Isle of the Dead

Roger Zelazny has a tendency to create main characters who are either eternal or have lived a very long time. This isn't a fault, because he relies on this only to establish the depth of the character, not as a major plot device. In fact, perhaps the biggest lesson his heroes learn is that, if you live forever, you can make a lot of enemies. Some of them aren't even your enemies. Francis Sandow is on such mein character. After a shaky star in this century, modern science and sheer luck have contrived to make him the worlds oldest rich man. The luck was falling into the hands of the Peians, who taught him how to create worlds and some experience in the fine are of revenge. Worldscaping is the basis for his money, but it didn't save him from offending people. One such antagonist has taken up stealing the dying personality tapes of some of Sandow's best friends and enemies in an effort to lure him to the Isle of the Dead. His offense was to be a human and qualify for the honor of bonding with a Peian god and becoming a planetscaper. A Peian who didn't pass the grade took offense and has spent several hundred years working on getting even. Now he has reconstructed the people and Sandow bites the lure. Of course, the revenge you see is not necessarily the revenge you get. Things go awry in spectacular style. Sandow is forced to incarnate Shimbo, the Shrugger of Thunders, and suddenly the scope of the conflict goes out of control. Anotherr truth about Zelazny is that even his villains have redeeming traits, and in this wry but tragic tale, the reader will find it hard to dislike anyone. For some reason, Isle of the Dead has remained one of my favorite Zelazny stories. I won't claim that it is his best, but it pushes all the right buttons for me and I keep coming back to it. Sandow is my kind of hero - a bit of a rat, but basically a good guy in a tough universe. He has every excuse to be bitter, but he refuses to crumble. In any case, this book has a habit of regularly going out of print. If you are a Zelazny fan than find it how you may, I promise you will find it worth the effort.

One of Roger Zelazny's finest novels, this tale of a man who embodies an alien god encompasses science-fiction, mythology, psychology, and the poignancy of being human - and does so in well under 200 pages. There's no overload of unconvincing background minutiae here - with no more than a few colorful strokes, Zelazny creates a rich and meaningful universe for his flawed protagonist Francis Sandow. What begins as a confrontation between two powerful men swiftly becomes a private apocalypse between two gods ... without ever losing its human scale. Dazzling, exciting, moving, satiric, this book deserves to be reprinted soon!

One of Roger Zelazny's finest novels, this tale of a man who embodies an alien god encompasses science-fiction, mythology, psychology, and the poignancy of being human - and does so in well under 200 pages. There's no overload of unconvincing background minutiae here - with no more than a few colorful strokes, Zelazny creates a rich and meaningful universe for his flawed protagonist Francis Sandow. What begins as a confrontation between two powerful men swiftly becomes a private apocalypse between two gods ... without ever losing its human scale. Dazzling, exciting, moving, satiric, this book deserves to be reprinted soon!

This book is out of print? Gosh. It's hard. It's a really good fantastico-mythologico-science fiction book. Zelazny writes an excellent book, of the same lineage that Lord of Light. Reward worth!