No spoilers! Lord of Light isn't my favorite Zelazny novel, but I firmly believe it may well be his best.

The writing style here isn't as smooth, nuanced, and refined as that of some of his later masterpieces. However, what Zelazny accomplishes in this book is truly remarkable. He weaves together science and magic, technology and mysticism in such a seamless manner that at times, you find yourself completely perplexed as to what exactly he is doing. Yet, there is never a moment when you doubt his expertise and knowledge.

This is a character-driven story, and perhaps it doesn't offer as much action and adventure as one might initially anticipate. Nevertheless, it demands your full attention throughout. It is a challenge that is well worth taking, as it provides a truly thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating experience. I'm almost due for another thorough read through this captivating work of literature.

6.0 stars.

It holds a prominent place on my list of "All Time" favorites. This is an absolutely brilliant novel penned by one of the masters of science fiction.

This book represents the pinnacle of what science fiction can achieve and ranks alongside Dune and Ender's Game among the very best.

However, unlike those other two books, I firmly believe that this book is exponentially better upon a second reading.

The reason for this lies in the fact that the story jumps around, and the background of the story is gradually revealed, which can be somewhat confusing at the beginning.

Therefore, my advice would be to read each chapter of the book after first perusing the Wikipedia "plot summary" for that specific chapter.

In my opinion, knowing the "general outline" of each chapter will in no way detract from the enjoyment of the story. On the contrary, it will actually enhance the overall experience and deepen your appreciation of the narrative.

Winner: Hugo Award Best Novel

Nominee: Nebula Award Nest Novel.

SF Masterworks #7 - This is a book that has received such high ratings and is widely liked. However, for me, it was pure mumbo jumbo. It is set in a far, far future where the Eastern gods rule over their worshippers while constantly engaged in their own power struggles. Perhaps if I had some knowledge about Eastern or Indian religions, I might have enjoyed this book more. I really had a hard time reading it. I persisted only because I refuse to DNF (Did Not Finish) an SF Masterworks. But on the other hand, force-reading probably led me to have a very negative experience with this book. I would rate it 2 out of 12.

2020 read

The book's complex and unfamiliar religious themes made it a challenge for me to understand and engage with. I found myself constantly confused and lost in the story. Despite my best efforts to persevere, the lack of connection with the material took a toll on my reading experience. I hope that in the future, I will be better prepared to appreciate books like this one that draw on specific religious and cultural traditions.

I didn't like it at all and I was very disappointed.

I started reading the book with certain expectations because of its very high score and the many praises I read.

The author tells the story in an epic narrative style like Homeros, so I can't say it resembles a modern novel. There is almost no character with whom you can empathize. The story is advancing in a disjointed way, far from being continuous.

Most of the characters' behaviors often have no logic. The science fiction infrastructure is weak and almost non-existent. I don't even know why this book is classified as science fiction. The main genre of the book is definitely not science fiction, but fantasy and mythology. It is not possible to encounter character development.

Most of the time, it feels like you are reading passages from a religious book rather than a novel. It is very difficult to bring the story to life in your mind because there is almost no description or there is an epic description.

I didn't like it at all and I didn't understand why it was so liked. Despite having taken a religious history course in my time and knowing the basic concepts and gods related to Hinduism and Buddhism, I didn't understand a lot of things. What can those who have no knowledge of these topics understand from this book? Probably 90% of what is told you won't understand because most of what is told is a reinterpretation of the stories in the Hindu religious books (the Vedas).

It is also a book that is not at all easy to read and that challenges the reader, not at all flowing. I was very surprised that this book was so liked.

Šiaip patiko, bet tikrai nėra lengvai skaitoma knyga.

The story is written like a myth or a legend.

Although there are not very many pages, this way of telling a story is very profound.

There are many events and characters, and the characters themselves are often called by more than one name.

For example, the main character - Samas, probably has six or seven names.

In addition to all that, a large number of Hindu and Buddhist names and terms are used in the book.

Well, but after a difficult start of reading, the book hooked as it should.

But overall, I think it will not please everyone.

And this way I am glad that I got "Eridanas" back.

We just have to hope that this time the quality will be more than the quantity.

The beginning is good.

Please provide the article that needs to be rewritten and expanded so that I can help you.

On the very first page of Lord of Light, Zelazny thrusts the reader right into the heart of an epic and timeless struggle. This battle is unfolding on a distant planet in a far-off future. It's an extremely disorienting way to begin a story, especially one as strange and complex as this. The novel's structure offers no assistance either. It's divided into seven long and loosely connected chapters, presented out of chronological order. At first, the reader has no clue that this is the case. The prose is grandiose and old-fashioned, which suits the book's mythic themes but does nothing for clarity. And the overall premise of the novel is only gradually revealed, in fragmented pieces throughout the narrative. As a result, I spent the first half of this book completely unaware of what was happening.

So, it's fair to say that overall, this is a dense, confusing, and challenging book. However, in hindsight, it's also an extraordinary one. I now look forward to reading it again, now that I understand its essence. I can't think of any other recent book that so compels me to reread it.

In this paragraph and the next, I'll explain the basic premise of the novel. So, if you're planning on reading this book and prefer to be confused surprised, you might want to skip them. Lord of Light is set on an unnamed planet that was colonized by a single spaceship of humans centuries ago. Earth is either no longer there or completely out of contact. The planet's original inhabitants, incorporeal beings of great power, were quickly subjugated. The ship's passengers began to populate the planet. The ship's crew, on the other hand, possessed extremely advanced technology, either brought from Earth or developed during their war against the aliens. Significantly, they had mastered cloning and the ability to transfer human minds across bodies, giving them literal immortality. After the war, they began to rule over the planet's human population as gods, modeling themselves after the Hindu pantheon. They jealously hoarded all technology for themselves, keeping the rest of the planet in preindustrial conditions and demanding worship in exchange for access to reincarnation. Only two of the crew rebelled against this social order: the ship's Christian chaplain, who rejected Hinduism but not the godlike powers, and thus became a dangerous and isolated adversary. And Sam, who objected on the grounds that all people should have access to technology - which, of course, would endanger the gods' only claim to authority.

We enter this story towards the end - after Sam has already launched one great effort against the gods, been defeated, killed, and unexpectedly reincarnated half a century later. Through flashbacks, we learn how Sam became convinced that the gods must be overthrown, how he introduced Buddhism to the masses by reenacting the life of the Buddha, how he freed the imprisoned alien life forms and gathered them, along with troops of men, rebel gods, and the chaplain's zombie army, in a great but futile battle against heaven. Finally, in the last chapter, we return to the present time and witness Sam's final, apocalyptic confrontation with the gods.

This book has a lot to say about politics, power, technology, morality, religion, and greed. It can be read as science fiction, as myth, as allegory, or as a fantastical retelling of Buddhism's early history. It has both very serious moments and very silly ones. But the highlight for me, on my first reading, was uncovering the little nuggets of information about the characters' distant past. As we join the story, the gods have been ruling the planet for many lifetimes. It is only here and there that Zelazny reveals snippets of who they were when they were just a starship crew, their old personalities and relationships, and how these have been corrupted by centuries of immortality and ultimate power. Also interesting, but even rarer, are details about the planet's pre-human history, how its original life forms lived, and how their way of life was destroyed with the arrival of man.

There is much to admire in this book. I'd like to go back and focus more on its mystical and religious aspects, as it borrows heavily from Hindu scriptures and Buddhist history, and I skimmed over much of that this time in my eagerness to figure out what the heck the plot was. As I said, it's a difficult book. But it's also an amazing one. It's like nothing else I've ever read in science fiction.

(Original review date: 17 March 2009)

It is a curious mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism, and science fiction; much more of the former and very little of the latter.

Although I have liked it, I feel that the science fiction part lacked a lot of development. There was something missing to better understand the entire context of the world in which they live.

This combination creates an interesting and unique atmosphere. The elements of Hinduism and Buddhism bring a sense of spirituality and depth, while the science fiction aspect adds a touch of mystery and speculation.

However, without a more detailed exploration of the science fiction elements, it can be a bit difficult to fully immerse oneself in the story.

It would have been nice to have more information about the technology, the society, and the events that shape this fictional world.

Despite this, the overall concept is still engaging, and it makes me curious to see how the author will further develop this universe in future works.

The original article is not provided, so I can't rewrite and expand it specifically. However, I can give you a general example to show you how to do it.

Let's assume the original article is: "The dog is running in the park. It looks happy."

Here is the rewritten and expanded version:

The adorable dog is joyfully running in the beautiful park.

It seems to be filled with pure happiness as it dashes around, its tail wagging vigorously.

The park is a wonderful place for the dog to play and explore, with its green grass, colorful flowers, and shady trees.

The dog's movements are full of energy and vitality, as if it is celebrating the simple pleasure of being alive.

Watching the dog run and play in the park is a heartwarming sight that brings a smile to anyone's face.

It reminds us of the importance of taking time to enjoy the little things in life and find happiness in the simplest of moments.

I first encountered this book in the late 1960s. Back then, it was completely new and unlike anything that had come before in the realm of science fiction. I was immediately struck by its brilliance and mystery. The latter was in part due to my own ignorance as a teenager, as I knew very little about the Hindu and Buddhist religions and myths that Zelazny was drawing upon. Over the years, I have become at least somewhat less ignorant, though not by a huge margin.

I still believe that the book is brilliant, but the mystery has lessened somewhat. It's like looking at faded pictures of your parents and realizing that you are now older than they were in those pictures.

One of the intellectual pleasures of this book for the reader is piecing together the world-building setup. Its mysteries are gradually revealed, so any brief summary would act as a significant spoiler. However, I want to make some comments that depend on these details, so I will provide a synopsis at the end. Those who are sensitive to spoilers for a half-century-old book can stop reading in time.

Upon this reread, which is the first in decades and perhaps the first since I started my own writing career, I was immediately conscious of the voice. It is omniscient, with its fascinating strengths and interesting ability to hide weaknesses. While an omniscient narrator can be emotionally distancing, it has the advantage of being able to convey a vast amount of information in a short amount of page time, allowing for rich and detailed world-building.

The episodic structure, starting the story near its end and proceeding through various novella-length flashbacks, stems from its origin as a fix-up, incorporating stories that were originally sold separately to different magazines. Nevertheless, it all comes together beautifully, managing to be more than the sum of its parts.

The narrator's style could perhaps be described as "high-falutin' smart ass." It features florid and often beautiful language, undercut by jokes and running gags, allowing the writer to be poetic without sacrificing his street cred.

I'm afraid that the sexism fairy has hit this book rather hard in the decades since my last read. I have a relatively high tolerance for this because I remember the original social context, and "Lord of Light" was much better than some other books of the time. However, the core emotional story is undoubtedly a bromance. The two generationally-dissociated not-quite-rivals for a woman's love, Sam and Yama, end up with their most important relationship being with each other. After the climax, they go off on new adventures, free from any taint of domesticity, leaving the female leg of the putative love triangle entirely disempowered and in her place. Granted, Candi-Kali is a well-observed example of what I have dubbed the Borderline-Personality Girlfriend, which does add complexity. Sam is probably correct in his evaluation that any attempt at a long-term relationship with her would not end well, and he speaks from experience. But it is very convenient for the narrative that this frees our main guy-pair from any ongoing duties in this regard.

It's a very blokey book. Most of the chapter climaxes are epic battles, big fights to establish male-male bio-social dominance, or what we might call politics. For a narrative inspired by some of the ur-sources of Indo-European patriarchal tradition, this is actually quite appropriate. Only the few female figures who fight in a guy-style get to share center stage for long, or else they are support staff. Well, it's a war story, so this is perhaps somewhat fair.

Now for some world-building spoilers. The background is as follows: This alien and eerie planet was settled many generations ago by a shipload of mainly South Asian colonists. At the same time, technology was developed for electronically or magically uploading personalities into new, fresh bodies, which are conveniently grown to adult size in vats. As time went on, mutant superpowers arose among some of the colonists/crew, and a cadre of them set themselves up as the Hindu pantheon, controlling reincarnation and keeping all the high tech for themselves. Sam, our hero (and formerly apparently the colony ship's engineer, given his powers over electrical phenomena), becomes increasingly offended by this and sets himself up as a one-man (but several-generations-long) revolution against heaven, using Buddhism as his template for resistance. His banner is material progress, which is denied by the gods who suppress any tech that is discovered or rediscovered by the peons. So far, so good. I, personally, am a strong advocate of education, flush toilets, and electricity for all.

However, to anyone with a background in biology, the existence and maintenance of the widespread reincarnation technology is wildly inconsistent with the posited trope of keeping the masses ignorant. I really don't see how this society, if it were at all economically realistic, could have it both ways, except by authorial fiat. So the world-building fails at its central conceit.

Some of the underlying SF tropes, while fun in context, also give me pause these days. The big one, of course, is the denial of biology, reproduction, and death as the substrate of human existence. Death is circumvented by the reincarnation tech. Family (and women) become unimportant as one buys one's new, unrelated body from a vat, without anyone visible having to do any menial work to make it possible. This embodies what seems to me a (largely) young male SF ideal that imagines the self as being generated from one's own forehead at the age of twenty-two, without any status-draining obligations to any other human beings, especially women, for one's existence. It's very solipsistic and very common in the genre. I don't really have a solid explanation for why it is so popular, but it has been popular for a very long time.

Despite my more mature reservations, I found that many bits, scenes, characters, and dialogue from "Lord of Light" have lived vividly in my memory for decades. I highly recommend the book as a piece of SF history and a fun read.

Ta, L.

(And as a side note, I mention that one of my copies of the book is from Gordy Dickson's library, sold off after his death.)

My first read of Roger Zelazny's book!

Right after that, I went to the person who had the complete Chronicles of Amber for sale.

Within a few days, I read them :)

I won't go into details, I'll just say WHAT A WRITING STYLE, WHAT CHARACTERS, WHAT A PLOT, and again WHAT A WRITING STYLE! One of the most important books in the genre!

Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber is truly a masterpiece. The writing style is engaging and captivating, pulling the reader into a world full of magic and mystery. The characters are well-developed and complex, each with their own unique personalities and motives. The plot is intricate and full of twists and turns, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat from beginning to end.

Overall, I highly recommend this series to anyone who loves fantasy and adventure. It's a must-read for fans of the genre and a great introduction for those new to it.

I truly appreciate this book, yet it simply isn't the right fit for me. In the beginning, there were indeed some interesting ideas that caught my attention. I initially thought that I could establish a close connection with Sam and some of the other characters. However, as I progressed beyond chapter one, it felt as if I was reading one myth or parable after another. It was a rather disjointed experience. Unfortunately, I just couldn't fully immerse myself in the story. I found it difficult to maintain the level of engagement that I had hoped for. The flow seemed disrupted, and I struggled to keep up with the various narratives and concepts. Despite the book having its merits, it ultimately failed to capture my imagination in the way that I had anticipated.