Unicorn Variations

This Zelazy collection offers many strong stories, but none that really knocked my socks off. "Home Is the Hangman," a story about an early experiment in Artificial Intelligence that comes back to meet its makers, was the longest and probably my favorite of the bunch. Many of the stories were "short shorts," just a couple of pages long. They certainly demonstrate Zelazny's broad range of style, genre and subject matter. Several are humorous. "Recital" you would almost have to classify as experimental fiction. "The Naked Matador" is a dark little Hemingwayesque adventure story. The brief introductions to the stories were quite interesting, each offering a different variation on how a story comes into existence.

Good read for passing time: This is a good book for the water closet or a trip in the car if you don't want to look out the window. The stories are funny, Zelany does a good job of communicating his stories in 10-20 pages, and his ideas are fairly original.

Two of my favorites are Unicorn Variations, mostly because I like chess and beer, and this story has both. The second favorite story is "Go Starless Into The Night", I won't ruin it for you, but I thought it was very intriquing.

Of course, there are a few stories along the way that could probably be considered "filler". Most notably his triple short short stories "fire and ice...a very good year". It's a nice idea, but it just left me feeling like he was trying to experiment with a show more new style and hadn't quite got the hang of it.

Overall, it's a very good shorts collection, worth the read, but just realize that there are a few stories that look like they were put in there to fill out the volume.
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Martin plays a high-stakes chess match against Tlingel, a shimmering unicorn, in an abandoned saloon, where the fate of humanity rests on the game's outcome, with a Sasquatch helping the human, as magical creatures emerge into the world to replace mankind.

This is an eclectic collection of SciFi, Fantasy, and other speculative tales, all written by one author, Roger Zelazny. Zelazny seemed to delight in twisting the plot of his strange narratives, usually with guffaw-inspiring results, at least for me. While not all the stories in this collection are vintage Zelazny, enough qualify, and make the read highly worthwhile.

If you've never tried exploring his strange worlds, this book might be a good introduction to the Zelazny talent, a writer who is greatly appreciated, and missed, by many of us.

Zelazny's short fiction is almost always jewel like, and the stories in Unicorn Variations aren't any different.

Zelazny's humor permeates several of these stories, and even those that seem hokey (hunting rouge automobiles) ultimately work.

While he's best known for his Amber series, Zelanzy's short works of fiction frankly outshine most of his novel-length work.

A collection of SF short stories, mainly from the 60's and 70's. A couple from the 80's.

Two of the best for me were My Lady of the Diodes and the triptych of Fire and/or Ice, Exeunt Omnes, A Very Good Year playing with the theme of the end of the world.

Also includes various stories about AI and others founded in mythology (from unicorns to dragons). In places I found the technical ideas hard to follow; but, to be fair to the author, I have been easily distracted. Funny in places; also some background into why these stories were written.

On the whole a good collection which makes me want to read more of Zelazny's work.

SF & Fantasy short stories, several of which won awards. As always, he's a great read. His stories take fantasy into SF & vice versa in strange ways with a deft touch. He's one of the few authors that was a master of both the novel & short story.