Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

[Werthead]

Roger Zelazny has the reputation of being one of the most interesting and innovative speculative fiction writers of his generation. His Amber novels are regarded as classics of fantasy and Damnation Alley is highly regarded to this day. Unfortunately it wasn't until recently that I got into his work, starting with his Hugo-winning 1967 novel, Lord of Light.

The setting is the distant future. Earth - now called Urath - is nearly forgotten. Mankind has settled a distant colony world, but the original crew of the colonisation ship have, through advanced technology, become extremely powerful beings and taken on the mantle of the Hindu gods. The general population is kept in harsh, downtrodden servility to these deities. Advanced AIs and the gods judge the 'karmic debt' of each person when they die, deciding if they are to be reborn in another human body or reincarnated as an animal or elevated to godhood. It is the ultimate hierarchal structure, designed to keep the powerful in power and the downtrodden under the heel. Every time a major technological discovery is made, the gods crush it with merciless force to ensure that the status quo continues.

One person thinks differently: Mahasamatman. He is one of the First, but has never claimed to be a god. But then, he has never claimed not to be a god. He refuses to believe in the innate superiority of the gods and finds what they have done to the people they were supposed to be protecting and serving repellent. To this end he carves an identity for himself as the Lord of Light, Buddha, and seeks to bring about the end of his world...

Lord of Light is an exceptionally clever, thought-provoking and intelligent novel. It is an incredibly fresh work. 1967? It could have been written yesterday. Zelazny is a funny and poetic writer, approaching each chapter, each interlude and each character from a slightly different angle, sometimes invoking rich mythic imagery. He bears some influences on his sleeve: at some moments the book feels like a Hindu cover version of The Dying Earth (complete with Vancian dialogue exchanges), but only momentarily. The mystery of how a futuristic, space-faring civilisation became a dramatic reenactment of Hindu mythology is never fully explained, but Vance gives us enough clues to work out ourselves how it happened. He also packs a hell of a lot into this 300-page tome, including vast wars and battles, struggles with body-stealing alien entities, brief-but-intriguing philosophical discourses on the nature of humanity and humourous monkey episodes. It's a story about myth, power and absolute corruption that resonates as strongly now as it did forty years ago.

Lord of Light (*****) is yet more proof that Gollancz's SF Masterworks list is one of the best, most definitive lists of the SF&F classics anyone could ask for. It is available in the UK from Gollancz and in the USA from Eos.

 

[Werthead]

Obviously that should be 'Zelazny gives us', not 'Vance gives us'. Sigh.

 

[gully_foyle]

I just finished reading this too and found it was a great read, although occasionally I lost the thread, but that may have just been tiredness. I didn't quite figure out who Nirriti the Black was, he just seemed to appear without any context. Also, the opening chapter is a sequence that takes place in the latter part of the books time line, but I never quite figured out where.

Ultimately though, the character of Sam makes a great protagonist. Despite his "godhood" and his cleverness he makes some pretty mighty stuff ups, unleashing the demons the most obvious one. His casting himself as the Buddha is appropriate because his friends from the Hindu Pantheon are completely driven by vanity, as are the demons.

I'd like to try Damnation Alley, but I'm not a fantasy person (even though LOL was pretty much fantasy), so I'll avoid his Amber novels, for now.

 

[Connavar]

Awesome cover.

Im becoming fan of RZ that i will surely get this awesome version of the book.


He has impressed alot with his writing in DA,This Immortal(havent read much of it yet)

 

[JoanDrake]

Niritti the Black is a Christian.

If you liked this you should try Creatures of Light and Darkness, where he does roughly the same thing with the Egyptian pantheon.

And To Die in Italbar, where he makes up his own gods.

 

[Bick]

I recently read Lord of Light, and didn't think highly of it - to my surprise and disappointment, given I've heard such good things about it.
I posted a review on my website: copied here:

Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

Lord of Light (1967) is a science fantasy novel and possibly the most well known (and possibly well regarded) work by the late Roger Zelazny. Calling it a science fantasy is not a stretch here, as Zelazny purposely wrote a novel that could be read as either SF or fantasy. In a far future, the vast majority of the colonists on an Earth-like world live in an undeveloped, almost medieval state, under the 'guidance', rule and tyranny of a pantheon of gods. These gods, having taken the names and appearance of the Hindu deities, are actually the original (and now immortal) human colonists who appropriated all the highest technology to elevate themselves above the common people. One such 'god', Sam, has the form and attributes of Siddhartha or Buddha, and he decides to fight back against the tyrannical Hindu gods in favour of the people.

The novel is certainly inventive, it's quite possibly well-researched with regards to Hindu religious belief and mythology (I'm not really in a position to comment on this aspect), and it comes across as very 'clever'. This cleverness is not really a positive, however; the cleverness is rather too strained, and it overshadows the narrative - if this were a film, one might say that you can see the wires.

The other major problem with this novel lies in its construction and pacing. It is so episodic, the chapters seem more like connected short stories than a satisfying single story arc. Occasionally exciting and well-paced, the book alternates these episodes with extended sections one can only describe as boring. This was not an easy or enjoyable read. Characterisation is thin, and with no character development to speak of. The novel won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novel, but be warned, Lord of Light has not aged well, and reflects the excesses of the SF New Wave, popular at the time.