Roger Zelazny (1937–1995)

Tor published 36 doubles in total between 1989 and 1991; some, like this one, are a pair of older reprints, some an older work and a newer one (which was often a sequel or prequel by another hand to the earlier work). The two stories in this double, however, are completely unrelated – if there’s a thematic link, I missed it. According to the cover of Home is the Hangman, “He’s back from the stars – and he isn’t happy”, which tells you two things about the title character and show more manages to get both wrong. A nine-word blurb that is 100% wrong. Quite an achievement. The novella is narrated by a private investigator / security specialist type, who manages to live under the radar because he was a programmer on a project to computerise everyone’s personal details and ensured his own data was not recorded (this may have seemed like a plausible idea in 1968, but in 2016 it makes no sense). This, however, adds almost nothing to the story… which is about an AI which had been built to explore the moons of the outer planets, and has now returned to Earth for reasons unknown. Four people had been involved in “training” the AI and now, a couple of decades later, one runs a store, one is a psychiatrist, one is an engineer and one is a wealthy industrialist. The store-owner is brutally killed and the industrialist thinks the AI was responsible because of something horrible that happened in the past. Think Original Sin. This novella won the Hugo and Nebula and came second in the Locus Award. Zelazny is a well-known name, and a famous genre prose stylist… so I was surprised at how rubbish this was. The prose was bland, the plot obvious, and time had has not been kind to the world-building… But turn the book upside down and flip it about and you get… We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line, which is a pure hit of the pure Delany… and yes, it’s dated quite a bit but it doesn’t matter because with Delany it’s always the late 1960s/early 1970s… and yes, the central premise – giant crawler factories which lay electricity cable, free of charge, to every household on the globe – is bizarrely old-fashioned and weird for 1975… But but but. There are Hells Angels living in an abandoned house in the mountains, and they ride flying bikes. And when one of the crawling factories offers to lay cable to the house (what was wrong with the original utilities infrastructure? Delany never tells us), it breaks apart the biker gang. It’s pretty much nonsense from start to finish but it’s also what a real prose stylist looks like. Reading these two novellas is a bit like reading some sort of writing match between a pair of big names from the late 1960s. Delany wins hands-down, no doubt there; especially since Delany’s novella reads like a product of its time but the Zelazny reads like a story that could have been written at any time but does a piss-poor job of its world-building. So, Delany 1 – Zelazny 0. show less

Perfect 60s Sci-Fi

The love/peace/rock movement of the late 60s discovered Buddhism for itself in [b:Siddhartha|52036|Siddhartha|Hermann Hesse|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428715580l/52036._SY75_.jpg|4840290], mixed in a little acid and Jefferson Airplane, and the New Age Movement was born, living still in the yoga studio around the corner. Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is a product of that formative time. Published in 1967, it won the Hugo Award in show more 1968 for best novel.

But Zelazny's take on the new cultural fad is not so superficial as you might think. He understands how deeply subversive Buddhism was to the established Vedic traditions in India when it first arose - particularly as it threatened the established caste system. He imagines a far-off world colonized by humans with technology so advanced it seems miraculous, that allows them to take on the appearance, attributes and powers of Vedic gods, and also to reincarnate themselves into new bodies. He imagines a caste system that technology would spawn. He imagines a rebel among the original colonists - the "Lord of Light" - who would use Buddhist concepts to undermine the technology-enforced caste system and liberate all humans on the planet.

A whole lot of fun and fantastic craftsmanship, not at all dated by the passage of time. show less

Heredity or environment? I wondered wryly. We were all of us, to some degree, mad after his fashion. To be honest, it had to be a form of madness, to have so much and to strive so bitterly for just a little more, for a bit of an edge over the others. He carried this tendency to its extreme, that is all. He was a caricature of this mania in all of us. In this sense, did it really matter which of us was the traitor?

This time around, Corwin et all go to the Primal Pattern (because that's a show more thing now) and manage to figure out what could have caused the Black Road and all the troubles that's been causing them. We proceed to get a pile more backstory / world building from Dworkin (Who is apparently Corwin's grandfather?) and head off for some fun™ in the Courts of Chaos.

Upon returning, we figure out who the big bad of the whole series thus far is (Brand, apparently. Makes enough sense, I guess.). The rest of the story is mostly a game of keep away as Corwin et al try to keep the big bad away from the Pattern(s)--we keep getting more of them that are 'close enough'[^1].

Overall, it's a solid enough book. It's nice to see a real villain and get some answers for what's actually been going on this whole time, even if it feels a bit abrupt. We do learn a bit more about how Corwin is growing and changing along. He's almost starting to feel like a worthwhile King now, rather than the just-as-bad-as-his-siblings feel from the first book.

Finally: That last sentence. So Ganelon was Oberon all along? All right then.Did not see that coming. In hindsight, it makes more sense why Genelon could run across the Primal Pattern at the beginning of the book. Not sure what to think about it. We'll have to see how that works out in [b:The Courts of Chaos|359581|The Courts of Chaos (The Chronicles of Amber #5)|Roger Zelazny|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1417786728s/359581.jpg|1867046].

[^1]: Which supports the previous concern I had with the series: why in the world don't the various Princes of Amber just make their own kingdoms to rule? If there are four Patterns that are all sufficient enough for for these purposes (Amber, Rebma, Tir-na Nog'th, and Primal)... Is Amber really that special? show less

I wanted to know why so many people reread this in October. Now I know why!

Ah, what a romp! What a delight! What a homage to everything gothic, to horror fiction, to sensational Victorian fiction… Name a supernatural thing or a cosmic horror thing, it looks like this book has them all. (No ghosts, though.)

Our POV character is Snuff, a very special watchdog. He is badass! I have a strong suspicion that Snuff used to work as a hellhound. Nowadays Snuff fetches master Jack’s wand, makes show more sure Things they have around the house don’t get out, does his rounds, investigates, makes friends with/enemies of other animal companions. Other animal companions? Yes, the little English village where we are has a very high concentration of people and animals that meddle with stuff they really shouldn’t meddle with. They are playing a dangerous game – our whole universe is at stake. Ooops. Come on, can’t you do regular everyday magic instead?

There is so much to love here:
That scene in the graveyard is to die for (ha ha). You’ll know what I mean if you read the book.
There is a Great Detective (and his friend). They are lurking about trying to understand what everyone is up to.
Is there a cat? Of course there is a cat. Her name is Graymalk and she is awesome.

The ending is perfect!

Favourite quotes:

”When I was near enough to catch it with a short lunge I said, ”I trust you are finding your last moments amusing.”

”I took Jack his slippers this evening and lay at his feet before a roaring fire while he smoked his pipe, sipped sherry, and read the newspaper. He read aloud everything involving killings, arsons, mutilations, grave robberies, church desecrations, and unusual thefts. It is very pleasant just being domestic sometimes.”

”’Creature of the Night,’” he said. ”’Living Blasphemy.’ You are safe here. You can even have a peach if you’d like.”

”…a cat may know that which Elder Gods do not.” show less