August Books 20) Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny

[nwhyte]

It's often a bit worrying to return to the scene of one's youthful enthusiasm to see if the magic is still there - particularly in the case of this novel, bearing in mind the recent discussions of cultural appropriation

Comments

[andrewducker]

I love this book to bits. I read it repeatedly as a teenager and returned to it about two years ago, delighted to find it still held its power.

[scott_lynch]

I read this for the first time about five years ago when I undertook my big project to read all of the Hugo/Nebula/WFA best-novel winners. I had a pretty gleeful expression on my face most of the way through. I think this is one of those fortunate books that fires on all cylinders and ages gracefully.

[anonymous]

It has aged... okay. The sexism is kind of noticeable now. (Three female characters: Stupid Destructive Sexually Aggressive Bitch Kali, kindly uninteresting Ratri, and horrible shrill lesbian Brahma. Two of them try to take on male roles, and end badly. The other is a madame.) The writing is still good-to-excellent, yes, and it's still totally worth rereading.

I think it's useful to look at it as a buddy novel -- the Sam-Yama relationship, not Sam's character arc, is what drives the book. (Sam doesn't really /have/ a character arc. Though Yama does.)

There is the faintest hint of tweaking fandom and some hoary SFnal tropes. A handful of people get overweening power through a combination of innate wonderfulness and highly advanced technology -- and they turn out to be total dicks, socially retarded, irresponsible, and viewing the world as a "combination whorehouse and game preserve". Not exactly the Lensmen, you know?

Doug M.

Yama Drama

[hairyears]

Heavens, it's thirty-five years since I read it. Thoroughly enjoyed it, too, but had forgotten the title (hence, backtracking here from a more recent post about the Hugos, following an unfamikiar title).

I doubt that Leicester City Central Library has it now.