Lord of Light

This book continues my saga of reading every Hugo Award-winning novel: it's the 1968 winner, and the 40th Hugo I've read so far! I went into the book knowing the general premise, and I enjoyed it even more than I expected to! Here are my thoughts:*BRIEF SYNOPSIS: After arriving on a far-flung planet and subduing its various native beings, a starship's human crew sets itself up as the new ruling class by assuming the identities and mystique of the Hindu Pantheon (Vishnu, Krishna, etc.). They are aided in this ongoing illusion by two supernatural abilities: 1- Each of the starship's passengers boasted a unique genetic mutation that allowed them to manipulate energy and/or others' thoughts--they honed these powers (called "Aspects" and "Attributes") to perfection, allowing them to cast disorienting illusions and/or devastate their enemies; and 2- The humans developed a technology to transplant peoples' consciousnesses (and their accompanying powers) into new bodies, effectively making reincarnation a reality--they use this ability to implement a Karma rewards system in which they advance those who toe the party line and to keep the masses in fear of reincarnation in a lesser state. After centuries under this system Sam, one of the "gods" who is known by many other names, becomes disillusioned with the gods' unwillingness to allow humanity to develop and sets up an "Accelerationist" movement bent on overthrowing "Heaven" and freeing the planet's peoples. Sam undermines the Gods' teachings by establishing the Buddhist faith while also collecting support among his colleagues in the Celestial City. Eventually, and after many close shaves and would-be executions, Sam pits his fearsome army of allies (including the God of Death, the Goddess of the Night, the God of the Underworld, and an accompanying hoard of zombies and fire demons who are among the planet's original inhabitants) against his enemies (most notably including the God and Goddess of Destruction, the God of Creation, and the God of Fire).*Sci-Fi as Fantasy: One of the best parts of this book is that it's both fantastic sci-fi and excellent fantasy! For obvious reasons, the "Gods" want their scientific/genetic powers to awe the populace so they wrap them in enigmatic, magical terms that inspire worship and fear. This makes for a story in which characters wield death rays and ESP against each other but use religious terms for them like "the gaze of death" or "the Trident of Shiva." One of the coolest carry-overs are the Rikasha, denizens of the planet before the humans' arrival who exist as body-stealing fire demons. Sam trapped them centuries before the plot of the story, and his descent to the forbidden mountain prison of Hellwell to free them is one of the best fantasy-esque scenes I've read in a long time. I also have to say that the whole concept of "science as magic" and assuming a godly identity to curb resistance reminded me a lot of the Golds' enslavement of the Obsidians in the Red Rising trilogy--that's a plot element of those stories that I've always liked, and I bet I now know where Pierce Brown got it from!*Superb Characters: Each main character is centuries old, coming to the table with intense mutant powers and a lifetime of loyalties and scores to settle; Zelazny does a fantastic job throwing their stories together, weaving and breaking their alliances a surprising number of times for such a short book! My personal favorite characters included Yama (the God of Death who invents the most impressive tech), Nirriti (the former Christian chaplin of the original starship and the God who marshalls an army of zombies), Taraka (the leader of the Rikasha who thirsts to prove himself the most powerful being on the planet), and Sam himself. Sam's wit, goodness, and "Machiavellian scheming" make the whole story work!*The book delivers some AWESOME fight scenes. The "final" battle at Keenset (between Sam's forces and those of Heaven) stands up to most other literary large-scale conflicts, and the Rild/Yama duel is one of the best I've ever read (better, for example, than Inigo and the Man in Black or even Dumbledore vs. Voldemort)!*My One Quibble: I didn't think that Zelazny's choice to make Chapter 1 the moment when Sam is "resurrected" prior to the final final battle (Chapter 7) played out the way he hoped. While I understand the artistic value of creating a first chapter that fits later in the actual chronological turn of events, this one came across as mostly confusing, and I only really decisively figured out the proper timeline in Chapter 4 or 5, which I felt was too late. I would have preferred for the whole thing to be chronological, though it was kind of fun to see Sam's allies from the first chapter fall into place in later chapters. Not a huge deal.I'm all in on this book, and I'll recommend it to my friends who enjoy sci fi and/or fantasy, as this is a great example of both! It's a fully worthy Hugo winner.2024 Re-Read: I recommended this to my Book Club, so I enjoyed a chance to return and re-read it! I loved it again. I particularly like the literary/scriptural language throughout; Zelazny put some real artistry into this book. I enjoyed the way he uses brief scenes based almost exclusively on dialogue to advance the plot, which are light on setting descriptions but still manage to convey emotions quite well, including scenes where you can read between the lines and see characters seducing or betraying one another. The prose is sparse but/and super effective. I also loved returning to the book to explore its premise. I love how the demons and the gods are what they claim to be in all ways except being supernatural, for example. It's the religious themes and prose, though, that make this book sing. "What man who has lived for more than a score of years desires justice? For my part I find mercy infinitely more attractive. Give me a forgiving deity any day." ... "With a certain horror he know that within himself, as within every man, there lies a demon capable of responding to his own kind." I love the interplay between Hinduism and Buddhism (including and especially when pretenders make true believers out of their followers) and the introduction of Christianity in the final chapter. I find the book beautifully-written and compelling from start (well, at least from Chapter 2) to finish. I'll re-read it again.

Few times in our lifetime do we get a chance to experience the depth of a book's utter visionary perimeter; few times are we allowed to actually get a glimpse a living work of art which has altered the consciousness of an entire generation. Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, is such a work.When I first read this book around 1969 -- an avowed SF fan of hundreds of authors -- I couldn't place why this novel had left me with such a void of expression and literal mouth gaping mezmerized astonishment. It led me to research ancient Hinduism and discover socio-political religious movements -- and even later practice Buddhist meditation itself.Yet, most of all it gave me a personal sense of caring for the Truth in organizations of men, where freedoms of action and speech are paramount; it gave me an impetus of speaking out, which stands with me today. It gave a young man a vision and articulation of what was right about the world around me and what was wrong -- and the courage to speak up against wrongs -- and the vision of poetic harmony in a work of art no less than that of a Modigliani painting or the greatest of love stories or poems. All from a science fiction novel? Such is Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light!This novel is a masterpiece of masterpieces; it has survived 43 years of printings simply because of the massive Jungian archetypical truths it evokes in us all -- and engenders in each of us as a herald, a new vision of life and living. Of acceptance. Of dealing with those aspects of life which appear to be dominating, but in fact we can turn into advantage, if we are desirous.With this novel Roger Zelazny took Science Fiction into a new era with the exploration of myth and history as it would culminate itself into the present. SF was never the same thereafter.The Novel's love story is the crux of its internal action. It is a three way power play lover story between two powerful men and a most powerful woman, all of whom are pridefully larger than life. Its backdrop is nothing less than the creation of a new planet's civilization and future.The power of this story, placed into the Past-which-will-become-the-future-of-Earth traces a path tread by the Lion in Winter merged with the full epic story of Dune series. Yet, it could very well be about you and me.The novel takes us to the epiphany of our inner-selves, our hopes and dreams and, our failures and success but, in the end, the good news is: Love faileth never.Read this book. You will be enlightened.

I read this book based upon several recommendations that it was a futuristic study of Eastern concepts. Make no mistake, it's not. In fact, one of the characters says there's nothing particularly regional about the events which take place; Christianity and Protestantism could have easily (though I doubt less controversially) taken the place of Hinduism and Buddhism.Rather, this book is a thought-provoking engagement of that which operates behind social revolutions, both peaceful and otherwise, both secular and religious. This is not to call it a dry read by any means. The story itself is action-packed with enough laser battles and sufficiently-advanced "magicked" science to satisfy any fan of science fiction or space opera. The characters are quite deep, but draw the only major criticism I found for the book.Factions change with barely-credible ease. Bitter enemies turn into staunch allies in mere moments. This does not only occur with the good characterizations, where individuals are noticeably conflicted towards each other from the get go. Rather in several notable instances, including the climax, the reader is led to emotional support for one side of the conflict which suddenly embraces the other side with very little explanation or satisfaction of outstanding plot threads.Highly recommended, with the aforementioned warnings.

An absolute classic