Four for Tomorrow
by Roger Zelazny
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Four for tomorrow by Roger Zelazny (1967)Tags
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https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/four-for-tomorrow-by-roger-zelazny/
A 1967 collection of four novelettes by Zelazny, from near the start of his career.
The Furies
This is the one about three men with unusual superpowers, chasing the villainous Victor Corgo to his death in a space opera universe. I found two things particularly interesting: the first is that Corgo’s motivations are very well explained, to the point that I think we are asking whether his quest for revenge from a grievous wrong really does make him the bad guy, and whether the trio of hunters are any better at all. The second is that in the end he is tracked down due to what we would now call a data hack from his artificial heart, an early case of a breach of electronic show more privacy of the kind we are now facing daily.
The original title of the story was “Hunt Down the Happy Wallaby“, that being the name of the Corgo’s spaceship. Frederik Pohl rejected this for Galaxy, saying that he found the narrative “multiply confusing”, which I find an extraordinary comment – it’s crystal clear what is happening and why. Apparently Zelazny wrote it “to honor the comic book heroes that he loved”, and one can see that – the characters are pretty much out of that tradition. The superpowered hunters reappear in a different form in Eye of Cat.
The Graveyard Heart
This is the one about a near-future group of fabulously rich people who spend most of their time in cryogenic sleep, emerging now and then for wild parties. The protagonist is in love with an unattainable girl who fortunately turns out to be attainable. There’s also a matriarch, and the girl gets pregnant by the protagonist. However their love provokes the deadly jealousy of a failed poet who is also part of the ‘Set’. (The poetry is Zelazny’s own unpublished work.)
In all four of these stories, the gender roles are pretty firmly baked in, and I thought this one has aged even less well than the others; females are threats, whether cunning crones or unwitting maidens. There is some social commentary about celebrity culture, and capital punishment, but it feels a bit painted on. Not a story I’d recommend to someone who didn’t already know Zelazny.
The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth
This is the one about catching a super-giant fish creature on the seas of Venus (which were rapidly turning out to be completely mythical). Some critics have apparently complained that it is too obviously lifted from Moby-dick, but that’s completely unfair in my view; The Old Man and the Sea is the much more obvious source, and anyway it’s a completely different story. The narrator is the spurned lover of a rich woman who wants to hire him to help her catch the Big Fish, and the fundamental implausibility of the plot is very well covered by the pace and descriptive drama of the writing; it won the first ever Nebula for Best Novelette.
A Rose for Ecclesiastes
This is the one set on old-fashioned Mars, where the newly arrived Earthfolk are delicately engaging with the dying Martian civilisation (where there is another matriarch, and another girl who gets pregnant by the protagonist). The protagonist is a lonely genius (how optimistic to think that a famous poet would ever be chosen for a space mission!) who cheers the Martians up by fertilisation, and by translating the Book of Ecclesiastes into their language and telling them, hey, it could be worse. It’s one of Zelazny’s earliest stories, written several months before his first publication, and retains a raw narrative power, at least for me. Apparently the emotional charge is based on his relationship with the folk singer Hedy West. I don’t know what to read into the fact that it turns out that the narrator’s Martian girlfriend never really liked him that much in the first place, and was only pretending.
All four of these stories show both the good and the bad of Zelazny’s early writing. The descriptions are fantastic and the use of language lyrical, and his protagonists’ motivations are very well conveyed; but he’s not comfortable writing about women, either old or younger, and the plots sometimes don’t really stand up even on their own terms. show less
A 1967 collection of four novelettes by Zelazny, from near the start of his career.
The Furies
This is the one about three men with unusual superpowers, chasing the villainous Victor Corgo to his death in a space opera universe. I found two things particularly interesting: the first is that Corgo’s motivations are very well explained, to the point that I think we are asking whether his quest for revenge from a grievous wrong really does make him the bad guy, and whether the trio of hunters are any better at all. The second is that in the end he is tracked down due to what we would now call a data hack from his artificial heart, an early case of a breach of electronic show more privacy of the kind we are now facing daily.
The original title of the story was “Hunt Down the Happy Wallaby“, that being the name of the Corgo’s spaceship. Frederik Pohl rejected this for Galaxy, saying that he found the narrative “multiply confusing”, which I find an extraordinary comment – it’s crystal clear what is happening and why. Apparently Zelazny wrote it “to honor the comic book heroes that he loved”, and one can see that – the characters are pretty much out of that tradition. The superpowered hunters reappear in a different form in Eye of Cat.
The Graveyard Heart
This is the one about a near-future group of fabulously rich people who spend most of their time in cryogenic sleep, emerging now and then for wild parties. The protagonist is in love with an unattainable girl who fortunately turns out to be attainable. There’s also a matriarch, and the girl gets pregnant by the protagonist. However their love provokes the deadly jealousy of a failed poet who is also part of the ‘Set’. (The poetry is Zelazny’s own unpublished work.)
In all four of these stories, the gender roles are pretty firmly baked in, and I thought this one has aged even less well than the others; females are threats, whether cunning crones or unwitting maidens. There is some social commentary about celebrity culture, and capital punishment, but it feels a bit painted on. Not a story I’d recommend to someone who didn’t already know Zelazny.
The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth
This is the one about catching a super-giant fish creature on the seas of Venus (which were rapidly turning out to be completely mythical). Some critics have apparently complained that it is too obviously lifted from Moby-dick, but that’s completely unfair in my view; The Old Man and the Sea is the much more obvious source, and anyway it’s a completely different story. The narrator is the spurned lover of a rich woman who wants to hire him to help her catch the Big Fish, and the fundamental implausibility of the plot is very well covered by the pace and descriptive drama of the writing; it won the first ever Nebula for Best Novelette.
A Rose for Ecclesiastes
This is the one set on old-fashioned Mars, where the newly arrived Earthfolk are delicately engaging with the dying Martian civilisation (where there is another matriarch, and another girl who gets pregnant by the protagonist). The protagonist is a lonely genius (how optimistic to think that a famous poet would ever be chosen for a space mission!) who cheers the Martians up by fertilisation, and by translating the Book of Ecclesiastes into their language and telling them, hey, it could be worse. It’s one of Zelazny’s earliest stories, written several months before his first publication, and retains a raw narrative power, at least for me. Apparently the emotional charge is based on his relationship with the folk singer Hedy West. I don’t know what to read into the fact that it turns out that the narrator’s Martian girlfriend never really liked him that much in the first place, and was only pretending.
All four of these stories show both the good and the bad of Zelazny’s early writing. The descriptions are fantastic and the use of language lyrical, and his protagonists’ motivations are very well conveyed; but he’s not comfortable writing about women, either old or younger, and the plots sometimes don’t really stand up even on their own terms. show less
Worth picking up for the last story alone - A Rose for Ecclesiastes - as the introduction states, the stories are presented in order of increasing quality, which I generally agreed with. As an introduction to Zelazny, and his, in places quite literary approach to science fiction, this is enough to get the reader looking out for more of his work. Though resting on many of the typical themes of sci-fi, we have a bit more introspection, philosophy, religion and ethics than perhaps typical, which adds some nice depth and a bit more to think about.
Zelazny also has quite a talent for a dazzling turn or phrase here and there, which together with a gift for story telling, and creating interesting and developing characters, makes for an show more engaging read. show less
Zelazny also has quite a talent for a dazzling turn or phrase here and there, which together with a gift for story telling, and creating interesting and developing characters, makes for an show more engaging read. show less
It is the hubris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us.--All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak.
The titular story was rather moving, akin to Babel-17. A polyglot poet goes to Mars, where the natives are gracefully dying out. He translated their epics and in return affords them the bible. The conclusion (and solution to their fate) was less-than-satisfying. I thought this morning about the title and Faulkner. There's something to bed said for dying empires and the Gothic. The other three pieces offered promise but appeared stilted. Couldn't help but think about Francis Parkman show more during the first novella Furies. This detour into the speculative allows the grafting of enormous systems , technologies and philosophies. Unfortunately they appear to be but clay and wire models upon examination. show less
The titular story was rather moving, akin to Babel-17. A polyglot poet goes to Mars, where the natives are gracefully dying out. He translated their epics and in return affords them the bible. The conclusion (and solution to their fate) was less-than-satisfying. I thought this morning about the title and Faulkner. There's something to bed said for dying empires and the Gothic. The other three pieces offered promise but appeared stilted. Couldn't help but think about Francis Parkman show more during the first novella Furies. This detour into the speculative allows the grafting of enormous systems , technologies and philosophies. Unfortunately they appear to be but clay and wire models upon examination. show less
I enjoyed Zelazny's work more in the Chronicles of Amber, but this selection of short stories was still worthwhile. Some of the main characters sounded a bit like Carl Corey, and as seems to be typical of this generation of science fiction writing, the male characters are more completely constructed than the female characters. I didn't enjoy the story about hunting the great beast in the waters of Venus, but found the other stories worthwhile. Zelazny accomplishes a certain amount of horror with these stories and I was able to imagine the world as if it were actually set up as he described in three of these settings. In one story, a select group of humans are regularly frozen, thawed, and refrozen, and Zelazny explores the consequences show more of such a lifestyle. In another, three unlikely allies hunt for a criminal who was also a witness of horrific crimes. In the final story, a poet/Martian translator fulfills a prophecy but feels cheated out of something that has become important to him.
There is something about this acidy-papered book that remains appealing. Zelazny has unique ideas, though his delivery makes his work dated. His work carries with it a sort of nostalgia and I don't want to forget what I have enjoyed in it. I am not well read in the science fiction genre, but did value reading this book and would recommend it to those who are willing to read it in its older sci-fi context. show less
There is something about this acidy-papered book that remains appealing. Zelazny has unique ideas, though his delivery makes his work dated. His work carries with it a sort of nostalgia and I don't want to forget what I have enjoyed in it. I am not well read in the science fiction genre, but did value reading this book and would recommend it to those who are willing to read it in its older sci-fi context. show less
This book had 4 stories that I read over a bunch of years probably starting sometime after 2010, definitely 1 in 2018 and one just last week. I loved "Doors of His Face Lamps of his Eyes" (Amazing writing. Super witty, cool original plot.), couldn't make it through more than the first 4 pages of "Graveyard Heart", and liked the other 2 stories a lot (A Rose for Ecclesiastes AND The Furies).
So now I can finally say I've finished this one. I'd eventually like to read everything Zelazny wrote, but I may have to wait until I retire, since I've only read 8 of his novels and two of his collections. I did get to meet him once a convention in Michigan, seemed like a really nice guy.
So now I can finally say I've finished this one. I'd eventually like to read everything Zelazny wrote, but I may have to wait until I retire, since I've only read 8 of his novels and two of his collections. I did get to meet him once a convention in Michigan, seemed like a really nice guy.
This book was titled "Four for Tomorrow" in the U.S. & both editions contain the same 4 stories.The title story is one of his most famous stories & rightfully so. It's another story set on a fictional Mars, with a dying Martian race & Earthmen to study them. It doesn't sound too appealing - more hackneyed than anything. It is nothing of the kind. It's touching - a romance mystery. 'Rose' also appears in his collection "The Lamps of His Mouth, The Doors of His Face" as well as in a couple of other anthologies.My favorite story in the collection is "The Furies". Imagine the Greek Furies in the far future when man is on many planets.Well worth reading.
This book was titled "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" in the U.K. & both editions contain the same 4 stories.The title story (in the U.K.) is one of his most famous stories & rightfully so. It's another story set on a fictional Mars, with a dying Martian race & Earthmen to study them. It doesn't sound too appealing - more hackneyed than anything. It is nothing of the kind. It's touching - a romance mystery. 'Rose' also appears in his collection "The Lamps of His Mouth, The Doors of His Face" as well as in a couple of other anthologies.My favorite story in the collection is "The Furies". Imagine the Greek Furies in the far future when man is on many planets.Well worth reading.
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Author Information
Roger Zelazny was born in Euclid, Ohio on May 13, 1937. After receiving a B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and a M.A. from Columbia University, he began publishing science fiction stories in 1962. He received six Hugo awards, three Nebula awards including one in 1966 for And Call Me Conrad and 2 Locus awards. He died of kidney failure show more secondary to colorectal cancer on June 14, 1995. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- Four for Tomorrow
- Original title
- Four for Tomorrow
- Alternate titles
- A Rose for Ecclesiastes
- Original publication date
- 1967
- Dedication
- To My Mother
- First words
- There has been nothing like Zelazny in the science fiction field since -- -- Introduction
As an afterthought, Nature sometimes tosses a bone to those it maims and casts aside. -- The Furies
I'm a baitman -- The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth
I was busy translating one of my Madrigals Macabre into Martian on the morning I was found acceptable. -- A Rose for Ecclesiastes - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Grateful. -- Introduction
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)They arise from chaos and deliver revenge; they convey confusion and disaster to those who abandon the law and forsake the way, who offend against the light and violate the life, who take the power of flame, like a lightning-rod to their two too mortal hands. -- The Furies
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)He slept, and the world passed by. -- The Graveyard Heart
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I don't think, but the rings of Saturn sing epithalamium the sea-beast's dower. -- The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Blurred Mars hung like a swollen belly above me, until it dissolved, brimmed over, and steamed down my face. -- A Rose for Ecclesiastes - Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- Four for Tomorrow was first published in the USA with this title, later published in the UK as A Rose for Ecclesiastes.
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