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Lord of Light Roger Zelazny Books

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Lord of Light Roger Zelazny Books

I've been reading sci-fi and fantasy for at least 50 years. This is one of the best. The whole "tech class of the crashed star ship transforms themselves into the Hindu pantheon to rule the passenger-descended populace" scenario is unparalleled as a concept. Then, the great characters and the intricate flashback-flash forward plot fleshing out this "what if?" scenario should satisfy the most discriminating. Zelazny was a great writer, and this was his very best IMHO. Every seven years I read it again.


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Lord of Light Roger Zelazny Books Reviews

Roger Zelazny's 1967 novel "Lord of Light" is a good story but suffers from the mechanism he uses to tell it. Instead of telling the story from the point of view of the protagonist, a good portion of the time, Zelazny dances around the story and gives it to us through descriptions of what happens to the other people involved. It IS interesting, but I'd have appreciated a more "mainstream" approach. Other than that, I enjoyed the book (it's a good exploration of a "suitably advanced technology"). I'm rating it at an OK 3 stars out of 5.
G.R.R.Martin said this was one of the five greatest novels of science fiction, and I humbly agree (my own list would include Childhood's End, Dune, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Stranger in a Strange Land...if the list was off the pre-1970's classics.) And they are also all Hugo winners in their respective years.

The inventive trope that Zelazny used also in Creatures of Light etc. of human beings in the future enacting the classic religious pantheons is clever and engaging recall Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that when science is advanced enough, it is hard to differentiate fomr magic...or divine activity.

If you haven't read this Zelzny classic, don't miss it...or for that matter almost any of the Hugo winners (though I must confess Bujold's endless string of Hugo wins rather puzzles me.
Great book! Absolutely loved it. Roger Zelazny has quite a way with words and brings witty humor into his writing. I admit it took me a chapter or two to really get into the book and understand what was happening, but once I did, I flew through it. The characters are delightful, and the battles between the gods were amusing. Highly recommend this book if you have enjoyed other books by Zelazny (highly recommend Night in the Lonesome October by Zelazny as well).
To do what Zelazny has done here with beauty, grace, and power is a masterpiece. Using SF to explore one most influential and dynamic parts of human history is an ambitious undertaking. Buddha and Hinduism have a relation that is depicted in this story, the reactionary nature Buddha against Hindu is realized. Using a great SF story to do is brilliant. In the course of doing the aspects of repression, totalitarianism, freedom are explored. I read several reviews of as one star. One reviewer indicated that it torture to read the few pages they and further said that if any liked it they had terrible taste. These people need to remember the Mario Brothers and first person shooters are not the height of cultural and the intellect standards. That fast pace and simpleton cookie cutter plots are just a way to placate the ignorant. Sam is an interesting character full of contradictions and anomalies yet remains true to his dream of a better life for the people. Like he said "I really never claimed to be a God nor did I deny it. No good would come from either."
Written in 1967, "Lord of Light" reads today as well as it did when it won the Hugo and Nebula awards. The thing that Zelazny has done is to take his time, infusing his book with contemplative moments and a purposely fake Hindu gloss, but without losing pace. He is willing to sacrifice a bit of reading ease for art, and it pays off handsomely. The very alien-ness of the situation, and of the attitudes of the characters, makes for a very engrossing, if somewhat hard to follow, read.

The underlying conflict is simple, but the attitude that the essentially immortal characters bring to it is, while very different, still essentially human. Man's inhumanity to ... well ... everybody and everything is very much on display here. The book highlights small, all too human and overwhelmed, minds, and large, all too human, egos, in a game of celestial thrones.

And, underlying it all is a believability of action and response. The situation is utterly alien, but we know people who react the way these people do. We're afraid that we too would react as badly in the same situations, or maybe we hope we would do as well. It's all a matter of perspective.
This really is sci fi fantasy literature. It contemplates timeless and universal questions of evolution and religion and politics. All with a fairly unique backdrop of futuristic Hindu mysticism and Buddhism on another planet that is different and same as our own at the same time. There's a lot to chew on in this book. After finishing the book I went back and re-read the first chapter, as it is actually depicting events towards the end of the story.

A knowledge of the Hindu pantheon or the tenants of Buddhism is not required to "get" the book, but it will certainly enrich your experience reading it. I have a very basic understanding of the Hindu gods and Buddhist practice and that was enough to understand the references in the book to those belief systems.

Side note the failed attempt at a film version of this book is the fake movie that was used to get the U.S. hostages out of Iran. It was re-titled "Argo" and bears no resemblance whatsoever to the hokey images presented in the Argo movie that Ben Affleck made. It is not, as they say in Argo, a cheap knock-off of Star Wars.
I've been reading sci-fi and fantasy for at least 50 years. This is one of the best. The whole "tech class of the crashed star ship transforms themselves into the Hindu pantheon to rule the passenger-descended populace" scenario is unparalleled as a concept. Then, the great characters and the intricate flashback-flash forward plot fleshing out this "what if?" scenario should satisfy the most discriminating. Zelazny was a great writer, and this was his very best IMHO. Every seven years I read it again.