Not all stories were included:
The doors of his Face, 1 star
This is a story about some sports fisherman who wanted to catch a unique sea creature. It was mammoth-, more than mammoth-sized. It took a raft the size of a football field to bring it in. I just don't see why they couldn't have let him live.

The Keys to December, 4 stars
This is about a race of creatures that were specially made to work in mines on certain planets. When they reached their majority, they were allowed to retire so to speak. But they had to live in -58° fahrenheit, and they had to breathe methane, so they had to live in closed in containers. They banded together across their many planets, and elected to change a world so that they could live in it. It would take them 13,000 years to evolve this world, with two world changing machines on it, place at each pole. What happened, is that a native creature on the planet was evolved when they changed the world. It became intelligent.

Devil Car, 2 stars
This reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where the machines come to life and try to kill the protagonist.
In this story, cars are anthropomorphized. There is a Devil Car, who the protagonist is chasing in his souped-up "Scarlet Lady." It's never mentioned how he can afford to have a totally souped-up, customized, armed car with which he roars across the Plains. The car supposedly has a brain. The Lady car is helping him seek the Devil Car, because the Devil Car killed his brother, who had a Fuel Depot.
In this day of car thieves who cut out catalytic converters and cut holes in the bottom of gas tanks, it's rather humorous to read this.

A Rose for Ecclesiastes, 4 stars
"i a stranger, unafraid - this is the land - I've got it made!"
I like the idea of this story. It's very lyrical. It's about a famous poet from Earth who is a genius at languages. He is elected to go on an expedition to Mars, to learn their Low Tongue.
After much waiting, and studying, he is allowed to go and see the Martian's history written down, but it's in the High Tongue. So first, he must learn the High Tongue. He uses speed (the drug) to stay up as many hours of the day and night as he can, to commit the High Tongue to his use, so that he may read the Martian's history and bring it back to Earth.
The high priestess, so to speak, is so impressed with his language learning, that she allows him to stay inside the Temple, instead of trekking back and forth to the ship. And she lets him observe a dance from one of the Legends.
He falls in love with the dancer; her name is Brexa and his name is Gallinger.
I don't know how he does it, but he manages to get her pregnant, a Martian! When all the Martian men are sterile from a plague that did not kill.
Now this story is really something else.

The Mortal Mountain, 3 stars
A mountain 40 miles high, on another world, beckons an experienced mountain climber. But the mountain has forces protecting it, and forcing back any would-be summit climbers.

This Moment of the Storm, 3 stars
At this moment in March of 2022, we are in a severe drought. But in the town of Betty, on another world, they're having a hell storm.

The Great, Slow Kings, 3 stars
These two kings are so slow, that when they fetch a pair of humans, the humans reproduce, cover the planet with their progeny, and proceed to annihilate themselves while the two kings are drafting a proclamation.

Divine Madness, 4 stars
A lovely story; if only it could be true.

Corrida, 4 stars
Is this author vegan? Or vegetarian? Or just totally against cruelty to animals? Whatever, I love this story. I have fantasies about animals doing to humans what humans do to animals.

Lucifer, 3 stars
I don't know its meaning, but I like it.













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This is the second time that I've attempted to read Zelazny. I'd previously tried [b:Lord of Light|13821|Lord of Light|Roger Zelazny|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330127327s/13821.jpg|1011388], but had to move it to my DNF shelf, as it was too much 60's mysticism. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with this collection, but not all stories were winners. I noticed that there was a ROUGH inverse relation between the length of a story and the number of stars I rated it. Maybe I only enjoy him in short doses?

By far, the best story here was Divine Madness, which has also moved into my list of all-time favorite short stories. Others of particular note: The Keys To December and The Monster and the Maiden.

The DNF's were usually caused either by too much hippy-trippy or too slow of a pace.

The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth: 3 Stars
The Keys to December: 5
Devil Car: 5
A Rose for Ecclesiastes: DNF
The Monster and the Maiden: 5
Collector's Fever: 5
This Mortal Mountain: 4
This Moment of the Storm: DNF
The Great Slow Kings: 5
A Museum Piece: 5
Divine Madness: 5
Corrida: 5
Love Is an Imaginary Number: 4
The Man Who Loved the Faioli: 3
Lucifer: 4
The Furies: DNF
The Graveyard Heart: DNF

If I average all ratings, it's 3.46. Disregarding the DNF's, it's 4.46. So I'll split the difference and rate it 4 stars. I have another Zelazny collection ([b:The Last Defender of Camelot|13822|The Last Defender of Camelot|Roger Zelazny|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1422107785s/13822.jpg|1105534]), but will wait a bit before I take it up. ( )

There are some good stories in here, but a lot of it just feels like a lot of throwback "great man" science fiction stories (for lack of a better word) do. ( )

This is one of the best collections I've read as far as the stories being consistently good to great. Below is a short blurb about each story. There may be spoilers there.

Corrida (6.5) Bullfighting, you’re the bull, Satan's the toreador.

The Man Who Loved the Faioli (7.0) I don't really get it but it was just so damn cool. Robot graveyard keeper gets together with life draining, angel/slut of death.

The Monster and the Maiden (7.0) Sacrifice a dragon to a human. Pretty funny, very short like a joke

A Museum Piece (6.5) Short silly, sometimes witty, if you can't be an artist then be art.

Collector's Fever (6.0) Short, quirky, I guess it's a hard sci-fi joke.

Devil Car (7.0) This was cool and fun. Mad Max-ish, but totally original.

Divine Madness (6.0) Man loses wife in car accident, now has siezures where everything happens in reverse. Finally reverses to before accident and stops accident from happening.

Love is an Imaginary Number (6.5) Not bad. Trying to figure out if he's the devil, Prometheus or just man in general.

Lucifer (7.0) Not sure why it's called "Lucifer" but damn is it poignant.

The Great Slow Kings (9.0) Excellent, they're like ents only even slower.

The Keys to December (7.0) Forgot to add notes, but I remember liking it.

The Mortal Mountain (6.0) Original. Team climbs highest mountain ever and is haunted by computers trying to protect a woman dying in the mountain. I didn't get the ending at all.

This Moment of the Storm (7.0) This was good, not super creative but poignant and interesting.

A Rose for Ecclesiastes (7.5) Anyone else would have stopped with the basic plot but he gave it so much more

The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (9.0) This is Zelazny at the top of his game. Amazing writing. Super witty, cool original plot. ( )

Fantastic title! Great short stories. ( )