tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post770545403487476662..comments2024-03-21T19:03:19.133-04:00Comments on Where there had been darkness...: Roger Zelazny Book Review: Love is an Imaginary NumberJugularjoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-47667630589147053902012-12-05T10:40:13.696-05:002012-12-05T10:40:13.696-05:00The pan and the serpent spitting venom was Loki fr...The pan and the serpent spitting venom was Loki from Norse mythology. The idea being that the one who shares knowledge with man against the Gods' will is a universal theme, despite the specific mythology. Lucifer in the Garden of Eden being another type, etc. <br /><br />"Love is an Imaginary Number" reads like a throwaway piece with a simple mythological gimmick, but it is important in the Zelazny canon because so many of his ideas are first realized in this short piece.<br /><br />Of course Zelazny's most fully realized version of this archetype is the accelerationist Sam in Lord of Light. It probably works best there because it removes the literalness of the mythology by both being a more obscure mythos (to western readers) and by the mechanism of removing the divinity from the deities by making them merely me with sufficiently advanced technology. <br /><br />I'd be curious to know whether Arthur C. Clarke's famous quote that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" came before or after Lord of Light, and if it influenced Zelazny or vice versa. I suspect in the context of Clarke's three laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws) he was thinking more about the Space Opera trope that Zelazny was turning on it's head by explaining the magic. <br /><br />And I can see my comment has strayed to the point where it should be in the Lord of Light thread.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16778156590700212643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-72005794652288432242012-06-01T14:11:11.344-04:002012-06-01T14:11:11.344-04:00I read it yesterday and my first impression was th...I read it yesterday and my first impression was that it was an eternal cycle of Prometheus being bound and unbound, but then again I haven't read much of Zelazny.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com