Coils

Written with Fred Saberhagen, I'm generally not too fond of books where Zelazny writes with another author. This is an exception. They complement each other very well in this short, but very action packed novel.It's an interesting concept. In the not too distant future, the world is run almost entirely by computers with mega corporations. The hero is caught up in a tense situation, but has a hidden ally & talent that becomes apparent as the novel progresses.

A seriously weird story. A man with amnesia accidentally finds the love of his life (maybe), then she's taken and he pursues her, finding himself along the way. And finding some very odd powers, as well. It's often difficult to figure out what's actually happening, what's dreams, what's memory, and what are induced hallucinations. The ending has a nice twist - a beginning of something very new. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'll reread.

Having read most of both Roger Zelazny’s and Fred Saberhagen’s books, I really looked forward to reading a book that represented a collaboration between the two authors. This book had the overtones of Zelazny’s writing more than Saberhagen’s, but it was a real interesting story.

Basically, it’s about a guy who’s lost his memory and begins to re-discover who he was and what he’d done. He worked for a future mega-corporation in an exclusive group because he has a special power—he “talks” to computers and can traverse the links between them. He later finds his powers grown enough to be able to even change their programming just by being near them.

I enjoyed this book, it was a quick read (under 24 hours for me) and I show more expect to read it again sometime. show less

Published in 1988, "Coils" provides an interesting backward glance at the computers-will-rule-the-world theme.

paperback

Cowritten by Fred Saberhagen, this still feels like a Zelazny book. It’s not one of his best, being slightly unconvincing throughout, but I like it well enough to reread it now and then. It features a man who can in effect do telepathy with computers, which is implausible but original, and nicely weird.