(Today’s author: Roger Zelazny
)
Don’t get me wrong: I loved the Amber series
. Very good alternate-universe stuff, in a conceptual sense. Never really got into the paradoxes (paradoxi?) inherent in the premise of One True Reality and a Multitude of Shadows, but then, neither did H Beam Piper’s Paratime series
, so who are we to judge? Well worth reading, in other words.
But it’s Lord of Light
that triggered this entry. The book is one of the first ones that I can think of that mixed science fiction with Indian themes (that’s Asian Indian, not Native American), and in a fashion that showed an understanding of the source material. A very short synopsis: the main character is in opposition to a society where Hinduism has been co-opted to reinforce the somewhat restrictive rule of its ‘gods.’ This being a science fiction story, that includes a technological form of reincarnation; this also being New Wave, it meant a certain amount of other psionic* abilities. This being written by Roger Zelazny, it’s excellent stuff; the hero foments his rebellion against this co-opted Hinduism by creating Buddhism… with results that would later prove bemusing. All in all, it’s one of those books that you wish had a sequel, but you’re sort of glad doesn’t; it probably wouldn’t have been as good anyway.
Plus, the CIA used a script based on this book to smuggle some embassy people out of Iran during the hostage crisis – no, really – so there’s some good karma there.
Yes, I just did that.
Moe Lane
*That’s a science fiction term meaning ‘magic.’
