A Few Words from Roger Zelazny, Part Five: Space Travel, Cybernetics, and the SF Mystery

Another in Tor's series of Ted Krulik's anecdotes about Roger Zelazny.

A Few Words from Roger Zelazny, Part Five: Space Travel, Cybernetics, and the SF Mystery

The Dark World: For the sake of a wind that blew from Ireland

Since I’ve more or less run out of Roger Zelazny stories to discuss, I’ve been expanding into related areas, such as the Jack of Shadows album and Chronomaster. Since I knew the Dark World had been an influence on Zelazny, I thought I would remark on it as well.

I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me nearly twenty-five years between acquiring it and reading it. It was the focus of issue 5 of Amberzine. As best I recall, I ordered a subscription, and the available back issues. The back issues came all together, and I skimmed them all when they arrived, and when I saw this one was dedicated to some dumb story of which I had never heard and which wasn’t even about Amber (plus some people talking about the dumb story), I just put it down and moved on to the next.

It’s worth noting that  Kuttner co-wrote many of his works with his wife, C. L. Moore, and it’s believed that she wrote most of the Dark World but they put Kuttner’s name on it because he was the one with a story due. I really like the tempo of the prose. Had I come upon this without a name attached, could have believed it a Zelazny story.  And in some ways it is, as its echoes can be heard in Zelazny’s work. At the very least, The Dark World is godfather to Amber. I’ll comment on some of the similarities I noticed as I progress through this recap.

Please be advised that this recap contains spoilers. Read on at your own peril.

The Dark World is the story of Bond, Edward Bond, who had been a soldier in World War II, and who now seems to be undergoing some kind of slow-motion mental collapse that began when he was shot down in that war.

"What is it, Ed? Do you have any inkling at all?" 

"Psychologically I suppose you could call it a persecution complex," I said slowly. "I believe in things I never used to."

I like that bit. It reminds me of the piece when Corwin is discussing his memory loss in Sign of the Unicorn, and of the exchange in Hangman about the Hermacis complex. It strikes me as distinctly Zelaznian, in that the protagonist is trying to make sense of the unknown by trying to define it in terms of his existing schema. People do that all the time, indeed, I’d go so far as to call it as one of the defining characteristics of humanity, but it’s a trait that’s seldom well-depicted in genre works. It goes back to what I love about Zelazny’s writing. It always reminds me of a line from a different Ganelon: “Their voices lack the thrust and dip of men chewing over their words and tasting them.” When reading Zelazny, I always feel that he’s fully thought through the ramifications of what he’s telling us, that he’s tasted his words before sharing them with us.

And from a 1994 interview

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.

I like it when my fantasy worlds make sense. God knows the real world doesn’t.

Enough navel gazing. Back in the Dark World,it turns out what really happened is that Bond was swapped by for his counterpart in the Dark World, Ganelon. He is called back to the Dark World by his coven, “The Coven”.

The name for the group might not be particularly evocative, but the members of the Coven are a vividly painted crew. Zelazny calls them “semi-mythic” and he’s not wrong.

Matholch: I turned, and saw, framed against the dark portiere, the rangy, whipcord figure of a man, clad as I was in tunic and trunks. His red, pointed beard jutted; the half-snarling curve of his full lips reminded me of something. Agile grace was in every line of his wiry body.

Edeyrn: Not even now could I see the face; the shadows within the cowl were too deep. I felt the keen glint of a watchful gaze, though, and a breath of something unfamiliar-cold and deadly. The robes were saffron, an ugly hue that held nothing of life in the harsh folds. Staring, I saw that the creature was less than four feet tall, or would have been had it stood upright.

Medea: I turned, getting slowly to my feet. Medea stood there smiling, very slim and lovely in a close-fitting scarlet gown. In her hand was a small black rod, still raised. Her purple eyes met mine.

"You have remembered," Medea said. "Ganelon is ours again. Do you remember me-Lord Ganelon?" Medea, witch of Colchis! Black and white and crimson, she stood there smiling at me, her strange loveliness stirring old, forgotten memories in my blood. No man who had known Medea could ever forget her wholly. Not till time ended.

Ghast Rhymi:  Ghast Rhymi, who has more power than any of us, but is too old to use it.

We have pills for that now.

That’s kind of an awful name, right? It’s not just me? I think the second part is pronounced “rhyme-y”, like what a poem is, and it takes me out of the story every time I see it.

I remembered Ghast Rhymi, whose face Edward Bond had never seen. Old, old, old, beyond good and evil, beyond fear and hatred, this was Ghast Rhymi, the wisest of the Coven. If he willed, he would answer my groping thought. If he willed not, nothing could force him. Nothing could harm the Eldest, for he lived on only by force of his own will.

The Coven retrieves Ganelon from his exile, but he still believes himself Bond at first.

"The artificial Earth-memories are still strong, then. Ghast Rhymi said you would remember eventually, but that it would take time. The false writing on the slate of your mind will fade, and the old, true memories will come back. After a while." Like a palimpsest, I thought-manuscript with two writings upon its parchment. But Ganelon was still a stranger; I was still Edward Bond.

Zelazny’s knowledge was so broad that it’s certainly possible that he would have encountered the concept of the palimpsest elsewhere. However, as Yama likens a mind with false memories to a palimpsest in Lord of Light

Ganelon’s personality eventually asserts itself when he realizes the Coven has betrayed him. (Rage had opened the floodgates, and Edward Bond was no more than a set of thin memories that had slipped from me as the blue cloak had slipped from my shoulders-the blue cloak of the chosen sacrifice, on the shoulders of the Lord Ganelon!) They sought to sacrifice him because they foresaw their ruination at his hands, but, in a twist as old as Sophocles, it is their betrayal that sets him on that path. Something similar happens in Amber when Fiona tells Corwin that Brand sought to kill him because he saw a vision in Tir’Na’Nogth, but I’m reluctant to say this is some kind of homage, because this is pretty standard prophecy trope.

He’s rescued by the Men of the Forest before he can be sacrificed. When Bond and Ganelon were originally switched, Bond aided the forest men, and they rescued him here, thinking him still Bond.  During his time with them, he had grown close to one of their number, the woman named Arles, who is described as follows.

She stood high upon a boulder that overhung the stream. She was dressed like a man in a tunic of soft, velvety green, crossbelted with a weapon swinging at each hip, but her hair was a fabulous mantle streaming down over her shoulders and hanging almost to her knees in a cascade of pale gold that rippled like water. A crown of pale gold leaves the color of the hair held it away from her face, and under the shining chaplet she looked down and smiled at us. Especially she smiled at me-at Edward Bond.

And her face was very lovely. It had the strength and innocence and calm serenity of a saint's face, but there was warmth and humor in the red lips. Her eyes were the same color as her tunic, deep green, a color I had never seen before in my own world.

Green eyes.  I’m just saying…

There is some question to his identity among the rebels, so he is taken to Freydis, a wise women, because she will know if he is Bond or Ganelon.

This is my favorite part in the book. Ganelon enters her cave, confident he can pass as Edward Bond.

Strange to relate, I felt sure of myself as I walked up the sloping ramp in the darkness. Ahead of me, around a bend, I could see the glimmer of firelight, and I smiled. It had been difficult to speak with these upstart woodsrunners as if they were my equals, as if I were still Edward Bond. It would be difficult to talk to their witchwoman as if she had as much knowledge as a Lord of the Coven. Some she must have, or she could never have managed the transfer which had sent me into the Earth-world and brought out Edward Bond. But I thought I could deceive her or anyone these rebels had to offer me. 

The small cave at the turn of the corridor was empty except for Freydis. Her back was to me. She crouched on her knees before a small fire that burned, apparently without fuel, in a dish of crystal. She wore a white robe, and her white hair lay in two heavy braids along her back. I stopped, trying to feel like Edward Bond again, to determine what he would have said in this moment.

Then Freydis turned and rose. She rose tremendously. Few in the Dark World can look me in the eye, but Freydis' clear blue gaze was level with my own. Her great shoulders and great, smooth arms were as powerful as a man's, and if age was upon her, it did not show in her easy motions or in the timeless face she turned to me. Only in the eyes was knowledge mirrored, and I knew as I met them that she was old indeed.

 "Good morning, Ganelon," she said in her deep, serene voice.

Ganelon is startled, but recovers himself and makes his pitch. They both want to destroy the Coven, so if Freydis wants the rebels to succeed, it’s in her best interest to tell everyone that he’s Bond.

She agrees and assists him in the recovery of Ganelon’s memories, and the description parallels Corwin’s recovery of his memories when he walks the Pattern.

DW: Ganelon's life came back in pictures that went vividly by and were printed forever on my brain. I knew his powers; I knew his secret strengths, his hidden weaknesses. I knew his sins. I exulted in his power and pride.

9PiA: The currents subsided and more of my memories returned, memories of my life as a prince of Amber. . . . No, they are not yours for the asking: they are mine, some vicious and cruel, others perhaps noble-

She then vouches for his identity, and the rebels prepare for the assault on the coven with the modern weapons Bond had helped them develop, which reminds me of Guns of Avalon.  Ganelon reflects on the nature of the members of the Coven, and this bit shows where Kuttner and Zelazny diverge in their approach to magical systems.

And such minds, with their new powers, would develop tools for those powers. The wands. Though no technician, I could understand their principle. Science tends toward simpler mechanisms; the klystron and the magnetron are little more than metal bars. Yet, under the right conditions, given energy and direction, they are powerful machines.

Well, the wands tapped the tremendous electromagnetic energy of the planet, which is, after all, simply a gargantuan magnet. As for the directive impulse, trained minds could easily supply that.

Each author posits system of magic that is logical and follows its own internally consistent set of rules, but I find Zelazny’s approach superior. I think Zelazny would use magnetism as an analogy, that we don’t fully understand the mechanism of the wand, but it appears to function in a fashion similar to magnetism, so we’ll use magnetism as a metaphor to describe it. With Kuttner, he’s essentially saying that the wands are elaborate magnets.

That was the aspect of the book that I enjoyed the least, and I do think it arises to the level of something subjectively wrong about it. When a well-educated lay person of the 1940s understands alien super-science well enough to manipulate it, it makes that science seem a lot less super.

I find the second of the book less interesting. Ganelon leads his rebels in their assault on the Coven. He loots the secret armory of the Coven for tools that will compel Ghast Ryhmi and protect him against the others.

My big problems with the second half of the book are twofold. I’ve already covered the first. Keats once said that Newton 'has destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow, by reducing it to the prismatic colours.' I normally applaud this kind of thing. Understanding the mechanism underlying a phenomenon enhances my appreciation, and I like my magic to fit a pattern, but the Dark World goes too far in the specificity of the functioning of the artifacts, to the point where it reduces the magical to the thoroughly mundane.

The other is that the revelation that Ghast Rhyhmi is an earth-born human (implied to be Merlin) doesn’t add very much to the story, and, much like the rest of the final act, doesn’t really build on what came before it. Same deal with Llyr being born a mutant and causing the schism that separated our earth and the Dark World. Both twists come out of nowhere and go nowhere.

The first one does give us the title of the post, and the second one explains why Llyr has an Irish name rather than one with all those vowels and apostrophes that eldritch monstrosities usually have, so there is that.

Overall, I like it, even with my caveats, for many of the same reasons I like Zelazny’s writings. It’s short, it’s punchy, it’s got a consistency and an enthusiasm to it. Ganelon is a great protagonist and the interplay with the supporting cast is solid. The prose probably reminds me most of Amber and the story of Jack of Shadows.

Further, there are the occasional segments that seem to have inspired similar passages in the Amber books, and those are like little Easter Eggs.

DW: I reached out, gripped Matholch's tunic, and shook him till his teeth rattled together. Hot fury filled me and something more.

This reminded me of the part in 9PiA when Corwin confronts Random about almost shooting the trucker. "I can take care of my own honor," I told him, and something cold and powerful suddenly gripped me and answered, "for he was mine to kill, not yours, had I chosen," and a sense of outrage filled me.

There are also several essays in the issue.

Imprinting Imagination - Jane Lindskold: She’s examining the influences of the Dark World on Zelazny’s writing, and takes a specific look at which Ganelon, Kuttner’s or the traitorous vassal of Charlemagne was a larger influence on Zelazny’s character. It’s a very precise, academic piece. I don't agree with her conclusions, but I very much appreciate her observations that the Dark World is the Primal Pattern underlying Amber,

Henry Kuttner: A Neglected Master - Ray Bradbury: A reprint of an introduction to an earlier Kuttner collection, saying should be better known. It doesn't have any particularly trenchant observations about the Dark World in particular, as it was intended to serve as the forward to a collection of a number of Kuttner stories, but it's Ray flippin' Bradbury, so it's brilliant, and brilliantly written.

Introduction - Roger Zelazny: I picked out my title for the post before seeing that Zelazny had used it to conclude his essay. I’m in good company! He mentions that  he tried to emulate Kuttner's versatility and remarks that Theodore Sturgeon said to him "You know, Zelazny, you don't just have one style. You have many." which strikes me as kind of crazy, because Roger Zelazny is my very favorite author, but he had a very distinctive style in which he was versatile and accomplished but from which he seldom diverged.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble: Essay on Kuttner & Merritt - Carl Yoke: This was an interesting essay. Yoke painstakingly points out numerous parallels between The Dark World and an earlier work, Dwellers in the Mirage. The Dark World is primarily of interest to the Zelazny fan because of what it inspired in Roger Zelazny, and it's just fascinating to look at what influenced the Dark World.

Another Few Words from Roger Zelazny: Influences and Inspirations

Another post in Krulik's series of reminiscences about Roger Zelazny.

Another Few Words from Roger Zelazny: Influences and Inspirations

The Best Dads in Fiction

The Top Ten Dads in fiction

Just in time for Father’s Day! Like my list of the best siblings in fiction, this list is heavily skewed towards genre fiction, because that’s what I tend to read.

Limiting Criteria and notable omissions

No Mentors: Rather, no characters who are only mentors, as a good father will also be a good mentor to his child. There’s clearly a bit of overlap between good parents and mentors, but the distinction I’m making here is that I’m not looking at anyone who was introduced into the character’s life after childhood or whose primary interaction with the character is outside the home. No Giles, no Dumbledore, no Doctors Who.  They’re admirable figures, but they’re outside the scope of this list. (I was thinking of making a distinction between characters who are the biological fathers of their children and those who not, but I came to my senses. Biological paternity isn't an important part of being a father.)

A Dad-Shaped Hole:  One of the smartest choices the Supergirl TV show made was the decision to leave Superman on the fringe. We see him as a silhouette in flashbacks and a distant figure and presence on the other end of a text conversation with Kara. That was the only way way he would have worked. Removing him entirely would beg the question "Where is Superman?" and making him any more prominent than they did would have overshadowed a character that did not yet have her own identity in that sphere. A dad who exists only as an idealized memory for his children doesn't qualify.

That Belongs to Me!: I was looking around on the internets, and most examples of good dads in genre fiction are variations of Liam Neeson's octogenarian serial killer from Taken. "The Papa Wolf: Don't take his stuff, or he'll kill you."

I don't like that, because it reduces the child to level of a prop. The true measure of worth as a father is not how much more you love your family than everyone else. I want somebody who loves his kids and respects them and prepares them for their adult lives, not the McGuffin at the end of his roaring rampage of revenge.

Ned Stark: This one is practically de rigueur for geek lists, but as I’ve discussed elsewhere on this blog, I don’t think he was a good dad. Even my friend Nicole agrees, and she's married to the mirror universe George R. R. Martin (He's skinny, handsome and has neither beard nor hat).

Ned loved his kids, but he didn’t prepare them for life outside Winterfell, where leadership consists of publicly decapitating traumatized refugees who were just trying to escape the paramilitary organization into which they were involuntarily conscripted.

The Ten Best Dads 

(+ One Bonus Dad, because Josh miscounted when he was making the list!)

 

11) Gomez Addams (The Addams Family) :  He's creepy and he's kooky, yes, he's mysterious and spooky. I would go so far as to say that he's all together ooky. However, the reason I like Gomez is that he's crazy about his family.

You see it more in the TV show than with the movies, which is why I picked John Aston over Raul Julia for the picture, but they both convey what I like about the character, his boundless gonzo enthusiasm and deep, unabashed love for his family.



10.) Arthur Weasely (The Sisterhood of the Pottering Pants): No list would be complete without  kindly, decent Arthur Weasely. (Seriously, he's always on these lists, even the non-fantasy ones.) One of the very few good dads in a very large series, he's often overshadowed by his my extroverted wife, but together they form the foundation on which the entire series is built.

9.) Jean Valjean (Les Misérables): I've always found Javert a more interesting character, but Jean Valjean is unquestionably one of the best dads out there. The reason he's not ranked higher is that his character arc concludes so early in the narrative that he winds up being a a rather flat character. Still, he loves Cosette, and he dedicates his life to her. (And Le Miz is really her story anyway.)

8.) Ben Parker (Spider-Man): He barely meets the criteria of being a character, but I'm going to include him because I think Cliff Robertson's portrayal, as brief as it was, is the glue that holds the Spider-Man movie together. 

7.) Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender): He's the uncle rather than biological father to Prince Zuko. Long before the series began, Iroh's own son died while under his command, and this devastated him. Like Valjean above, Iroh had his epiphany before the main thrust of the story, but his mellow good humor makes him much more fun.

He, as much as anyone knows the kind of monster Zuko's father is. And honestly, there is a lot in the story to suggest that Iroh wasn't a very good father to his own son when he was alive. It was only after his son's death that he became the man that we see in Avatar.

He is everything a father should be to Zuko, patient and kind and understanding. He teaches Zuko by example. He sees the mistakes his nephew is going to make, but respects Zuko's right to make them and he's there to catch Zuko when he falls.

6.) Tatsuo Kusakabe (My Neighbor Totoro):  Or almost any dad from a Miyazaki movie, really. My daughter wanted to add Kiki’s Dad, from Kiki’s Delivery Service. I was like “Yeah, what a great dad!  He let her take the radio.” (That was sarcasm.) But she pointed out that he let her take the radio, and he loved her and supported her and let her go off on her adventure.

Mister Kusakabe is just a good guy. Trying to give his young daughters as normal a life as possible while their mother is in the hospital, working to provide for them, listening to the. I don't think he really believes in the Totoros, but he acts as if he does, and that's such a nice thing to do.

5.) Charles Halloway (Something Wicked This Way Comes): This isn't something kids get about adults until they get older, but we have our doubts and fears too. 

The Witch, if she were alive, would have known that sound, and died again

Charles Halloway is an old man, and he worries that he's too old to be a proper father to his son.

“Dad," said Will, his voice very faint. "Are you a good person?"

"To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself-"

"And, adding it all up...?"

"The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right.”

Spoiler, he turns out to be a pretty good dad after all.




4.) Keith Mars (Veronica Mars) 
I love Keith. He was always my favorite character on the show.

Lily once said that I only like people who make mistakes, and that's as true as anything anyone's ever said about me. Veronica is haunted by the ghost of the girl she used to be. Veronica loses as much as she wins, but she always comes back for more. Veronica is a competent investigator, with the skill set one would reasonably expect to find in the daughter of a sheriff turned PI. She's sensible, she's methodical, and she knows the tricks of the trade, but she's not brilliant. 

And everything she is, Keith helped her become.

3.) Pa Kent (Superman) (panel from All Star Superman)

Click to embiggen

Young Justice was a TV show from 2011 that suffered from the same problem afflicting a lot of DC Universe properties. The creators loved Batman and hated Superman. In Young Justice, which was  otherwise a decent show, Batman was this cool father figure to the team of young heroes, and Superman was a prickly, standoffish jerk who couldn't stand to be around his own clone.

There have been and will continue to be many different interpretations of the characters, but some things about them are constant. A Batman who is kinder than Superman is just as wrong as a Batman who is stronger than Superman.  He's up to what, five Robins now? "Come here, little boy. I have some elf boots.  Those don’t fit? Don’t worry. I have several pairs. Don't mind the blood."

Superman would have been a great dad, just like Johnathan Kent. When he was pitching All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison said "'Superman' is an act. 'Clark Kent' in Metropolis is also an act. There are actually two Kents, at least – one is a disguise, a bumbling, awkward mask for Superman. The other is the confident, strong, good-hearted Clark Kent who was raised by his surrogate Ma and Pa in Kansas and knows how to drive a tractor. I think he's the most 'real' of all."

That's who Johnathan Kent was and who Clark Kent aspires to be.

2.) Tenzin (The Legend of Korra): I love Tenzin. On one level he's a hilariously grumpy sitcom dad,

Pema: Dear, the best thing you can do right now is to give Korra some space.
Tenzin: You must promise me that your teenage years won't be like this!
Jinora: I will make no such promises.

but he's also an incomparable badass. He fares much better than Korra against the Equalists, for instance. (You'd think someone who solved her problems with her fists for her entire life would be better at using them.)

He's fundamentally decent person. You often hear variations on the phrase "He would do anything for his kids" as a compliment, but I it struck me as I was reviewing episodes for this post that Tenzin wouldn't. There are lines he will not cross. He will not commit abhorrent acts in their name. When his home and temple are invaded and supervillains take his family and his students hostage, Tenzin's kids are right there getting the hostages to safety. He taught them to stand up for themselves and for other people, by setting that example.

1.) Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird):

The Free Space on the Good Dad Bingo Board and for good reason. Even after Go Set a Watchmen, he remains the ideal to which dads expire. Atticus is a widower doing his best to raise his children in 1930s Alabama.

My grandfather served as a marine in WWII, leaving high school early in order to serve.  He supported his family for half a century. As an old friend of his said at his funeral, "He always had a smile for everyone and he never talked too loud." There is a scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird" where Atticus shoots a rabid dog. He doesn't go bragging about it afterwards. He doesn't exchange high fives with his friends. He did it because he was the best equipped to do it, and he went on with his life afterwards. I loved my grandpa. He was a good man. He always made me think of Atticus.

Atticus did his best. He was warm and kind and good.

"If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it", is some darn good advice.

I must say, we're enjoying the new Voltron

Appropriately mythic, a clever updating of the original series, some great action and tied together with that sly Avatar sense of humor.