Second paragraph of third chapter:The novel-length version of Damnation Alley, which Zelazny expanded from the original novella at the suggestion of his agent, provides more explanation of how its protagonist Hell Tanner became the outlaw he is.2 On the whole, the additional material nonetheless slows the momentum of the original story, ( Read more... )

The title of the third story in this collection is given as "Engine at Heartspring's Center", and the second paragraph, as presented here, is:She was regaining her feet, the signs in the sand indicating flight and collapse. She had on the same red dress, torn and stained now. Her black hair-short, with heavy bangs-lay in the only small disarrays of ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:Without hesitation I unbuckled my swordbelt and slid into the seat across from her, balancing my weapon across my knees. My fellow passenger was strikingly beautiful, I found, with long dark hair and a wide, almost familiar face. Thin nose, full lips, strong chin--
The first of the prequels to the late great Roger ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Home is the Hangman"): I sat in a chair turned sidewise from the table to face the door. A tool kit rested on the floor to my left. The helmet stood on the table, a lopsided basket of metal, quartz, porcelain, and glass. If I heard the click of a microswitch followed by a humming sound from within it, then a faint ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Angel, Dark Angel"): As he crossed toward the conveyor belt, a dozen heads turned in his direction because of the flash of light that occurred immediately before him.
Third of the definitive NESFA six-volume collection of Zelazny's short fiction, poetry and prose. Most of the stories were ones I already knew from ( Read more... )

This is the second volume in the NESFA series collecting Zelazny's writings, again edited by David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs and Ann Crimmins. I had high praise for the first of these; the second didn't grab me quite as much. Almost half of it is occupied by the original "...And Call Me Conrad" text of This Immortal, a separately published ( Read more... )

Problems with my train journeys to and from work today meant that I managed to finish this weighty volume of almost 600 pages, covering the early work of the late, great Roger Zelazny (1937-1995). This is the first of a planned series of six volumes covering his entire literary career, published by the New England Science Fiction Association and ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

Zelazny's first novel, and one of his great ones, set on a devastated future planet earth with a Greek immortal lapsed terrorist as the protagonist. He was almost at the peak of his powers: in his late he hit levels of quality he had difficulty in reaching again in later, more comfortable times. The familiar Zelazny themes of death and fatherhood ( Read more... )

I'm a die-hard Zelazny fan, and when I heard that this book - written in the early 1970s, at about the same time as Today We Choose Faces and My Name Is Legion - had finally been published, I was delighted but also a little worried. Even we die-hard Zelazny fans would have to admit that his later novels from the 1990s were not really of the same ( Read more... )