The Hugos: Lord of Light

The last Zelazny review I did was not complimentary.  Read it here!

Of course, I was overheated and sick to my stomach then.  On this; a soothing grey, cool, fall day I can't possibly be as crotchety.  Too bad!

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny won the 1968 Hugo award for best novel.  It neither left any great impression on me nor inspired my ire. It just was. 

My splendid co-worker Carlos, a lover of fine myth and religion could do it better justice than I.  In words borrowed from my excellent co-worker Ron: I found it too lofty, too cerebral.  I also could not find a character to like, though it DOES have a groovy concept:

What if a bunch of future assholes with future asshole science subjugated a planet and pretended to be gods?  Then one of them tries to be less assy for a awhile.  

He's called Sam, he's the protagonist, and Jack Kirby thought he'd look like this in his 1979 concept sketches for the proposed 'Lord of Light' movie:

But not even Jack Kirby could make me care about Sam's exploits: although they'll probably try again to make this movie someday.  A big damn effects-stravaganza.  

Like 'Clash of the Titans' but with Hindu gods instead.  Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of religion, but I didn't find me any of the juicy stuff I likes in that there paper dvd.  Yes, back stabbing, betrayal, fornication, battles to the death, reincarnation via brain downloading... it's all very well.  

It just seemed very dry to me. 

And unlike Clone High's Gandhi, I don't like my humping dry.  

When I read LofL I had already read the (written later) Dune books of Brian Herbert with their humans-using-science-to-be-titans and really enjoyed those a lot more.  So there's no accounting for taste.

I gave LofL "ok" as a rating at goodreads.com, 2 stars out of  possible 5.  You can read some of the 5 of 5 reviews on that link or ask DoctorTeeth about Zelazny.

You know, the SAME year Zelazny wrote 'Damnation Alley'?  

It had the benefit of being shorter, cooler, and successfully made into a decent movie with George Peppard, the TRUE definition of any book's intrinsic value!

Go watch THAT.  It has giant scorpions.  So does 'Clash of the Titans', and 'Dune: The Machine Crusade', come to think of it...

Maybe SCORPIONS are the definition of intrinsic value!