Typically, the whole story emerges slowly & somewhat confusingly on the first read, but we soon realize that a starship from Earth colonizes an alien planet. Fantasy meets SF as Psi powers, often enhanced by technology, allow the crew to impersonate a mutated version of the Hindu gods, lording it over the passengers. Mind-swapping & cloning allow the old crew to become almost immortal, while the passengers are fruitful & multiply, spreading across the planet & forgetting their roots & technology. The story centers on Sam, one of the crew, retired god & hero. He doesn't like the new gods & fights heaven through fair & foul means. Even in defeat & death, he wins & returns, as a thorn in the heavenly side. He recreates Buddhism, with himself as the Buddha. He makes pacts with demons, the original inhabitants of the planet who found a different path to immortality than body swapping. He even allies himself with the blackest demon of all, a Christian!Zelazny's mix of science, religion, mysticism & politics is fantastic & unique, as always. His hero, Sam, is insightful, mocking & manipulating. He subtly guides people & events to his advantage, while starting from a huge disadvantage to topple the gods from their heaven. The story isn't told in a straightforward manner (big shock) but as flashbacks for over half of it. It's almost disappointing when the story flows linearly, but the action is too intense & the politics too murky to confuse it through further time jumping.I've read some criticisms of his take on the Eastern religions but, I don't think he made any mistakes. He wasn't trying to recreate the religions of today, but show them in a far-flung future where they were setup by a bunch power hungry people for their own base purposes. He was using them as a vehicle to make his point & felt justified changing them to fit.I've worn out two copies of this book. It's fantastic. He's one of my favorite authors & this is possibly my favorite book. ( )

ZB9

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1286404...

It's often a bit worrying to return to the scene of one's youthful enthusiasm to see if the magic is still there - particularly in the case of this novel, bearing in mind the recent discussions of cultural appropriation.

It still worked for me. Zelazny's writing in the first place is vigorous and powerful, and funny also on occasion; it is rather easy to get swept along by the characters with superhuman, semi-divine abilities trying to outwit each other without concentrating too much on the plot. His trademark was always the juxtaposition of the mythic and the demotic, and Lord of Light probably is the peak of his powers at novel length.

The plot also stands the test of time. The rulers of the world of Lord of Light have chosen to construct a religion in order to stay in power, and rather than make up their own (as later Zelazny books do) have taken Hinduism off the shelf, as it were, suited as it is to their reincarnation technology. 'Accelerationism' (ie modernisation) among the general populace is ruthlessly repressed. Our hero, Sam, is one of the privileged who rebels, and uses methods of terrorism, war and assassination to undermine the power structures, is captured, executed twice, and eventually returned to life (at the start of the book, most of the story being told in flashback) and victory.

It's not terribly clear that Sam is doing this out of an egalitarian or libertarian commitment to oppose tyranny; it seems more that he (along with Zelazny) favours two different types of enlightenment - personal enlightenment in the (explicitly) Buddhist sense, and cultural enlightenment in the sense of eighteenth-century Europe, in both cases implying freedom from religious dogma and control, and so is committed to bringing them about.

To achieve this, he has to do a deal with the indigenous entities of the planet as well, now known as the Rakashas; he exploits them but also possibly liberates them, and their support is crucial to his ultimate success - a subplot with interesting undertones both historically and psychologically. Note also that the explicitly Christian characters are dubious outsiders who are minor but somewhat unreliable allies (leading an army of soulless zombies). Plenty of cultural irony, directed mainly westwards. ( )

A surprisingly good book, given its inherently problematic nature: a group of white people pretend to be Hindu gods on another planet. Yet Zelazny appears to have done his research, creating a rich world and using the character of Siddhartha to skillfully question the ways of the "gods". The world rang true, to my admittedly limited experience of Asia, but that's more than some books about Asia manage. /Lord of Light/ is a book that wears its problematic nature on its sleeve, and opens itself for the attendant discussion. Also, it tells a good story. ( )

A stunning and wonderful book; one I'll not soon forget. Zelazny weaves an amazing amount of history into this short novel, but does so in such a way that it drives the plot forward. There are scores of detailed characters, each with his own motive, in a conflict that seems centuries old.

The premise may be difficult to explain. In this futuristic world, the technology has been created to transfer a person's being into another body, rendering them practically immortal, as long as they can find bodies before they actually die. Some of the original settlers have set themselves up as gods, forbidding most technology. Sam, another of the first, opposes them on the grounds that the people should be allowed to have that technology.

This fight between them is not often all out war, but rather subtle plots that take lifetimes to see fulfilled. But they have lifetimes to fight, and so they do.

A must for science fiction fans. ( )