Hard work, but worthwhile
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Hard to follow at first, but worth persevering with. The story itself is nothing special, and could do with the confusingly named characters and objects being explained better, but the sheer quality of the writing more than makes up for it. In places, it's more like poetry than anything else.
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One of my favourite books.
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Great storytelling and wonderful concepts. I can read this book again and again. Highly recommended.
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Brilliant
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My all time favourite. I've read many SF and fantasy books but Lord of Light tops them all. It's not merely the inventive and multi layered story or the enigmatic and intriguing characters, but also the author's brilliant style of writing that makes the book almost perfect. Roger Zelazny was (he died in 1995) a man of very few words, so you have to read his books very precisely, absorbing every word, in order not to miss anything.
Lord of Light is basically about Sam, a renegade 'god' and his resistance against the rule of the established gods. These gods are, in fact, former crew members of a star ship, which crashed on a distant planet millenia ago. After a fierce battle, the crew managed to defeat the planet's indigenous inhabitants and confined them to a far-off place called Hellwell. They adopted the identities of Hindu gods and developed a technique to 'reincarnate' in new -artificial- bodies. They conveniently kept all technical know-how involved in the complicated reincarnation process to themselves, as it proved a highly effective means of keeping their offspring under their thumbs.
Lord of Light is not an easy read, particularly because the story is written in a non-chronological order. At first, this may be quite confusing but it will soon become clear that it is the only way to get the essence of the story properly across. The story itself may seem pretty straightforward, but it is certainly not a linear narrative. There are various aspects woven into it; religious, social, and political matters are dealt with in an almost casual, but awe-inspiring manner. The story's protagonist Sam, a man of many names and identities, is an inspiring individual, a leader and a teacher. His initial opponent and later ally is Yama-Dharma God of Death, a cold, cynical and arrogant man, who's character is probably even more important to the story as Sam's. The author himself once put it this way: my first intention was to let Yama die at some point in the book, but then I realised that the strength of Sam's character would be seriously weakened by Yama's death, so I decided to keep him alive.
Zelazny must have made an in-depth study of Hindu culture and religion before he wrote this book. Many of the names, Aspects and Attributes of the self-proclaimed gods, especially those of the most important ones, are actually based on the characteristics of present day Hindu gods and goddesses. As a result, the book allows you a pretty good insight in Hindu religion and culture, and, although it's a bit o.t.t now and again, the story never loses any of its credibility.
Mandatory reading for fantasy and SF fans! A bit of advice: read the book at least twice for a better understanding.
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Confusing, vague, but still good
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I'd like to say i loved this book. There were sections/chapters that blew me away, but ultimately the story was beyond my comprehension. On finishing it i looked up an explanation on Wikpedia website, and realised that much of the book had gone completely over my head. I'm by no means thick, but there are so many characters (and they all have at least 3 names each - the main character Sam has about 10!) and Zelany writes at such a pace that i think he forgot that very few of us are experts on Hinduism.
The concept is amazing and this kept me interested, but its poorly explained. The ideas are so huge that the book should have been twice as long - i wanted to know why humans had colonised this distant planet, how the so-called gods developed super-human powers, how old were 'the First'? These things were obviously skirted over intentionally by the author, but i found that his writing, while brilliant, was also very vague. For example, near the end there is referrence to 'the tall man of smoke with a wide hat'. Apparently this is a referrence to a nuclear bomb, and i now acknowledge the geius of this, but it was completely lost on me at the time. I just thought it was another character!
So overall, i feel the book just isn't accessible enough to warrant 5-stars. I doubt anyone, no matter how intelligent could claim that they didn't find this a struugle. I think only the author himself knew the answers to some of the most important questions raised. The reviewer below states that its a fast read, but then goes on to say you can't read it fast, so i think he's completely confused! Maybe true enlightenment can only be reached after a second read. I'll definitely come back to this book one day because its probably the most original and epic book i've ever read, but be warned... Its hard work!!
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A book about Gods by a God....
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Zelazny will *always* be my number one author! His writing is so concise, as another reviewer stated, not a word is wasted. Roger can say in one paragraph what it takes another author a chapter to write! Why arent Roger Zelazny's books 750 pages long??, because his novels are not *brain-candy*-- he can get his story said in 230 pages. Very fast read, fast action, super dialogue - his writing is almost poetry. Some readers think the novel jumps without warning to a prevous time, but if that reviewer had only read the last sentence of the preceeding chapter. Not a book to be scanned quickly, savor each and every word as alas, the Shakespear of New Wave Science Fiction/Fantasy is no longer around.
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