30: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: Where there had been darkness...

Where there had been darkness, I had hung my worlds. They were my answer. When I finally walked that Valley, they would remain after me. Whatever the Bay claimed, I had made some replacements, to thumb my nose at it. I had done something, and I knew how to do more.

Context: I think I'll leave this one vague. The quote is from the Isle of the Dead, and the valley is death.

Why I like it: I'm not a very philosophical guy, but I do that things are precious because they are imperfect and impermanent. We are born, we live for a time and then we die, and that is just the way of it, but we live on in the memories of others and the marks we leave upon them.

We live on in the worlds we hang.

I never knew Roger Zelazny, but he continues to move me twenty years after his death. I read a chapter a day of A Night In the Lonesome October with my daughter last year, and when I asked her if she wanted to read it again this year, she suggested we try a different Roger Zelazny book. I like that someone who has meant so much to me means someone else who means so much to me. She was born more than ten years after he passed, but it pleases me that he was able to reach her through his worlds and his words.

The book takes its name and its theme from Arnold Böcklin's paintings of the same name. He did several paintings by that name, and after completing them, he painted the lesser known work seen above, which he titled Die Lebensinsel ("Isle of Life").

I think that image is a fine way to end this series.

29: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: The Lokapalas are never defeated

The girl sat on the floor, a heap of various objects before her. She was scarcely more than a child, and she hugged a brown and white puppy and looked at Kubera  with wide, frightened eyes, until he gestured and she smiled.
"Kubera," said Yama.
"Koo-bra," said the girl.
"She is my daughter," said Yama. "Her name is Murga."
"I never knew you had a daughter."
"She is retarded. She suffered some brain damage."
"Congenital, or transfer effect?" asked Kubera.
"Transfer effect."
"I see."
"She is my daughter," repeated Yama, "Murga."
"Yes," said Kubera.
Yama dropped to his knees at her side and picked up a block.
"Block," he said.
"Block," said the girl.
He held up a spoon. "Spoon," he said.
"Spoon," said the girl.
He picked up a ball and held it before her. "Ball," he said.
"Ball," said the girl.
He picked up the block and held it before her again. "Ball,"  she repeated.
Yama dropped it.
"Help me, Kubera," he said.
"I will, Yama. If there is a way, we will find it."
He sat down beside him and raised  his hands. The spoon came alive with spoon-ness and the ball with ball-ness and the block with block-ness, and the girl laughed. Even the puppy seemed to study the objects.
"The Lokapalas are never defeated," said Kubera, and the girl picked up the block and stared at it for a long time before she named it.

The Context: Yama's love Kali (Brahma) was mortally wounded in battle. Yama managed to transfer her consciousness into another body, but she suffered some brain damage as a result. Yama's friend and fellow Lokapala (world guardian) Kubera came looking for him and offered his aid.

Why I like it: Zelazny wrote a lot of characters over his career, but few of them are kind. Kubera is a very decent man, and I love the passage, because I love how it illustrates his compassion.

28: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: Good-bye and hello, as always

When all is done in that place, and when Merlin has walked his Pattern and gone to claim his worlds, there is a journey that I must make. I must ride to the place where I planted the limb of old Ygg, visit the tree it has grown to. I must see what has become of the Pattern I drew to the sound of pigeons on the Champs-Elysees. If it leads me to another universe, as I now believe it will, I must go there, to see how I have wrought.
    The roadway drifts before us, rising to the Courts in the distance. The time has come. We mount and move forward.
    We are riding now across the blackness on a road that looks like cheesecloth. Enemy citadel, conquered nation, trap, ancestral home . . . We shall see. There is a faint flickering from battlement and balcony. We may even be in time for a funeral. I straighten my back and I loosen my blade. We will be there before much longer.
    Good-bye and hello, as always.

The Context: The final lines in the Corwin Chronicles, in the Courts of Chaos. 

Why I like it: Endings are always harder than beginnings. As we read stories, we insert them into our framework of understanding. We project, consciously or otherwise, how we think the story should end. The longer a series continues, the more invested we become in the story that exists in our mind, which may have become increasingly removed from the story the author actually wrote, and we becoming increasingly attached to the ending we expect. The author has many chances to disappoint such a reader, and only one chance to please him. The ambiguity, and the final line, are, I think the perfect way to end the Chronicles of Amber. (Apparently, there were shadows where Zelazny went on to write other Amber books, but I'm glad I don't live there.)

27: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: Each mountain is a deity, you know.

"There is a certain madness involved," I said, "a certain envy of great and powerful natural forces, that some men have.  Each mountain is a deity, you know.  Each is an immortal power.  If you make sacrifices upon its slopes, a mountain may grant you a certain grace, and for a time you will share this power.  Perhaps that is why they call me...."

The Context: Jack Summers, one of the greatest mountain climbers in the universe, gives an explanation beyond "Because it's there."

Why I like it: I don't have any particular interest in mountain climbing, but Zelazny manages to convey the majesty they contain in This Mortal Mountain. 

26: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day:For the Thread may wander anywhere and need not have an end...

For the Thread may wander anywhere and need not have an end; the thread has more sides than a sword; the Thread is subtle in its turnings, perhaps infinite in the variations it may play in the labyrinths of doom, destiny, desire. No one, however, can regard every turning of fate from the Valley of Frozen Time. Attempts to do so tend to terminate in madness.

The Context: A description of the extra-dimensional thread Kalifriki uses as a tool and a weapon.

Why I like it: I think Kalifriki of the Thread is a great story, and the last truly memorable creation of Roger Zelazny. I like the fairy tale cadences in the story.

25: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: There is no moon, and the stars are very bright...

Years have passed, I suppose.  I'm not really counting them anymore.  But I think of this thing often: Perhaps there is a Golden Age someplace, a Renaissance for me sometime, a special time somewhere, somewhere but a ticket, a visa, a diary-page away.  I don't know where or when.  Who does?  Where are all the rains of yesterday?

In the invisible city?

Inside me?

It is cold and quiet outside and the horizon is infinity.  There is no sense of movement.

There is no moon, and the stars are very bright, like broken diamonds, all.

The Context: The final lines of This Moment of the Storm. The narrator has just experienced a loss, and is returning to hypersleep for the long voyage.

Why I like it: Based on yesterday's post, I guess I'm still in the mood to talk about Zelazny stories about alienation. When I first reviewed the story, I described the passage as beautiful in its melancholy.

24: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: ...Wise in a time when wisdom is unnecessary...

Moore grunted. A gust of wind lashed a fiery rain of loose tobacco upon his cheek. He smoked on, hands in the pockets of his jacket, collar raised. The poet clapped him on the shoulder.
"Come with me into the town," he suggested. "It's only over the hill. We can walk it."
"No," said Moore, through his teeth.
They strode on, and as they neared the garage Unger grew uneasy.
"I'd rather someone were with me tonight," he said abruptly. "I feel strange, as though I'd drunk the draught of the centuries and suddenly am wise in a time when wisdom is unnecessary. I -- I'm afraid."

The Context: Alvin Moore and Wayne Unger are rival members of the Set, a group of elite super-celebrities who spend most of their time in suspended animation, awakening only to participate in lavish parties. They're walking around after such a party has ended, and they don't recognize the world in which they find themselves.

Why I like it: The word that springs to mind is elegiac, relating to an elegy, having a theme of solitude and mourning.  Moore and Unger are strangers in the world, which moved on while they slept, and this short passage conveys the alienation and strange solitude of their situation.

23: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: The Happy Wallaby, It had been called in the proud days...

Captain Corgo protested, was declared out of order. 
Captain Corgo threatened, was threatened in return. 
Captain Corgo fought, was beaten, died, was resurrected, escaped restraint, became an outlaw.  He took the Wallaby with him. The Happy Wallaby, It had been called in the proud days. Now, it was just the Wallaby. 

The Context: Some background information on Victor Corgo, in the Furies.

Why I like it: I think it's the loveliest example of the dreamlike metered prose of the Furies. David Drake said "It's an extremely funny story on the surface and gut-wrenching just beneath below the surface. To my mind it's one of the best SF stories ever written." and I think he perfectly describes there what makes the story so wonderful.

22: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: The universe did not invent justice...

"You don't know what it's like to be cut off from a whole area of stimuli! To know that a Mongoloid idiot can experience something you can never know and that he cannot appreciate it because, like you, he was condemned before birth in a court of biological happenstance, in a place where there is no justice only fortuity, pure and simple." 

"The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe."

"I'm not asking the universe to help me. I'm asking you."

The Context: Firstly, the story was written in the mid-1960s, and the term Mongoloid wasn't considered offensive at the time. I think this mars an otherwise excellent story, but not, I think irreparably. In this passage, the blind and brilliant Elaine Shallot. She is pleading with Render here to allow her to undergo neuroparticipant therapy, so that she may experience sight.

Why I like it:  I like the bolded part. It strikes me as so sad and profound, and reminds me of the line from William Gaddis: You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. Regardless of how much humanity tries to enforce our concept of how the universe should be, the universe remains a fundamentally unjust place, and there is nothing mankind can do to change that.

21: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: Misli, gammi gra'dil...

"Who are you?" I asked.
"Strygalldwir is my name. Conjure with it and I will eat your heart and liver."
"Conjure with it? I can't even pronounce it," I said, "and my cirrhosis would give you indigestion. Go away."
"Who are you?" it repeated.
"Misli, gammi gra'dil, Strygalldwir," I said, and it jumped as if given a hotfoot.
"You seek to drive me forth with such a simple spell?" it asked when it settled again. "I am not one of the lesser ones."
"It seemed to make you a bit uncomfortable."
"Who are you?" it said again.
"None of your business, Charlie. Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home-"
"Four times must I ask you and four times be refused before I may enter and slay you. Who are you?"
"No," I said, standing. "Come on in and burn!"

The Context: Mostly provided by the exchange. Early in the Guns of Avalon, the demon Strygalldwir has come to slay Corwin, and must ask entry and be refused four times before it may enter and slay him.

Why I like it: Guns of Avalon is my favorite book of the Amber series, and this may be my favorite part of the book. I wasn't the first to make the observation by any means, but as I do agree that Zelazny had a tendency to return to a similar set of traits when writing his characters. I think Corwin here is the apotheosis of that archetype of the Mythic Smartass.

Also, Misli, gammi gra'dil, Strygalldwir has a great sound to it.

20: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: This story came into being in a somewhat atypical fashion.

This story came into being in a somewhat atypical fashion. The first movement in its direction occurred when Gardner Dozois phoned me one evening and asked whether I'd ever done a short story involving a unicorn. I said that I had not. He explained then that he and Jack Dann were putting together a reprint anthology of unicorn stories, and he suggested that I write one and sell it somewhere and then sell them reprint rights to it. Two sales. Nice. I told him that I'd think about it.

Later, I was asked by another anthologist whether I'd ever done a story set in a barroom—and if so, he's like it for a reprint collection he was doing. I allowed that I hadn't. A week or so after that, I attended a wine tasting with the redoubtable George R. R. Martin, and during the course of the evening I decided to mention the prospective collections in case he had ever done a unicorn story or a barroom story. He hadn't either, but he reminded me that Fred Saberhagen was putting together a reprint collection of stories involving chess games (Pawn to Infinity). "Why don't you," he said, "write a story involving a unicorn and a chess games, set it in a barroom and sell it to everybody?" We chuckled and sipped...

The Context: Okay, I know a couple days ago I said I was only going to use quotes from Zelazny's works, not outside commentary by the man. I guess I lied, This is Zelazny explaining the unusual genesis of Unicorn Variation.

Why I like it:  Zelazny was a master storyteller, and I do love the conversational, spin-a-yarn tone of the piece.

19: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: You know a lot of words honest folk never use

"We seem to be at cross-purposes here," Mack said. "I doubt not that you are Faust. Yet I am Faust, too, on the authority of no less a person than Mephistopheles." .

"Mephistopheles was mistaken!"

"When the great ones make mistakes, those mistakes become law."

Faust drew himself to his full height, which was rather shorter than Mack's, and said, "Must I listen to this casuistic palaver from one who speaks in my name? By the powers, I'll have vengeance if you don't vacate immediately and leave this game to the player for whom it was intended, namely, me."

"You think highly of yourself, that much is evident," Mack said. "But as to who was chosen, it seems to, be me. You can argue till kingdom come and you won't change that."

"Argue? I'll do a lot more than argue! I'll blast you with spells of greatest puissance, and your punishment will be most hideously condign."

"Will be what?" Mack asked.

"Condign. It means fitting. I intend to give you a punishment worthy of your transgression."

"You know a lot of words honest folk never use," Mack said hotly.

The Context: A thug by the name of Mack the Club has accepted Mephistophelean bargain that should have been offered to Faust, and Faust is confronting him about it.

Why I like it: I enjoy Zelazny's sense of humor (if indeed this is Zelazny's writing. Sheckley rewrote some of Zelazny's contributions to the story), and Mack is a wonderful foil to Faust in this underrated story.

18: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: Dran, I've been thinking...

"Dran, I've been thinking. There may be life on other planets in the galaxy."

Dran considered his response to this, as the world wheeled several times about its sun.

"True," he finally agreed, "there may."

After several months Drax shot back, "If there is, we ought to find out."

"Why?"  asked Dran with equal promptness, which caused the other to suspect that he, too, had been thinking along these lines.

The Context: Drax and Dran, the Great Slow Kings,  take their time in their discussions.

Why I like it: While many of Zelazny's stories had humorous elements, he rarely wrote sraight comedy pieces. I enjoy his sense of humor. This is a, surprisingly, a quick read, and a lot of fun.

17: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: It looks as if white flowers fall upon my shroud...

    "It looks as if white flowers fall upon my shroud. Your hands are so pale."
    "To leave the world in spring, with flower guards to honor: it must be peace."

The Context: Archie, the killer cyborg arrives to assassinate Red Dorakeen, only to find that that he has been preceded by Timyin Tin, another assassin.  They have a mixed martial arts/koan contest/ haiku rap battle to decide how gets to kill him.

     Archie chuckled.
    "It's silly to argue over who kills him."
    "I am glad you think so. I will bid you good night, then, and be about the thing."
    "That is not what I meant."
    "What, then?"
    "I have my orders. I have even been conditioned to hate the man. No, the job is mine. You go your way. It will be done."
    "Alas I cannot. With me, it is a matter of honor."
    "Do you think you are the only one who might feel that way?"
    "Not any longer."

Timyin Tin pitches Archie off the roof (He survives in my head canon. I like to think Toba and Sundoc were waiting there to pick him up*) but spares Red because he could not answer Archie's final koan.

Why I like it: Because I love Roadmarks. It was my first Zelazny book, my first review here, and the haiku battle was the direct inspiration for Zelazny Haiku month. It's perfect for a movie adaptation; the book is less than 200 pages long, exactly the right length, and you could end the trailer with the  Marquis de Sade on a T-Rex.




*Also part of my head canon, Red Dorakeen was named for Dora Keen, the traveler and philanthropist.

16: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: It was starting to end...

"More like eight princes and Peter Lorre in Amber, amirite?"

It was starting to end, after what seemed most of eternity to me.

The Context: The opening line to Nine Princes in Amber

Why I like it: When I originally came up with the idea for Zelazny Quote Month, I thought I would alternate between quotes from the books, and quotes by or about Zelazny. I never did the latter, because the quotes about him are the usual cover blurbs that anyone reading a Zelazny blog has read a thousand times and I couldn't find any quotes by him that really clicked with me, and I'd rather leave out those entirely than have a lopsided sample of one real world Zelazny quote and twenty-nine book quotes.

If I did use just one quote about him, it would be this:

Zelazny likes to develop different systems of magic, but his emphasis is on systems. He feels the magic should be worked out and contain no contradictions. It should run more like science and not be too supernatural in which anything goes. That route leads to magic being a crutch to move the plot along. He also likes to use the mystery plot. He feels that there is an elegance to having a puzzle overlaid on a fantasy or SF novel. The mystery helps build the mythic elements in fantasy, but is also akin to the process of discovery in science.

That quote really nails what I enjoy about Zelazny's writing. My next door neighbor is great, and I'm happy to say I spread the good word of the Zelaznian Gospel to her. (Though it wasn't exactly a hard sell, as she was already a big fan of Neil Gaiman and George Martin.) I still do a little bit of writing and I gave her a work in progress. She said she enjoyed it, and the part that really worked for her was the unfolding mystery of the story. I was pleased that someone I respect would observe those parallels between my writing and Zelazny's, though I wasn't deliberately aping his style in this.

I don't know if I was influenced by him because I came across his works at a time when I was developing the tastes that would define my interests as an adult, or if I was always this way, and they had such resonance with me because the struck a chord with something that was already present. Either way, I do feel that element of unraveling mystery is a fundamental part of a good story, and Roger Zelazny did it better than almost anyone else.

15: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: ... a thing I suspect to be malignant though not a tumor.

I am standing in front of Vindy's and cannot read the racing stix because of the brownout which is the worst I can remember, when Crash Callahan comes by and the light is not so bad that I cannot see the bulge beneath his racing jacket, a thing I suspect to be malignant though not a tumor.

The Context: The nameless narrator of Deadboy Donner and the Filstone Cup is opening the story.

Why I like it: Because Roger Zelazny wrote a story in the voice of Damon Runyon, and it is pretty much the best thing ever.

14: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: All patience...

"Yet all patience is but an imitation of my ways, and even in the highest realms I am not unknown."

Dubhe sprang to his shoulder and settled there as Death rose up out of the trench.

"I believe that someone has just begun a game," Death said as he headed across Deep Fields through a meadow of blackest grass, black poppies swaying at the passage of his cloak, "and, next to music, they have invoked a pastime for which I have the highest regard. It is long, Dubhe, since I have been given a good game. I shall respond to their opening as none might expect, and we will try each others' patience. Then, one day, they will learn that I am always in the right place at the proper time."

The Context: Intruders have stolen something from Death's realm of Deep Fields, and Death has vowed to best these intruders.

Why I like it: Donnerjack is the red-headed stepchild of latter day Zelazny, but I like it a lot. That's not an unpopular opinion; as far as I know, I'm the only person online who has any opinion of any kind on Donnerjack. I think if were renewing it now, I'd rank it lower than I did initially, but it's fun story with an epic scope, and I really feel that Lindskold captured Zelazny's voice when she completed it.

13: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: All the truly sacred....

All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak!

The Context: Gallinger is almost ready to read to the Martians from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Why I like it: Out of Zelazny's most loved books, A Rose for Ecclesiastes is the one I respect more than I enjoy. I never clicked with me, but I do acknowledge that it is powerful and beautifully written.

12: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: I've got to know if there's something inside me that sets me apart from a rabbit

     It had made a noise like God playing a Hammond organ...

     And looked at me!

     I  don't  know if seeing is even the same process in eyes like those. I doubt it. Maybe I was just a  gray  blur  behind  a  black  rock,  with  the plexi-reflected  sky hurting  its  pupils.  But it fixed on me. Perhaps the snake doesn't really paralyze the rabbit, perhaps it's just that rabbits are cowards by constitution. But it began to struggle and I still couldn't move, fascinated.

     Fascinated by all that power,  by  those  eyes,  they found me there fifteen  minutes  later,  a  little broken about the head and shoulders, the Inject still unpushed.

     And I dream about those eyes. I want to face them once  more,  even if their finding takes forever. I've got to know if there's something inside me that  sets me apart  from a rabbit,  from notched plates of reflexes and instincts that always fall apart in exactly the same way whenever the proper combination is spun.

The Context: Carlton Davits is on Venus as part of an expedition to capture a Icthysaurus elasmognathus, “Ikky”.  That passage is from an encounter that occurred before the events of the story. Davits found himself transfixed by the stare of the creature, and his failure to tranquilize it led to the failure of his mission and his personal ruin.

Why I like it: I do love a good story of redemption, and that's what appeals to me about the story, but I do dearly love the elegance of that quote, in particular, the bolded part.

11: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: When I smile...

"Everyone should have a place to run to.  You can never be too careful."
"Do you?"
He smiled.
"I hope you do, too," he said.
When I smile no one can tell.

The Context: This line, or a variation of it, occurs at several points in A Night in the Lonesome October. This time around, Snuff is discussing the value of an escape route with Larry Talbot.

Why I like it: October is one of the most enjoyable reads Zelazny ever produced in his long and distinguished career. Snuff overflows with charming idiosyncrasies, and it's because of lines like this.