Wait, wut? Zelazny? A quick google, and now I have to say I love your father’s work, if it wasn’t clear from the video. 🙂 Also, you apparently know one of my best mates, Jason Durall. He said to say hi.
I re read this novel every 5-10 yrs of so and it get something new from it each time. Thank you for your thoughtful review I look forward to watching your other videos.
I first read this book around 1970. I had just graduated from high school and was working and living on the family ranch. One afternoon my older brother and I set out on horseback to do something or another with some cattle several miles from home. I stuck this book in my jacket pocket and while we were riding toward our destination pulled it out and began reading. I was hooked from the beginning. My brother thought I was nuts. I hadn't thought about that for years, probably decades. Your review brought those memories flooding back. Thank you.
I think one thing people often forget is how beautifully written it is the prose is fantastic and at times quite moving. The amount of information imparted is simply amazing because it's not really a very long novel. I don't forsee most people not having their minds blown by this it's like nothing else I can think of.
This one sounds totally groooovy, man! Thanks for bringing Lord of Light to my attention, Matt. The sidebar of weirdness is indeed . . . weird. I saw the movie Argo and still didn't realize the connection to Lord of Light, so I learned something cool here. Also, it's awesome that you're a Buddhist! If I ever decided to follow a philosophy (not a religion), it would be philosophical Buddhism. I'd love to read some Zelazny, and this might just be my starting point.
It’s a great place to start, but honestly he wrote so many very different books. e.g. this is *nothing* like Amber. But definitely groooovy and quite a lot to think about too. Recommended! 😀👌🏻
One of my favorite books. Many people don't notice Zelazny's impish sense of humor where he takes 4 pages to set up a joke all built around the saying "When the shit hits the fan". The twist that hides the joke is that in the story, the line used is "And that's when the fit hit the Shan." Edit: Regarding the "religious" parts of the book...a couple favorites are 1. Were Zelazny substituted Yama in the single combat versus Mara where traditionally you'd find Siddhartha. 2. The sermon immediately following that battle, and specifically where Sam talks about the "essence" of reality, and how you can't adequately explain fire to someone who's never seen fire.
I have to admit, I didn’t catch that joke. 😆 I’ll keep my eyes open on a re-read. And as a Buddhist, I constantly enjoyed the little tweaks and twists he applied to the whole religion, and the bits where the wisdom of it shone through anyway. 🙂
@@MattonBooks I'm agnostic but I have to admit that regardless of the religion, there is value to be had in tradition and a fundamental grounding in the notion that "self" is not the most important consideration in life, and that human life should be held sacred. Buddhism has always seemed to me the most mature of the major religions because it doesn't rely on a deity from which to derive morality. Many (not all) atheists fool themselves that they have no religion, never noticing that they've subconsciously adopted/substituted other values they hold sacred over human life, whether it's science or some other notion they put on a pedestal. Of course, there are "humanists" like Richard Dawkins who may arrive at a moral code of conduct, but not everyone is thoughtful enough to find morality via that road. Forgive the essay, I intended a shorter reply, but it got away from me.
Great video! Really enjoyed the structure of this video and your descriptions. Very interesting. I've purchased this book and am looking forward to it!
So excited to have my mind blown! I'm super curious about how he writes about people becoming enlightened, and I always love an interesting structure. I also agree with what you said about Star Wars and Dune-the lines between much sci-fi and fantasy are easily blurred. 🙂
I’m a big fan of zelazny… discovered him in a series of stories in analog which comprised a somewhat reduced version of Sign of the unicorn… given that it was the forth book in the series my mind was completely blown… also found A rose for eclesiasties.. great short story… ultimately pick up Lord of light in a huge used book store… absolutely great, much better than creatures of light and darkness…Zelazny shines when his characters are down to earth but quirky…I also love the story where the main character was a 13 year college student who absorbed an alien into his body during a night of heavy drinking… I can’t remember the title and I’m to lazy to look it up…
Great review! I discovered this book this year and I loved it. As I was reading I kept trying to figure out why I had never heard of it before this year. It won all the awards you can win and even won against Dune! I don't understand how Zelazny isn't more popular. His writing is amazing. I finished it a few months ago and I'm going to read it again very soon.
Back in the 70’s & 80’s, Zelazny was a household name, in scifi households anyway. His popularity has waned though, quite a bit. He does have a pretty old school style, so maybe that’s it.
@@MattonBooks I love his style. I have no read the Amber series yet but his other works feel pretty timeless. This Immortal could have been published in the last decade if publishers still printed scifi books that short. Maybe I just vibe with his writing so I don't notice it's age.
@@MattonBooks he was practicing hsing i chuan with a buddy of mine, my homie had Kenny Gong come teach and they did it in my school...that's when i met him, i tried to control myself...lol....him and phil dick...a cut above.
Which other SF Masterworks would you recommend to a reader who has a difficult time with hard SF e.g. I loved Flowers for Algernon, The Left Hand of Darkness and enjoyed Ubik, A Canticle for Leibowitz but other classics like Dune, Hyperion, Foundation, Rendezvous With Rama didn't work at all for me.
Great review! The sidebar of weirdness was very interesting, I had no idea about it. I might give the book a shot sometime, the premise sounds intriguing
I think it was the NY Times book reviewer who said he (Zelazny) writes science like it was magic and magic like it was science as soon as I read that I knew this book was for me.@@MattonBooks
Great review! I've had this book for many years but never really got to reading It, except for some parts; recently, inspired by another booktuber, I decided to give It another chance, but so far It hasn't really gripped me. But what you said, about the first chapter being part of what happens later---sort of like in Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum'---gives me hope that It might improve eventually.
Fascinating story about the theme park, movie and Argo connection. I read the book when it came out and loved the Bob Pepper art on the US cover. Check that one out as well as his covers for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series put together by Lin Carter. Rerading Lord of Light always lets me see more things than the first time. It isn't a one read and done book.
I had bought 'Jack of Shadows' in the early-mid 80's at some point, and I re-read it several times later. I could never understand why this 'Lord of Light' could ever be more interesting! I finally got it in the 2000's, and I really love it! I DO love the quote(?) that was said to be why Zelazny actually wrote this book! No spoilers, see, hands free!
I read Lord of Light in June, and like any other Zelazny story I've read so far, it was highly original and fascinating, and I love the religious references. I quite enjoyed the story of the film that never got made. I'd say that is quite in keeping with some of the interestingly poetic weirdness that Zelazny crammed into his stories. One thing I particularly liked about this story is that, while set in the future, it could also be interpreted as being in a hypothetical past, as the events of the story, mythologised over time, could have sparked the kinds of religious notions we have today once the details were long forgotten; and it suggests, probably intentionally, a kind of cyclical world view. And yes, Star Wars and Dune are escapist space fantasies, not science fiction in the sense that many distinguish those terms. When I started reading science fiction, I quickly landed on 50's and 60's science fiction. That is where you find philosophical, literary science fiction, influenced by Modernist ideas, the actual technological space age and not just an imagined one, the intermingled hope and paranoia of the post-war era and the Cold War, and scientific advances that made people question and analyse things that many never thought to question before. And of course also the spiritual awakening that came from more people in the West realising there was a whole world of other ways to view existence besides their own. It was a proper paradigm shift where science fiction, once considered a harmless escapist pulp genre for the masses, became "literature" in even the most ardent pedant's definition of the word. Like you, I also Lord of Light over no more than three days, but it is relatively dense prose, and so I need to reread it some day, possibly a little more slowly.
Well, this is about as fascinating as a book review can get. Seriously, the associated elements run the gamut--philosophy, world religion, the hippy movement... the CIA! lol. As old as I am (I was 7 when it was pubbed), I was unaware of the book. Thanks for the thoroughness and insight. You've definitely made me intrigued.
I’ve heard this is an absolute classic of sci-fi over and over through the decades, so it’s been on my PSR (Probably Should Read) for aaages. It’s an absolutely fascinating book. Was for me anyway. 🙂
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it back in the 80s and it made me a Zelazny fan. It is a fantastic meld of spirituality and cynicism, of fantasy and Science Fiction, of humor and gravitas, and it may also be, in its own particular way, the best superhero novel ever written.
Matt, if you like stories that need figuring out, I highly recommend The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki. It's not Sci-Fi, at all, having beet written around 1800. It's a great story that unfolds piece by piece through the telling of different characters that the protagonist meets while making his way through the Sierra Morena. Think of it as a sort of Decameron where all stories are somehow connected in the end.
Great review, I just finished lord of light, and I loved it! When sci fi becomes fantasy, is quickly becoming my favorite kind of sci fi. Definitely hint of BOTNS
Glad to find a like mind! 🙂 Definitely the kind of book that’s not for everyone, but I also loved it! Just finished the first book of Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota, and I’m guessing you might also like it. Check it out! 😀👌🏻
Thanks Paromita. 🙂 I’ve heard forever this was a big time classic - GRRM said it’s one of the best 5 sci-fi books ever written - but I was honestly surprised by how it blew me away. Definitely recommended.
Hey man if you haven't red Creatures of Light and Darkness by Zelazny, well, you should. It's something of the same setup with Gods and a pantheon, this time Egyptian, but it's spread out over a galaxy at least and I'd say has a much more whimsical tone. It isn't as tight as Lord of Light, but still a rollicking fun and intriguing read.
This is a nice classic. I both love and don't love Zelazny, depending on the book. I read this one too young and it didn't give me the space opera I wanted, but I should reread it one day.
![Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny [Spoiler Light Review][Masterpieces of SF Ep. 61]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YZk6k2zIfHI/mqdefault.jpg)
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Very much enjoyed your review. Thanks!
Best,
Trent Zelazny
Wait, wut? Zelazny? A quick google, and now I have to say I love your father’s work, if it wasn’t clear from the video. 🙂
Also, you apparently know one of my best mates, Jason Durall. He said to say hi.
I re read this novel every 5-10 yrs of so and it get something new from it each time. Thank you for your thoughtful review I look forward to watching your other videos.
I’ve read Amber a couple times, but this one was new to me, and I loved it. 😍 Thanks for watching!
I first read this book around 1970. I had just graduated from high school and was working and living on the family ranch. One afternoon my older brother and I set out on horseback to do something or another with some cattle several miles from home. I stuck this book in my jacket pocket and while we were riding toward our destination pulled it out and began reading. I was hooked from the beginning. My brother thought I was nuts. I hadn't thought about that for years, probably decades. Your review brought those memories flooding back. Thank you.
That sounds like a novel in itself, and I can’t imagine reading conditions further from my own. 😆 Glad you enjoyed the review.
I think one thing people often forget is how beautifully written it is the prose is fantastic and at times quite moving. The amount of information imparted is simply amazing because it's not really a very long novel. I don't forsee most people not having their minds blown by this it's like nothing else I can think of.
Yeah James, it’s definitely unique. And Zelazny was pretty unique too, in that his prose style varies greatly from one novel to the next.
It's always been my favorite Zelazny book, even more than the first Amber series. I still have the paperback, though it's showing its age!
I’ve only read Amber (long ago & a few times since), and this once and recently, and for me Amber still wins, but I really enjoyed this! 😀
This one sounds totally groooovy, man! Thanks for bringing Lord of Light to my attention, Matt. The sidebar of weirdness is indeed . . . weird. I saw the movie Argo and still didn't realize the connection to Lord of Light, so I learned something cool here. Also, it's awesome that you're a Buddhist! If I ever decided to follow a philosophy (not a religion), it would be philosophical Buddhism. I'd love to read some Zelazny, and this might just be my starting point.
It’s a great place to start, but honestly he wrote so many very different books. e.g. this is *nothing* like Amber. But definitely groooovy and quite a lot to think about too. Recommended! 😀👌🏻
I highly recommend it as a starting point for Zelazny.
It was my starting point and I fell in love with his writing by the time I finished reading it.
One of my favorite books.
Many people don't notice Zelazny's impish sense of humor where he takes 4 pages to set up a joke all built around the saying "When the shit hits the fan".
The twist that hides the joke is that in the story, the line used is "And that's when the fit hit the Shan."
Edit: Regarding the "religious" parts of the book...a couple favorites are 1. Were Zelazny substituted Yama in the single combat versus Mara where traditionally you'd find Siddhartha. 2. The sermon immediately following that battle, and specifically where Sam talks about the "essence" of reality, and how you can't adequately explain fire to someone who's never seen fire.
I have to admit, I didn’t catch that joke. 😆 I’ll keep my eyes open on a re-read.
And as a Buddhist, I constantly enjoyed the little tweaks and twists he applied to the whole religion, and the bits where the wisdom of it shone through anyway. 🙂
@@MattonBooks I'm agnostic but I have to admit that regardless of the religion, there is value to be had in tradition and a fundamental grounding in the notion that "self" is not the most important consideration in life, and that human life should be held sacred.
Buddhism has always seemed to me the most mature of the major religions because it doesn't rely on a deity from which to derive morality.
Many (not all) atheists fool themselves that they have no religion, never noticing that they've subconsciously adopted/substituted other values they hold sacred over human life, whether it's science or some other notion they put on a pedestal.
Of course, there are "humanists" like Richard Dawkins who may arrive at a moral code of conduct, but not everyone is thoughtful enough to find morality via that road.
Forgive the essay, I intended a shorter reply, but it got away from me.
Wow, did not expect the places this video went. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you liked it, Trevor. 🙂
Great video! Really enjoyed the structure of this video and your descriptions. Very interesting. I've purchased this book and am looking forward to it!
Thanks Shawn. 🙂 Hope you love it!
So excited to have my mind blown! I'm super curious about how he writes about people becoming enlightened, and I always love an interesting structure. I also agree with what you said about Star Wars and Dune-the lines between much sci-fi and fantasy are easily blurred. 🙂
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did Johanna! 😀
I’m a big fan of zelazny… discovered him in a series of stories in analog which comprised a somewhat reduced version of Sign of the unicorn… given that it was the forth book in the series my mind was completely blown… also found A rose for eclesiasties.. great short story… ultimately pick up Lord of light in a huge used book store… absolutely great, much better than creatures of light and darkness…Zelazny shines when his characters are down to earth but quirky…I also love the story where the main character was a 13 year college student who absorbed an alien into his body during a night of heavy drinking… I can’t remember the title and I’m to lazy to look it up…
Doors in the sand?
Great review!
I discovered this book this year and I loved it.
As I was reading I kept trying to figure out why I had never heard of it before this year.
It won all the awards you can win and even won against Dune!
I don't understand how Zelazny isn't more popular. His writing is amazing.
I finished it a few months ago and I'm going to read it again very soon.
Back in the 70’s & 80’s, Zelazny was a household name, in scifi households anyway. His popularity has waned though, quite a bit. He does have a pretty old school style, so maybe that’s it.
@@MattonBooks I love his style. I have no read the Amber series yet but his other works feel pretty timeless. This Immortal could have been published in the last decade if publishers still printed scifi books that short.
Maybe I just vibe with his writing so I don't notice it's age.
@@JosephReadsBooks I’d definitely recommend Amber, the first 5 at least. Quite an original take on fantasy, especially for its time.
Zelazny was the best! Got to meet him briefly....low key guy. My all time favorite...nine princes in amber.
Yeah Brian, I’m a big Amber fan. Read all 10 at least twice. Jealous you got to meet him! 🙂👌🏻
@@MattonBooks he was practicing hsing i chuan with a buddy of mine, my homie had Kenny Gong come teach and they did it in my school...that's when i met him, i tried to control myself...lol....him and phil dick...a cut above.
Which other SF Masterworks would you recommend to a reader who has a difficult time with hard SF e.g. I loved Flowers for Algernon, The Left Hand of Darkness and enjoyed Ubik, A Canticle for Leibowitz but other classics like Dune, Hyperion, Foundation, Rendezvous With Rama didn't work at all for me.
Great review! The sidebar of weirdness was very interesting, I had no idea about it. I might give the book a shot sometime, the premise sounds intriguing
It’s very different, and verrry interesting! 😀
Zelazny makes magic plausible :)
Zelazny demonstrates Clarke’s quote. 😉
I think it was the NY Times book reviewer who said he (Zelazny) writes science like it was magic and magic like it was science as soon as I read that I knew this book was for me.@@MattonBooks
Great review! I've had this book for many years but never really got to reading It, except for some parts; recently, inspired by another booktuber, I decided to give It another chance, but so far It hasn't really gripped me. But what you said, about the first chapter being part of what happens later---sort of like in Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum'---gives me hope that It might improve eventually.
I hope it does! 🙂
Fascinating story about the theme park, movie and Argo connection. I read the book when it came out and loved the Bob Pepper art on the US cover. Check that one out as well as his covers for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series put together by Lin Carter.
Rerading Lord of Light always lets me see more things than the first time. It isn't a one read and done book.
Thanks for watching Grant. 🙂 Yeah, exactly my feeling. As soon as I’d finished it, I knew I’d read it again, probably soon.
I had bought 'Jack of Shadows' in the early-mid 80's at some point, and I re-read it several times later. I could never understand why this 'Lord of Light' could ever be more interesting! I finally got it in the 2000's, and I really love it! I DO love the quote(?) that was said to be why Zelazny actually wrote this book! No spoilers, see, hands free!
It's so good! I’ll definitely be re-reading it soon.
I read Lord of Light in June, and like any other Zelazny story I've read so far, it was highly original and fascinating, and I love the religious references. I quite enjoyed the story of the film that never got made. I'd say that is quite in keeping with some of the interestingly poetic weirdness that Zelazny crammed into his stories.
One thing I particularly liked about this story is that, while set in the future, it could also be interpreted as being in a hypothetical past, as the events of the story, mythologised over time, could have sparked the kinds of religious notions we have today once the details were long forgotten; and it suggests, probably intentionally, a kind of cyclical world view.
And yes, Star Wars and Dune are escapist space fantasies, not science fiction in the sense that many distinguish those terms.
When I started reading science fiction, I quickly landed on 50's and 60's science fiction. That is where you find philosophical, literary science fiction, influenced by Modernist ideas, the actual technological space age and not just an imagined one, the intermingled hope and paranoia of the post-war era and the Cold War, and scientific advances that made people question and analyse things that many never thought to question before. And of course also the spiritual awakening that came from more people in the West realising there was a whole world of other ways to view existence besides their own.
It was a proper paradigm shift where science fiction, once considered a harmless escapist pulp genre for the masses, became "literature" in even the most ardent pedant's definition of the word.
Like you, I also Lord of Light over no more than three days, but it is relatively dense prose, and so I need to reread it some day, possibly a little more slowly.
Yup, I was blown away by the whole movie that never was story, when I started researching the book. Just had to include it. 😛
Well, this is about as fascinating as a book review can get. Seriously, the associated elements run the gamut--philosophy, world religion, the hippy movement... the CIA! lol. As old as I am (I was 7 when it was pubbed), I was unaware of the book. Thanks for the thoroughness and insight. You've definitely made me intrigued.
I’ve heard this is an absolute classic of sci-fi over and over through the decades, so it’s been on my PSR (Probably Should Read) for aaages. It’s an absolutely fascinating book. Was for me anyway. 🙂
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it back in the 80s and it made me a Zelazny fan. It is a fantastic meld of spirituality and cynicism, of fantasy and Science Fiction, of humor and gravitas, and it may also be, in its own particular way, the best superhero novel ever written.
Absolutely! 😀 My Zelazny introduction was Amber, which I’ve read multiple times, but I never branched out until now, and loved it!
Matt, if you like stories that need figuring out, I highly recommend The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki. It's not Sci-Fi, at all, having beet written around 1800. It's a great story that unfolds piece by piece through the telling of different characters that the protagonist meets while making his way through the Sierra Morena. Think of it as a sort of Decameron where all stories are somehow connected in the end.
Oooh, sounds fascinating. 😀 And ai love any recommendation of anything I’ve never heard of. 👌🏻
Great review, I just finished lord of light, and I loved it! When sci fi becomes fantasy, is quickly becoming my favorite kind of sci fi. Definitely hint of BOTNS
Glad to find a like mind! 🙂 Definitely the kind of book that’s not for everyone, but I also loved it! Just finished the first book of Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota, and I’m guessing you might also like it. Check it out! 😀👌🏻
Hi 👋 like the way you go in depth of a book review.. have a wonderful Christmas 🎄☃️❄️
Thanks Safina! You too! 🙂👌🏻
Great review! I wasn’t really vibing with the first book in his Amber series when I tried it a couple of years ago, but this seems more up my alley.
I’m an Amber fan - read all 10 twice - but this is TOTALLY different. Nothing like Amber at all. Well worth a try. Fascinating book. 🙂👌🏻
This sounds weird good in the best possible way. I'm going to check it out. Fantastic review.
Thanks Paromita. 🙂 I’ve heard forever this was a big time classic - GRRM said it’s one of the best 5 sci-fi books ever written - but I was honestly surprised by how it blew me away. Definitely recommended.
Hey man if you haven't red Creatures of Light and Darkness by Zelazny, well, you should. It's something of the same setup with Gods and a pantheon, this time Egyptian, but it's spread out over a galaxy at least and I'd say has a much more whimsical tone. It isn't as tight as Lord of Light, but still a rollicking fun and intriguing read.
I’ve read Amber multiple times, but otherwise no Zelazny. Plenty to get to. 🙂
This is a nice classic. I both love and don't love Zelazny, depending on the book. I read this one too young and it didn't give me the space opera I wanted, but I should reread it one day.
Yeah, if you’re expecting SCIENCE FICTION, this ain’t that. And it ain’t Amber either. But it was a great read, for me.
Great review. Love this book. "The man with the Tall Hat". Starwars is fantasy
Thanks Aaron. 🙂
This is the eternals and Kirbys 4th world
The piece that you have quoted is used twice, as a refrain
Thanks. 🙂
Says "spoiler-free". Starts with spoilers
What’s considered a spoiler varies from person to person. By my definition, nothing in this video spoils anything in the book. 🤷🏻♂️
Lol sort of