This Immortal

What a novel. I have to admit I did not expect story this straight-forward from Roger Zelazny. I mean story taking place in time span of couple of days (unlike decades and centuries in "Lord of Light") and without convoluted story-line like one in "Creatures of Light and Darkness".

We follow a mystery man in the [maybe not so far?] future,[way] older than expected as he is faced with a very difficult task - keep an alien ambassador alive while visiting the landmarks of the depopulated and heavily radiated Earth, years after a nuclear war that almost brought end to all life on Earth. He is not sure why he needs to keep the alien alive but he knows something very bad will happen if he fails in his mission.

Saved at the very last minute by show more alien Vegans, humanity found itself in the position that it either needs to go to the stars to seek fortune and prosperity or remain on Earth trying to feel as something more than creatures in the zoo that gets visited by Vegans - The Earth, great monument how deadly and self-destructive civilization can become. This of course gave rise to huge resentment and violence (and our hero is heavily involved in all of this).

Story has it all - immortal hero, one who fought to save and preserve the Earth through force and then decided to play it more clever on psychological level, person who finally found love of his life only to be brought back into the turbulent intergalactic political arena. Entire story is author's nod to Greek mythology.

We have assassins, secret agents, giant war-hounds and mutants from radioactive areas, vast irradiated areas with mutated flora and fauna. Might sound over the top but functions truly beautifully. One of the best book I read so far [but then again I always enjoy stories of old heroes trying to live their lives and get sucked back into conflicts].

Highly recommended to all fans of SF. show less

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Zelazny's first novel, and one of his great ones, set on a devastated future planet earth with a Greek immortal lapsed terrorist as the protagonist. He was almost at the peak of his powers: in his late he hit levels of quality he had difficulty in reaching again in later, more comfortable times. The familiar Zelazny themes of death and fatherhood are already here. Conrad/Konstantin loses his wife (apparently, in an earthquake) and two other sympathetic characters die of natural causes; and his son (like himself immortal, but without his own eternal youth) recurs to utter prophecies and help at a crucial moment.

Two things make the book. The first is the fascinating character of the narrator, show more whose hard-boiled but occasionally lyrical voice becomes familiar (perhaps too familiar) in later Zelazny but must have been fresh in 1965. His past as a former fighter against the alien Vegans and quisling humans who have taken over the devastated earth, combined with his present as a chief administrator collaborating (at least superficially) with the administrationn makes us never quite sure what he is up to himself but eager to find out. He is a hero who is trying to keep his heroic identity under wraps. He does things like dismantling the Great Pyramid for laughs. And there are the little touches like dropping in on his friend's daughter's seventh birthday party.

The other thing is just the writing: first, the setting up and description of the bizarre blasted landscapes of the future Greece, the voodoo celebration in Haiti, the shift in perspective as he fights the golem, the Athens hotel room covered with plaques commemorating Conrad's life as Konstantin ('I was really afraid to go into the bathroom'). And second, of course, the humour - the skill Zelazny had in combining the contrasting styles of demotic with epic and making it funny rather than just cheap.

The book is not without flaws. The plot (both the sequence of events in the story, and the conspiracy among several of the characters) has a lot of holes in it. Conrad appears to have married Cassandra without telling her how old he is; she in her turn surprisingly survives apparent death and then doesn't contact him for weeks, showing up just in the nick of time to save them all from the Black Beast of Thessaly. (No apologies for spoilers - the book has been a classic for forty years.) The invisibilty of Conrad's immortality to the administrative system is rather less credibly established than that of the protagonist of Zelazny's later My Name Is Legion.

But I loved rereading it, and am wondering if I might make the complete works of Zelazny into one of my future reading projects. (I should add that I got the idea of setting myself reading projects in the first place after discovering from a biography that Zelazny planned his own leisure reading fairly meticulously.) show less

This Immortal follows an episode in the long and danger-filled life of Konstantin Karaghiosis, among other names (but call him Conrad). Seat-filling commissioner of Arts, Monuments, and Archives; expert lover, deadly fighter, degenerate sybarite, retired terrorist, and possible demigod, Conrad is called away from his Greek island refuge to serve as a tour-guide for a very important Vegan journalist, a representative of the alien race that now owns most of Earth. This journalist, Cort Mystigo, is writing a report that will determine the fate of Earth, and it is up to Conrad to keep him safe from myriad dangers of Earth, ranging from radioactive monsters to political radicals who want Mystigo dead.

The novel does a great job showing and show more not telling the dismal future earth. The population has been reduced to a mere 4 million, clinging to islands and a few small resort towns that the organized and aesthetic Vegans use as bases for atrocity tourism, since their species never experienced a nuclear war. With a population this small, it seems plausible that Conrad would know everyone of importance on Earth. The monsters and mutant cannibal tribes are both real threats and psychological markers of the sin of nuclear war. The characters are quite good, if you like them on the hyper-competent side.

But somehow, this book just didn't match my tastes. It was a fine enough dark adventure romp, with humanity stumbling along the verge of extinction and all of earth reduced to a mausoleum. There were a couple of great moments, like dismantling the pyramids to show how they were constructed by playing the film in reverse, and an anthropologist from New Harvard who becomes the witchdoctor of a mutant cannibal tribe, but the moments never really added up to more. show less

The novel is filled with allusions and hints and name-dropping and metaphors that display Zelazny’s interest and knowledge of ancient Greek (and other) mythologies. Overall, the novel wants you to like it and as a reader I really wanted to, as well. So engaging and breezy, but ultimately ridiculous and stupid. It is really quite like taking the well-worn concept of “humans do not treat their planet well” and then turning it into some Edwardian/ancient Greek farce. What did Zelazny want to do with this? He did not know, either, I think. Its mid-1960s sentiment with some leftover 1940s pulp. Good luck, readers.

4.5 stars
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

The Earth has been mostly depopulated as humans have discovered more sophisticated and comfortable cultures elsewhere in the universe. Much of its infrastructure was destroyed during “The Three Days,” and most of the mainland areas are still “hot.” Genetic mutations have caused the birth of creatures previously thought to be only myth. Now Earth is a strange and dangerous place, fit only as a tourist attraction and a vacation spot for the Vegans.

But some people still love Earth, including long-lived Conrad Nomikos, Commissioner for the Arts. Conrad hates the Vegans, so he isn’t happy that he’s been assigned to be the tour guide for Cort Mishtigo, a rich Vegan who may be show more planning to buy up more of Earth. But even more interesting than Mishtigo’s plans for Earth is the nature of Conrad himself. Who is he?

This Immortal is a gorgeous novel and Conrad Nomikos makes a great hero, similar to Corwin from Zelazny’s later Amber Chronicles. Conrad’s love of Earth and, particularly, for his Greek heritage is full of beauty and passion:

You will pass, but the hills of Greece will remain, will be unchanged, with the smell of goat thigh bones burning, with a mingling of blood and wine, a taste of sweetened almonds, a cold wind by night, and skies as blue-bright as the eyes of a God by day. Touch them, if you dare… That is why I am refreshed whenever I return, because now that I am a man with many years behind me, I feel this way about the entire Earth. That is why I fought, and why I killed and bombed…

I listened to This Immortal on audio (Brilliance Audio) and fell in love with narrator Victor Bevine whose deeply resonant voice captured perfectly the strength and depth of Conrad, the tenderness of Conrad’s wife Cassandra, the alienness of the Vegan, the gentle deadliness of Hasan the Assassin, and even the zealous geekiness of George, the scientist whose curiosity and ambition makes him willing to experiment on his own friends, pets, and unborn child.

The end of This Immortal wraps up a bit too quickly — I wanted to stay longer with Conrad on our devastated planet. I hope everything turns out okay… show less

For a long time, Zelazny was my favorite author and he definitely had much to do with the shaping of my world view. This isn't one of my favorites, although a good read. I find the protagonist's view of women problematic, and every tense violent situation has a 'just in time' rescue. On the other hand, his deep Greek folklore in a post-apocalyptic setting is intriguing, if under explored.

Conrad Nimikos, Earth’s Minister of Culture, Arts and Monuments, has been assigned to play tour guide to blue-skinned Vegan, Cort Myshtigo. The Three-Day War, a nuclear event, has left most of the Earth destroyed by radiation, and the Vegan occupation hasn’t helped much either. Myshtigo seems intrigued by Conrad’s identity and apparent immortality – is he the god Pan, some other superhuman, or just a human affected by nuclear radiation? And why is Myshtigo actually touring Earth – to write a tour book or is there another nefarious reason?

Let me state right away that I enjoy Zelazny’s work – The Chronicles of Amber series was imaginative and engaging, and the Millenial series co-written with Robert Sheckley was hilarious. I show more wanted to like This Immortal, and I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t enjoy it the way I thought I might. Perhaps it was because I listened to the audiobook version, as I found my thoughts drifting away from the book. It seemed like there were loads of characters introduced quickly, and that certainly would have been better in print where I could leaf back through the book to recall who was whom.

This Immortal shared the 1966 Hugo with Frank Herbert’s Dune, which seems to have weathered the years much better than Zelazny’s work. Zelazny was considered a modern sci-fi writer in his time, but from a 50-year distance, the book now seems very dated. show less