Another book I've read recently

[mmcirvin]

I finally got around to reading Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, the 1967 book that established him as a brilliant new talent to look out for. This is back in print as part of the general renaissance in classic SF reprints that seems to be going on.

It's the story of a bunch of people who have established themselves as a godlike planetary aristocracy through indistinguishable-from-magic super-tech and assumed the identities of Hindu gods, and the quasi-Buddha who tries to take them down.

It's pretty cool and is not a very long novel, but it's slow going. Since its characters are patterned after the Hindu pantheon, there about a jillion of them, most of them have several different names, and they're constantly transmigrating into new bodies, changing their appearances, and replacing each other in the pantheon through a system of promotion. So keeping them straight requires some care.

I was mostly able to roll with the premise; the one thing that abused my suspension of disbelief was the way that the indigenous energy-entities of the planet acted like traditional Hindu demons. Why would they do that? Some acquired sense of aesthetic balance? It's not clear.

Comments

[peglegpete.livejournal.com]

Hm. I always got the idea that the energy entities had a tendency to pick up aspects of personality from the meatlings they interacted with. Didn't the energy entities only start acting more demon-ish after the initial colonists started up the godhead bit?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's made clear, but that's a plausible enough explanation.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

I love that book (and most of the rest of Zelazny's). I haven't re-read it for many, many years, though. It feels like a more complete, better thought-out version of his Creatures of Light and Darkness.

When I read the book, I love it for its stylishness, the unabashed pleasure Zelazny took in the pure writing. After I put it down, the plot (which kind of pieces itself together from a rather incoherent whole) intrigues me, but I'm not a real plot-driven reader (I like Dorothy Sayers but not Agatha Christie).

Creatures of L & D is much sillier, but has the same sense of style, of words being used for the love of words, that L of L does. It's pure fun, and if you liked Lords you should read Creatures.

But don't pay too much attention to its plot.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite bit was the episode with Rild/Sugata, and Sam's admission about him after the fact.

Given the quality of the prose, I'll even allow Zelazny his one truly awful pun.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of Jan Lars Jensen's _Shiva 3000_, which just happens to be awesome. That one has a similar premise, but is more concerned with events and wonders than with explanations.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think Lord of Light probably also inspired Walter Jon Williams' great short story "Prayers on the Wind".

To Reign in Hell

[(Anonymous)]

If you liked Lord of Light, a novel that to me captured a lot of the same feel was "To Reign in Hell" by Steven Brust. The latter was a little closer to home for westerners, since the gods involved were Yahweh, Satan, Beelzebub, etc.

To Reign in Hell

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, that was me, Daryl McCullough
stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com
http://combingthesphere.blogspot.com