Zelazny is truly a remarkable figure in the world of science fiction. His voice is as distinct as that of Delany or Le Guin, instantly recognizable to any avid reader. He is like a SF Zoro, with a romantic and flamboyant style. He cannot simply walk across a room; he must swashbuckle his way there, leaving a mark with his rapier. This, combined with his uncanny ability to incorporate Divorced-Wife Subplots into almost every story, gives the impression of a womanizing vagabond at best, or a harmless pepe le pew type at worst.

Neal Gaiman, who has written introductions for numerous authors, has often spoken of the immense influence Zelazny had on him, especially in his short fiction. Expectations for this collection can be set by imagining a darker, sometimes sleazier Gaiman.

Now, let's take a closer look at some of the stories. "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth" throws the reader into the deep end, and is arguably the most difficult story in the collection to conceptualize. It has major notes of Moby Dick set on a storm-besieged planet where Extreme Fishing is a popular spectator sport. While beautifully written, it felt a bit disjointed.

"The Keys To December" is possibly the best story in the collection. It tells the tale of a race of semi-immortal feline-like humanoids who buy a planet and begin terraforming it over eons. We witness the ethical and emotional tolls of waiting and trying to create an Eden. It is a heartfelt and thought-provoking story.

"Devil Car" is a fun and dumb pulp story about sentient cars taking over the world. There's only one man and his car companion who can stop them. Despite its simplicity, there's more depth to this story than meets the eye.

"A Rose for Ecclesiastes" follows a poet/linguist who heads to Mars to witness the end days of an alien culture. While it didn't gel with me at first, it started to win me over towards the end.

"The Monster and the Maiden" is a short story that didn't do much for me. It felt more like flash fiction.

"Collector's Fever" has a writing style very similar to Gaiman's. It has good dry British humor and a pointed message for compulsive collectors of the natural world.

"This Mortal Mountain" is an immersive story about accomplished climbers who take on an alien mountain that makes Everest look like a sandcastle. It gets at the male-brained desire to climb just because something is there. The ending came out of nowhere and left me with mixed feelings.

"This Moment of the Storm" explores the underrated technology of cryofreezing. It's a story about weathering the storms of reality and taking the punches without giving up. It has the most well-done romance subplot among all the stories.

"The Great Slow Kings" is a story that makes you think of lizard people governing the world.

"A Museum Piece" is a very creative story, but Zelazny may have gone a bit overboard. I had a hard time understanding the ending.

"Divine Madness" is a story about a man experiencing a tragedy in reverse. It's a bit gimmicky, but I think it would be well-received if published today.

"Corrida" left me scratching my head. I had no idea what was going on.

"Love is an Imaginary Number" is another story that I had trouble conceptualizing, but there was something about it that I liked.

"The Man Who Loved the Faioli" is Zelazny's most erotic and romantic story, and it's also one of the best. A love story between a cyborg and a succubus (possibly a vampire?) shouldn't work, but it does. It's unbelievably good and should be celebrated.

"Lucifer" ends the collection on a powerful note, leaving a lasting impression.

A Testament to Writing for Yourself and for No One Else.

Zelazny has truly had a profound impact on me. He has shocked me with his unique and unexpected storylines, disturbed me with the depth of his characters and their experiences, and amazed me with the beauty and complexity of his worlds. And I'm only two-thirds done with the stories!

What makes Zelazny's writing so remarkable is his ability to throw his readers into his worlds with no explanation. It's like asking them to jump onto a cargo train as it races down the track at high speed and never slow down. But despite the lack of a safety net, he manages to create this much of an impact. It's truly rare to find this kind of writing anywhere besides between the pages of The Doors of His Face.

Each of his tales is perfect in its own way. He gives you just enough to satisfy your curiosity, but never so much that you're left feeling hungry for more. You're content with the mysteries he presents, and you're left with a sense of satisfaction that only comes from reading truly great science fiction.

Roger Zelazny was truly a master in the realms of short stories, novelettes, and novellas. It's rather a pity, as his world-building often leaves readers longing for even more. This collection is a testament to his exploration of humanity and his remarkable creativity, almost consistently blowing the reader's mind. His use of language is simply impressive. He can write with concision, cutting right to a quiet moment in the midst of a hurricane, or he can artfully weave words together to perfectly describe an alien sunrise. There's a tone of melancholy that runs through these stories, with themes of time and loneliness, but the way he translates them into exotic settings is truly amazing. Who would have thought he was such a romantic?

The collection includes a few weaker works, as well as one or two that seem like they were fun writing exercises, but even his least efforts are still worth reading. He is truly a craftsman.

"The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" (a Nebula winner) takes us on a deep-sea fishing adventure on Venus. A baitman takes on one last job to hunt the biggest sea monster yet, with the commission coming from a makeup millionaire who is filming it. Zelazny's description of Venus is vivid: "Venus at night is a field of sable waters... Dawn is like dumping milk into an inkwell."

"The Keys to December" is a haunting and beautiful story. A group of people bioengineered to work in the cold world of Alyonal buy themselves a world and plan to bioengineer it to fit their physical forms. They cryo-sleep during the accelerated planetary evolution, leaving a few people to stand guard each decade. This gives them a unique opportunity to observe local evolution and extinction. The story raises profound questions about what it means to be human, to be a race, and what one marginalized species owes another.

"Devil Car" is Zelazny's post-apocalyptic answer to Christine. Groups of wild escaped cars are living in the wastes, led by the Devil Car. Murdock and his artificed car Jenny are tracking him down. The story explores what it means to be alive and wild.

"A Rose for Ecclesiastes" is one of his classics. An internationally acclaimed poet with a knack for languages is invited to Mars. He becomes the first human to learn the Martian language and is invited into the inner sanctum to see the Martian dance, a mix of spirituality and poetry. The story is a heart-render, with beautiful language and profound insights into the Martian race and a prophecy.

"The Monster and the Maiden" is a quick two-pager with a twist. "Collector's Fever" is a bit silly, a bit of social commentary, and kind of cute. "This Mortal Mountain" follows a mountain climber and his team as they attempt to climb the highest mountain in the universe. The story is filled with poetic beauty and raises questions about the ultimate challenge and the nature of man.

"This Moment of the Storm" is one of the author's favorite Zelazny novelettes. A storm predictor and a world hopper predict the big storm and work with the Mayor to guide the city through it, even as society is disrupted. The story begins and ends with the philosophical question of "What is Man?" and is a classic that is included in other collections as well.

"The Great Slow Kings" seems to be a thought exercise, exploring the perspective on life of beings whose lives span millennia. "A Museum Piece" follows a gorgeous but critically unknown artist who decides to turn his life around. In true Zelazny fashion, he meets not only a woman but an alien. The story has a whimsical tone.

"Divine Madness" tells the story of a man caught in a time loop, reliving the death of his wife. The writing technique used to capture the backward loop is remarkable. "Corrida" is a strange little tale where a man awakens in a bullring. "Love is an Imaginary Number" reads much like an Amber short, with a demigod trying to escape.

"The Man Who Loved the Faioli" is another haunting, love-lost tale with the essence of wish-fulfillment. "Lucifer" follows a man who misses the lights and life of the city and struggles to get the generators running. "The Furies" is a little sci-fi opera with a space pirate, an empath, an assassin, and a space geographer. It's a great chase tale with build and tension, and an amazing ending.

"The Graveyard Heart" tells the story of a man who meets a beautiful woman who is a member of the Set, an elite, eternal group. In order to be worthy of joining, he needs a lifestyle change and to pass an interview with the head maven. The story is another example of Zelazny's skill in playing with the pinnacle of career, manipulation of time, and love.

Overall, this collection is a masterpiece, a testament to Zelazny's genius as a writer.

Yes, I probably like Zelazny more when he writes novellas than when he writes novels. This collection shows him in top form throughout. Fantastic novellas with a baseline higher than what I've previously experienced, I think. There isn't a single one that I would call bad. Some are short and humorous (the man has a demonstrably dry sense of humor that is really good), some more pulpy, like the title novella, "This Mortal Mountain" and "A Rose...", but in the author's hands, they rise above what the titles suggest. If nothing else, Zelazny's language elevates the whole thing enormously. The greatest poet in the genre, alive or dead. It would be pointless to list all the novellas and talk about them individually, but of course I have some favorites. The title novella, "This Mortal Mountain", "This Moment of the Storm" (with the collection's best ending). "The Man Who Loved the Faioli", a kind of cyborg/vampire love story with a fantastic atmosphere, the extremely powerful "Divine Madness" and the sadness it radiates. But "The Keys to December" is by far the best in the collection. A breathtakingly beautiful and meditative novella about genetically engineered people and their attempt to terraform a world after their own has been taken from them.

Some of them are short (down to just two pages) and seem to be based mainly on either a simple idea (like dragons giving maidens to knights instead of the other way around) or just something that struck him as entertaining. Like "Collector's Fever" and the dialogue between the collector and the stone. These are also good but leave no more lasting impression than a short laugh. Good, but not as good as the ones I mentioned above. It can be a bit that all the main characters are really in many ways the same person. Zelazny has his voice and he likes it, but it's not so carbon-copied that it bothers a whole lot, really. The man can do his sarcastic smokers, so to speak, so at least the characters are rarely boring. It is in "The Man..." that the characters shine the best as the whole thing is elevated to something that is almost like a myth rather than anything else.