tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post3054764914216236365..comments2024-03-05T11:41:13.533-05:00Comments on Where there had been darkness...: Roger Zelazny Book Review: The FuriesJugularjoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-90434140984323654442016-02-18T20:55:38.274-05:002016-02-18T20:55:38.274-05:00The thing I love about the way the excerpt you quo...The thing I love about the way the excerpt you quote at the end is written is how matter-of-fact it is. "He should have known what he was up against... He should have known better..." It sounds so very arrogant, to think that your powers are known throughout all of space and that everyone you hunt knows you're going to hunt them! Very, very Greek.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-69892168402714239412014-06-14T10:41:28.232-04:002014-06-14T10:41:28.232-04:00Love this story. It is rather interesting in that ...Love this story. It is rather interesting in that author is probably more on the side of "antagonist", but the story is told from the position of his enemies, so to speak. Then again, he was a terrorist, so nothing's simple here. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-29877521095703963972011-04-16T21:48:48.887-04:002011-04-16T21:48:48.887-04:00One of my two favourite short stories of all time....One of my two favourite short stories of all time. The other one is also SF : Samuel Delaney's The Star Pit.Fionahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08367178990462341240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-17287727775820403252011-03-05T01:36:16.428-05:002011-03-05T01:36:16.428-05:00Here are a few Cordwainer Smith excerpts, chosen m...Here are a few Cordwainer Smith excerpts, chosen more or less at random, that strike me as being a bit Zelazny-esque:<br /><br />“They started tough and they got tougher. People get pretty mean if you rob them and hurt them for almost three thousand years. They get obstinate. They avoid strangers, except for sending out spies and a very occasional tourist. They don’t mess with other people, and they’re death, death inside out and turned over twice, if you mess with them.” (From NORSTRILIA)<br /><br />“Consider the horse. He climbed up through the crevasses of a cliff of gems; the force which drove him was the love of man.<br /><br />“Consider Mizzer, the resort planet, where the dictator Colonel Wedder reformed the culture so violently that whatever had been slovenly now became atrocious.<br /><br />“Consider Genevieve, so rich that she was the prisoner of her own wealth, so beautiful that she was the victim of her own beauty, so intelligent that she knew there was nothing, nothing to be done about her fate.<br /><br />“Consider Casher O’Neill, a wanderer among the planets, thirsting for justice and yet hoping in his innermost thoughts that ‘justice’ was not just another word for revenge.” (From “On the Gem Planet”)<br /><br />“Four months had passed and we had made very little progress with the colonel.<br /><br />“It was not much trouble keeping him alive since we fed him by massive rectal and intravenous administrations of the requisites of medical survival. He did not oppose us. He did not fight except when we put clothes on him or tried to keep him too long out of the horizontal plane.<br /><br />“When kept upright too long he would awaken just enough to go into a mad, silent, gloating rage, fighting the attendants, the straitjacket, and anything else that got in his way.” (From “The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-At-All”)<br /><br />“The Martian was sitting at the top of a granite cliff. In order to enjoy the breeze better he had taken on the shape of a small fir tree. The wind always felt very pleasant through non-deciduous needles.<br /><br />“At the bottom of the cliff stood an American, the first the Martian had ever seen.<br /><br />“The American extracted from his pocket a fantastically ingenious device. It was a small metal box with a nozzle which lifted up and produced an immediate flame. From this miraculous device the American readily lit a tube of bliss-giving herbs. The Martian understood that these were called cigarettes by the Americans. As the American finished lighting his cigarette, the Martian changed his shape to that of a fifteen-foot, red-faced, black-whiskered Chinese demagogue, and shouted to the American in English, ‘Hello, friend!’<br /><br />“The American looked up and almost dropped his teeth.” (From “Western Science Is So Wonderful”)<br /><br />--DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-66609860888413676672011-03-04T16:18:59.697-05:002011-03-04T16:18:59.697-05:00I suppose I am already destined to give NESFA Pres...I suppose I am already destined to give NESFA Press already... I'll check it out!Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-84647361828674757632011-03-04T14:03:20.608-05:002011-03-04T14:03:20.608-05:00Most of Cordwainer Smith's stories have a feel...Most of Cordwainer Smith's stories have a feeling of myth or fable about them -- I guess that's why I associate him with Zelazny. NESFA Press has a complete volume of his short fiction -- I recommend it.<br /><br />--DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-37229173330628008162011-03-04T01:45:44.133-05:002011-03-04T01:45:44.133-05:00Hm, gosh, personal, I don't know. I'd rec...Hm, gosh, personal, I don't know. I'd recommend reading "The Game of Rat and Dragon" before I'd get too personal:<br /><br />http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29614/29614-h/29614-h.htm<br /><br />Check it out. I think it's awesome. Haunting. But if you don't like it, I wouldn't want to get too personal about it.<br /><br />--DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-26592851127413996122011-03-03T11:51:06.281-05:002011-03-03T11:51:06.281-05:00I was not familiar with Cordwainer Smith but a lit...I was not familiar with Cordwainer Smith but a little research shows that he seems to have very interesting concepts to match his wonderful name. Can you add anything personal to supplement the basics I got off wikipedia?Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-42615328201684565452011-03-03T02:05:46.894-05:002011-03-03T02:05:46.894-05:00To actually comment on "The Furies" here...To actually comment on "The Furies" here, this is another favorite of mine. For reasons I can't seem to fully defend or articulate, this is the story that cements the connection between Zelazny and Cordwainer Smith (another on my small list of sci-fi favorites) in my mind. My only discomfort is with the ending -- I think Zelazny should have burnt the Furies to hell. The motherfuckers have had it coming for a long time.<br /><br />--DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-48353167699171144072010-12-28T10:36:46.501-05:002010-12-28T10:36:46.501-05:00The novella, I think. Not that the novel seems pad...The novella, I think. Not that the novel seems padded, but it lacks the sleek economy of form that the novella has.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-66658986116345146502010-12-27T13:47:49.662-05:002010-12-27T13:47:49.662-05:00http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aHR0JAro8w
Weird ...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aHR0JAro8w<br /><br />Weird mixture of metal (lite), power pop, progressive, and I don't know what, but see what you think of the lyrics.<br /><br />Do you prefer the novella or the novel?Michael Tuckhttp://www.iraqtimeline.com/maxdesignnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-42244649478148524862010-12-25T16:30:40.117-05:002010-12-25T16:30:40.117-05:00I'm rather amazed that I'm talking to anot...I'm rather amazed that I'm talking to another person who has seen Vanishing Point. Quirky movie, but I think it told the story it set out to tell very well.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-56958016129458701222010-12-23T14:20:10.093-05:002010-12-23T14:20:10.093-05:00Gaah, Jan-Michael Vincent. :) For some reason, I a...Gaah, Jan-Michael Vincent. :) For some reason, I always mix up the (truly awful IMO) film version of "DA" with the somewhat better "Vanishing Point." The film is definitely MST3K material. Roger deserved better. But Hawkwind made a decent song out of it....Michael Tuckhttp://www.iraqtimeline.com/maxdesignnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-36278959666652853982010-12-23T12:13:02.983-05:002010-12-23T12:13:02.983-05:00I'll get to Damnation Alley sooner or later. W...I'll get to Damnation Alley sooner or later. Who doesn't love Jan-Michael Vincent?!Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-57485452911029050882010-12-23T01:51:06.841-05:002010-12-23T01:51:06.841-05:00Josh, I grew up absolutely stark staring mad for H...Josh, I grew up absolutely stark staring mad for Heinlein. It took me decades to get sick of his condescending misogyny and his cornpone dialogue. (Given that, there are things about his writing that I still find extravagently good.)<br /><br />I'll be interested to see your Damnation Alley review. :)Michael Tuckhttp://www.iraqtimeline.com/maxdesignnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-81404695315665991712010-12-22T09:02:08.865-05:002010-12-22T09:02:08.865-05:00Indeed. I was never a huge Heinlein fan, but I rem...Indeed. I was never a huge Heinlein fan, but I remember how he described a character in the Puppet Masters as having the capability of taking new facts and reasoning with them as if he had possessed them all along, and it always seemed to me that Zelazny could do that with his storytelling. He was able to posit something new in the world and follow it to its logical conclusion.<br /><br />Also, Chris Kovacs, one of the editors of the Collected Works of Roger Zelazny, just commented on the Changeling post, and added some really interesting information of which I was unaware.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-67930476676619587592010-12-22T00:22:21.654-05:002010-12-22T00:22:21.654-05:00Thanks! I just submitted the article today, so it ...Thanks! I just submitted the article today, so it won't show up until January sometime. <br /><br />Just read your Changeling review. I can't disagree with you. I *wanted* to like it a lot more than I actually did. (And I agree 100% with you on the Merlin books. Was he just bored and fidgety about being under contract?) I did like Madwand enough to want him to finish the series, but that was mostly because I liked Belphanior, Moonbird, and especially Henry (combines several of the "evil" Amber princes into one smart-mouthed antagonist). Zelazny was so good, even his tossed-off books hook you into them.<br /><br />I'm editing a friend's Web design book, and I used the first three lines from "This Immortal" to illustrate the idea of how effortlessly Zelazny made an unfamiliar concept ("kallikanzaros") easy enough to grasp that the reader could just keep going without stumbling. He's just so damn good at it. :)Michael Tuckhttp://www.iraqtimeline.com/maxdesignnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-20431420340549470332010-12-21T19:21:49.059-05:002010-12-21T19:21:49.059-05:00I finally completed that Changeling review, though...I finally completed that Changeling review, though I suspect that we each came away with different impressions of the series.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-644617670375238642010-12-21T08:28:05.089-05:002010-12-21T08:28:05.089-05:00Thanks for you thoughtful compliments! I enjoy wri...Thanks for you thoughtful compliments! I enjoy writing the commentaries and it's always nice when someone happens upon them.<br /><br />If your article will be online, can you post a link to it when it's done? I'm always interested in reading material that references Zelazny's work.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-54942644158148640262010-12-20T19:40:51.868-05:002010-12-20T19:40:51.868-05:00I've spent some time this evening reading one ...I've spent some time this evening reading one after another of your Zelazny reviews. I don't agree with them all, as should be expected, but I've enjoyed them immensely. I'm in the process of finishing a Web design article that uses the concept of the "madwand" as a metaphor for the self-taught designer, and in the process of looking up info on the book, I came across your blog. You do great work, and it's a damn shame you don't have any comments. Thanks for this, it's a real labor of love. I'll be back to keep reading. (And I liked "Italbar" too.)Michael Tuckhttp://www.iraqtimeline.com/maxdesignnoreply@blogger.com