORD OF THE LIGHT by Roger Zelazny

While Nebula voters focused on Samuel Delany in the late ‘60s, Hugo voters seem to have fallen in love with Roger Zelazny. While Zelazny’s This Immortal doesn’t hold up too well next to the book it tied for the honor in 1966, Lord of the Light has aged much better. This Immortal used an oddball future setting to create an irreverent take on Greek mythology, Lord of the Light takes the conceit even further by re-creating Buddhism on a distant planet.

Explorers from (a destroyed?) Earth have settled on a new planet and used their incredible technology to establish themselves as Hindu deities. They have achieved immortality and created incredible weapons and vehicles (flying chariots). They’ve also built a massive floating fortress that dominates the heavens, and they’ve even installed karma machines across the planet that evaluate the mortal inhabitants’ (their own descendants, many generations removed) qualifications for reincarnation into a new animal/human/divine body.

One member of this founding generation, Mahatasamatna, or “Sam” for short, has refused his godhood and resents the way his cohorts manipulate and repress the common people of the planet. He sets himself up as Siddhartha, re-founds the old Earth religion of Buddhism, and makes war on the gods. He even calls upon the planet’s original inhabitants – energy beings who have been recast as demons from Hindu mythology.

At the beginning of the novel, he’s lost this war, but Yama, the god of Death, has resurrected him for one last attempt at overthrowing their old friends. What follows is a series of episodes recounting Sam’s original war on the gods, which play out like a cross between Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha with super-technology. There are a series of big action set-pieces full of flames, energy bolts and massive explosions. All the while, Sam remains laid back and unflappable, and it’s never entirely clear how much he believes the religious concepts that he in introducing versus how much he simply resents what’s been made of this new world.

Lord of the Light is an absorbing and exciting read, and I was much more caught up in this world than that of This Immortal. In the end, it’s an irreverent, rock-and-roll/action movie take on Buddhism, and I wasn’t entirely sure what Zelazny achieved by setting it on another planet in the distant future. It is interesting when the gods delve into their human histories, as when Sam and Kali discuss an old love affair, and maybe that’s the central effect that Zelazny was hoping to achieve.

Once again, I’d take the Hugo winner over the Nebula winner (Einstein Intersection). Both novels were highly original and fun, but Lord of the Light is more cohesive and seems to have more to say.

Grade: A-

1966 Hugo (tie) – ...AND CALL ME CONRAD (aka THIS IMMORTAL) by Roger Zelazny

Apparently the franchise-spawning, greatest science fiction classic of all time, ever, was just barely the best book of 1966. Yep, Dune tied with the legendary …And Call Me Conrad (later expanded and repackaged as This Immortal) by Roger Zelazny. I’m being a bit facetious, but, in hindsight, this looks like a fairly big misstep for Hugo. I know I should take Zelazny’s novel on its own merit, but it’s hard not to compare it to the novel that it shared the ’66 Hugo with. And, next to Dune, This Immortal looks pretty slight, to say the least.

This Immortal takes place on a post-apocalyptic future Earth. After nuclear Armageddon, humans were befriended by a blue-skinned alien race named the Vegans. Most humans live on Vegan colonies, and Earth’s most magnificent sites have become tourist attractions, while the rest of the planet is overrun by mutants – some of whom inexplicably look like mythological creatures like centaurs.

The story is narrated by Conrad Nimikos, a long-lived Greek. Conrad is himself hundreds of years old, and there are hints that he is a Greek God, or he may just be a mutant. He previously lived as a hero of Earth named Karaghiosis, who opposed Vegan plans to buy up all of the real estate on Earth. Ironically, he now finds himself protecting a Vegan surveyor named Myshtigo from assassins and voodoo priests.

These are interesting ideas, but none of them are explored in depth or really developed at all. In a lot of ways, This Immortal is the anti-Dune. World-building, political machinations, and noble heroes are all there, but mostly just hinted at and relegated to the background. Instead, Zelazny focuses on a brisk, action-oriented plot and creating a mysterious but amiable protagonist. The book is a quick, light read, and Conrad is likable and funny (his narration is so good humored that it took me a third of the novel to realize that Earth had become a post-apocalyptic hellhole). Maybe I can see how the WorldCon voters might be split between the heavy epic Dune and the light romp This Immortal, but the latter doesn’t really seem so deserving in retrospect.

Grade: B-