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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
Meh. Maybe it’s a combination of mid-60s SF and the current pandemic stress, and I might have been more receptive at another time, but this was a slog.
This was a book we read for a scifi book club. It starts *very* slow, so fair warning; about a third of the way I felt like just giving up on it, so little was happening. However, by the halfway point the plot really started to pick up, and when I finished it I felt I hadn't wasted my time reading it. It isn't nearly as good as "Dune", the book it shared the Hugo with in its publication year, but is still a remarkable work when you consider it was Zelazny's first published novel.
This book grew on me as it progressed. Perhaps I was a bit lost early due to lisening to the audio version, but as the themes reveal themselves I was drawn into the world. The final fifth of the book is really great.
Eser güzel ama Sönmez Güven çevirisi eksik ve hatalarla dolu... O yüzden lütfen orjinalini okuyun...
Reminds me in a lot of ways of "The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break" by Steven Sherrill (which is a good thing).
Cool setting, but the story never really grabbed me. The mystery around the main character was cool in the beginning, but through the course of the story it felt like I should know and understand more about who he was, in order for the events and their consequences to have the proper emotional impact. (Sorry for being so vague, but I don't want to spoil anything.)
Also, the ending felt rushed and a little too neat.
Also, the ending felt rushed and a little too neat.
This is an amazing little book. Zelazny’s narrator is sly and would rather not reveal his own history. We receive glimpses from the reminiscing of other characters, but Conrad doesn’t elaborate. He’s old, but he never overtly states how old. He has a checkered past replete with terrorist activities using fission weapons on alien resorts or realty companies.
Zelazny constructs a world we recognize. We’ve seen a thousand tales about life after a nuclear holocaust with “hot spots” and mutants. But Zelazny’s world is striking and rises above pulp. Rather, Zelazny forces the reader to attend to the narrator carefully. But Zelazny isn’t doing an action tale; rather, he’s examining man’s place in the universe. The alien from Vega who hires Conrad stands before crumbling remnants of Earth’s accomplishments and cast aspersions on its character, art, and architecture. Conrad needs to decide what to make of the alien mission and how it impacts the people remaining on his devastated world.
There’s instances of deus ex machina to get our narrator out of some scrapes, and it is a little too pat. These are possibly the result of writing a first novel. But it’s doesn’t ruin the reading experience. These instances remind me of similar instances in Gene Wolfe’s Books of the New Sun. The surrounding story minimizes their import. The story is too well-written to quibble the author took an easy exit to pull his characters from peril.
Be aware the opening of the novel is extremely confusing. The first sentence: “You are a Kallikanzaros,” she announced suddenly.” This isn’t off the cuff dialogue—the whole novel pivots on this statement. You have to immerse yourself into Zelazny’s prose. Once you’re accustomed to its ripples and currents, let it carry you. As soon as I finished, I started again and realized the narrator had already told me things at the start I “discovered” later
This novel shared a Hugo with Dune—and is its equal. For a comparable Hugo winner, check out Miller’s Canticle for Lebowitz.
Zelazny constructs a world we recognize. We’ve seen a thousand tales about life after a nuclear holocaust with “hot spots” and mutants. But Zelazny’s world is striking and rises above pulp. Rather, Zelazny forces the reader to attend to the narrator carefully. But Zelazny isn’t doing an action tale; rather, he’s examining man’s place in the universe. The alien from Vega who hires Conrad stands before crumbling remnants of Earth’s accomplishments and cast aspersions on its character, art, and architecture. Conrad needs to decide what to make of the alien mission and how it impacts the people remaining on his devastated world.
There’s instances of deus ex machina to get our narrator out of some scrapes, and it is a little too pat. These are possibly the result of writing a first novel. But it’s doesn’t ruin the reading experience. These instances remind me of similar instances in Gene Wolfe’s Books of the New Sun. The surrounding story minimizes their import. The story is too well-written to quibble the author took an easy exit to pull his characters from peril.
Be aware the opening of the novel is extremely confusing. The first sentence: “You are a Kallikanzaros,” she announced suddenly.” This isn’t off the cuff dialogue—the whole novel pivots on this statement. You have to immerse yourself into Zelazny’s prose. Once you’re accustomed to its ripples and currents, let it carry you. As soon as I finished, I started again and realized the narrator had already told me things at the start I “discovered” later
This novel shared a Hugo with Dune—and is its equal. For a comparable Hugo winner, check out Miller’s Canticle for Lebowitz.
This Immortal follows an episode in the long and danger-filled life of Konstantin Karaghiosis, among other names (but call him Conrad). Seat-filling commissioner of Arts, Monuments, and Archives; expert lover, deadly fighter, degenerate sybarite, retired terrorist, and possible demigod, Conrad is called away from his Greek island refuge to serve as a tour-guide for a very important Vegan journalist, a representative of the alien race that now owns most of Earth. This journalist, Cort Mystigo, is writing a report that will determine the fate of Earth, and it is up to Conrad to keep him safe from myriad dangers of Earth, ranging from radioactive monsters to political radicals who want Mystigo dead.
The novel does a great job showing and not telling the dismal future earth. The population has been reduced to a mere 4 million, clinging to islands and a few small resort towns that the organized and aesthetic Vegans use as bases for atrocity tourism, since their species never experienced a nuclear war. With a population this small, it seems plausible that Conrad would know everyone of importance on Earth. The monsters and mutant cannibal tribes are both real threats and psychological markers of the sin of nuclear war. The characters are quite good, if you like them on the hyper-competent side.
But somehow, this book just didn't match my tastes. It was a fine enough dark adventure romp, with humanity stumbling along the verge of extinction and all of earth reduced to a mausoleum. There were a couple of great moments, like dismantling the pyramids to show how they were constructed by playing the film in reverse, and an anthropologist from New Harvard who becomes the witchdoctor of a mutant cannibal tribe, but the moments never really added up to more.
The novel does a great job showing and not telling the dismal future earth. The population has been reduced to a mere 4 million, clinging to islands and a few small resort towns that the organized and aesthetic Vegans use as bases for atrocity tourism, since their species never experienced a nuclear war. With a population this small, it seems plausible that Conrad would know everyone of importance on Earth. The monsters and mutant cannibal tribes are both real threats and psychological markers of the sin of nuclear war. The characters are quite good, if you like them on the hyper-competent side.
But somehow, this book just didn't match my tastes. It was a fine enough dark adventure romp, with humanity stumbling along the verge of extinction and all of earth reduced to a mausoleum. There were a couple of great moments, like dismantling the pyramids to show how they were constructed by playing the film in reverse, and an anthropologist from New Harvard who becomes the witchdoctor of a mutant cannibal tribe, but the moments never really added up to more.
Still intermittently working my way through the Hugo Award Winners for Best Novel, I happened upon my first bit of Roger Zelazny's work in "This Immortal".
When you get to the end of this book, it's rewarding. When you see the whole idea come together and wrap up rather nicely, it's a decent work. It's just the getting there that's a bit of a tough part.
Conrad Nomikos, human (?), or Earthling, anyway is hired to lead Vegan explorer Myshtigo on a tour of an all but destroyed planet Earth. There may be a plot afoot to kill Myshtigo, but he will not stop until his "work" is done, and Conrad is charged with escorting, and thereby protecting, him.
If you're planning on paging through this one I really hope you're up for a genre-hopper. This book couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a mystery, a sci-fi novel, a fantasy, or some tribute to obscure mythology.
There were some images in "This Immortal" that will be, well... immortalized in my mind, some deftly written prose passages, one-liners, and quotable quotes that were absolutely great. Was that enough to get me really excited about it? Not really.
If I had to pick between the two Hugo novel winners for 1966, I think I'd have to go with "Dune".
Not terrible with this one, but not great, either.
*-This book tied with "Dune" by Frank Herbert for the Hugo Award for Best Novel for the 1966.
When you get to the end of this book, it's rewarding. When you see the whole idea come together and wrap up rather nicely, it's a decent work. It's just the getting there that's a bit of a tough part.
Conrad Nomikos, human (?), or Earthling, anyway is hired to lead Vegan explorer Myshtigo on a tour of an all but destroyed planet Earth. There may be a plot afoot to kill Myshtigo, but he will not stop until his "work" is done, and Conrad is charged with escorting, and thereby protecting, him.
If you're planning on paging through this one I really hope you're up for a genre-hopper. This book couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a mystery, a sci-fi novel, a fantasy, or some tribute to obscure mythology.
There were some images in "This Immortal" that will be, well... immortalized in my mind, some deftly written prose passages, one-liners, and quotable quotes that were absolutely great. Was that enough to get me really excited about it? Not really.
If I had to pick between the two Hugo novel winners for 1966, I think I'd have to go with "Dune".
Not terrible with this one, but not great, either.
*-This book tied with "Dune" by Frank Herbert for the Hugo Award for Best Novel for the 1966.
Very strange but ultimately really tightly wound - I liked how full-circle the book felt by the end. Sometimes I wished there were more about the characters, but the novel is really more interested in describing a situation and place. Honestly, this would make a great movie.