-Roger Zelazny, "Isle of the Dead"
Since I don't have any worlds to hang, I'll be hanging my words instead. This blog is split about evenly between Roger Zelazny book reviews, superhero musings, general geekery and family stuff.
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This is great stuff. Came around looking for notes on "Nine Starships Waiting," stuck around for the Legion reviews.
ReplyDeleteThanks. There's so little overlap I don't think I've ever met anyone interested in both of them.
DeleteIf you are looking for another audio version of the books, try the Audilble versions. The Corwin cycle is read by Alessandro Juliani (Lt. Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica), and the Merlin cycle is read by Wil Wheaton (do I really need to tell you where he is from? B-)). I think you can get the first 30 days free, and select one free book to start with. You might want to start with Guns of Avalon, that is where the story really seemed to "catch fire". While I like the idea of the author himself reading the books to me, as I can get the proper pronunciation for places like Tir-na Nog'th, the trumpets and other noises from the early audiobook versions can be distracting when trying to simply listen all the way through. Plus, some of the early audiobook versions are abridged, I noticed this when certain passages that I KNEW were coming up were simply skipped over.
ReplyDeleteI'm torn on this. I listened to the first, and while Juliani is a much better reader than Zelazny, he emphasized things so differently that I felt a persistent sense of *wrongness* about the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't want you to needlessly suffer Josh, I noticed you never reviewed the John Anthony Betancourt Dawn of Amber novels. Any plans to martyr yourself for us? Also, did you ever review the 4th Wild Cards story?
ReplyDeleteCT: While I don't want you to needlessly suffer Josh, I noticed you never reviewed the John Anthony Betancourt Dawn of Amber novels. Any plans to martyr yourself for us?
DeleteI only read the first, back when it first came out, and a well-meaning friend gave it to me as a gift after being deceived about the authorship by the gigantic "ROGER ZELAZNY" on the cover. I thought it was bland, boring and it ripped off all the wrong parts of the Corwin books. I also remember thinking that it was weird how much the pre-Amber universe resembled someones Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
No plans for that, but I do plan to review the GoA comics soonish.
CT: Also, did you ever review the 4th Wild Cards story?
I honestly thought that I already *had* reviewed all the Sleeper stories! I am not quite sure how I missed it. It's right there in THE COLLECTED STORIES.
I'm not sure how much of video gaming you're into, but I just came across a couple of Zelazny references in the first episode of an adventure game called The Council. Right at the start there is a mailbox filled with letters, one of which is addressed to a Carl Corey. I could have written this off as random chance, if when examining a book shelf in a room on a remote island in 1793 England, the character remarks about seeing The Chronicles of Amber there, and that Dworkin Barriman was his favorite character.
ReplyDeleteWhich also made remember Deus Ex:Human Revolution where an NPC is named Zelazny. And that brought me back to the original Deus Ex, where there was a computer to hack with rzelazny as the login and shadowjack as the password. Cool stuff
I went through a Zelazny rereading binge recently, and noticed two other motifs for possible inclusion in the drinking game:
ReplyDelete1. Transforming landscapes
Shadowshifting in The Chronicles of Amber is probably the first one that comes to mind. But there are a lot more.
Finding the time travel highway in Roadmarks.
The Hot Place in This Immortal. And the apparent destruction of Conrad's home island.
The destruction of the Isle of the Dead.
The destruction of The Tower of Ice.
The Dilvish novel The Changing Land.
It’s a bit of stretch, but the landscape subjectively shifts around the traveller in the teleportation network in Eye of Cat.
The transforming inner spaces of He Who Shapes.
The island to be created in The Eve of RUMOKO.
2. Battling twins
Two (or more) feuding or battling brothers, twins, etc. (I find it interesting that this motif emerged from the subconscious of an only child).
Amber, of course, quickly comes to mind. Others:
The Game of Blood and Dust.
Solcom and Divcom in For a Breath I Tarry.
The duelling sorcerers in the Dilvish story A City Divided.
Osiris and Anubis in Creatures of Light & Darkness.
One more in Creatures of Light & Darkness, very minor and played for dark humor: the feuding scriers.
Saw this and thought of this site
ReplyDeletehttps://www.wired.com/2021/05/geeks-guide-roger-zelazny/winamp/
Thanks! That's a pretty interesting read!
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