Roger Zelazny Book Review: To Die in Italbar

When I think of To Die in Italbar, I immediately think of Eye of Cat.

I know that Zelazny considered Eye of Cat among his top five books. He was always reluctant to number his least favorites, but eventually did so with Italbar, calling it his worst novel.

I'm just baffled by the inclusion of each of these books on their respective lists. They're both fine. I personally consider each somewhat below his best work, but neither one is a bad book. In fact, I like Italbar a bit more than Cat. The worst I'll say about it is that it seems like it was taken out of the oven before it was fully cooked. Perhaps his resentment stems from this. I can see areas where it could have been tightened up, and I think it's unique among his works in that it's not the best book it could be. It's the only time he seemed to have declared something "good enough" to be published. It's pointless to speculate. I don't know why he didn't like it. I do.

My current edition is the double feature with a Dark Traveling as the second book. (I also like DT, though it's got some structural problems.)

To Die in Italbar certainly has a great cast of characters, Heidel von Hymack, Malacar Miles, the empathesiac telekineticist John Morwin, and Doctor Pels, the dead doctor, "an exile from the worlds of life." 

Heidel von Hymack, aka H,  the green-eyed saint from the stars, is the man who drives the plot. (And I can't be the the only person to note that Zelazny features a lot of green-eyed characters.) He is host to a Pei'an diety, Arym-o-Myra, goddess of healing and disease. Because of this he is capable of bringing the diseases within his body into balance, allowing him to cure any disease. Unfortunately, the side effect is that when he isn't in balance, he infects those around him with the diseases he carries.

"This 'balance' you speak of," said Helman. "There is no such thing. You speak as if the pathogens formed ranks, warring against one another, and then sign a truce for a time where none of them misbehaves. This is nonsense. The body does not work that way."

Sure they do. Doctors call it the Three Stooges syndrome.

Doctor's Representation

"I know," said Heidel, as they entered the lift. "It's just an analogy. As I said, I'm not a doctor of medicine. I've coined my own simple, pragmatic terms for referring to what occurs to me. Translate them as you would. I'm still the expert on the effects."

   
I really like that exchange. Very Zelazny.

Malacar Miles (I always want to reverse it to Miles Malacar) reminds me extremely strongly of Victor Corgo, Captain of the Happy Wallaby from the Furies. I don't know how far in the future of Isle this book is set, but it seems that Earth goes rather abruptly from being the center of civilization with a thriving bureaucracy to a devastated wasteland.  Part of this seems to be that the book was not originally intended as a sequel to Isle, but had become so when Zelazny needed to "jazz up" the book. A little more effort in describing how it had gotten to the state would have gone a long way.

I always try to go blind into something I think I'll really enjoy and I didn't know that Francis Sandow was in the book until he showed up. I found it a rather nice surprise, as I had recently read Isle of the Dead. And as much as I like Sandow and as much as he contributes to the end of the book, I have to admit that he was shoehorned into the affair rather awkwardly.

The plot. H is a wandering do gooder, who uses his powers to treat otherwise incurable illnesses. However, things go awry in the city of Italbar, where he inadvertently unleashes a plague. A mob turns against him. I like the moment when H breaks. In Jack of Shadows, Zelazny describes Jack as "a wrongfully punished man whose character was twisted by the act." and I think that's a powerful theme that he writes well.

Then came the fury. It was not right that they use him so, he felt. He had come to their town for a humanitarian purpose. He had undergone hardship to reach Italbar. Now he was bleeding on its streets and being cursed. Who were they to judge him as they had done, to call him names and abuse him? This thing rose up within him, and he knew that, had he the power, he would have reached out and crushed them all.

Hatred, that thing nearly unknown to him, suddenly filled his body with cold fire. He wished that he had not undergone catharsis. He would be the plague-bearer, infecting them all.

   
Pels wants to study him as means to a cure for his own condition, Malacar wants to use him as a weapon and Sandow just want him to knock it off.

It's got a lot of those nifty Zelazny touches, like Deiban fever, a disease where cellular fluids go extracellular and the victims get  thirsty but no amount of liquids will help.
 
Malacar running into Jackara seemed just a little too fortunate. How come I never run into hero-worshiping prostitutes when I travel? That said, they do have a nice chemistry. I like this scene. She has a big picture of him over her bed.

He rounded the bed to study the picture more closely.

"That's a good likeness. Where's it from?"

She brightened, followed to stand beside him.

"It was a plate, from your biography by that man Gillian. I had it enlarged and tridized. It is the best picture I have of you."

"I never read the book," he said. "I am trying to remember where the picture was taken, but I can't."

"That was right before the Parameter Eight Maneuver," she said, "when you were preparing the Fourth Fleet to rendezvous with Conlil. It was taken about an hour prior to your departure, according to the book."

He turned and looked down at her, smiling.

"I believe you're correct," he said, and she smiled at this.

I could imagine that really happening. And a little bit later...

"Excuse me," she said, "I never-- I never expected anything like this to happen to me. Malacar to walk into my room and offer to take me away. It is something I have dreamed of . . ."

Heh. "Dear Penthouse, I never thought it would happen to me..."

Ultimately, it's a pretty good book, but it  too often lacks the Zelazny flavor, the clever flourishes in dialogue and description. The pacing is somewhat uneven. We're told of the climax by Shind, Malacar's telepathic lemur. I hate to say it, but parts of it feel like a first draft that should have been revised.

The exception to this is the voice of Arym-o-Myra. She's fun to read.

 Soon you will be able to emanate spores that will slay across hundreds of kilometers. And there will come a day when you will need but set foot upon a world to kill everything which dwells there."     

_It was because you were personally present. You are becoming a focal point. Soon you will be the still center of a cyclone. One day in the near future, there will be nothing able to stand against you. You will need but point your finger and will it and they will die_.

Neat bits abound. Malacar wonders "How many of those bastards in the CL High Command have I outlived? They did not pass out S-S the way we did." Is this a reference to the The Sprung-Samser life extension treatments in This Immortal? It's very unlikely that they take place in the same universe, but I suppose it's possible. Let the fanwankery commence!

Overall? It's good, and with a little more effort, it could have been great. Zelazny disavowed it, but I still think it's a decent read.