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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Accelerationist Buddha and technomancer Yama vs the pantheon? Yes please!
For a 1960s work im impressed. Amazing the world created without the internet.
3/5. I'd say it's on the same level as ring world but 'lord of light' by Roger zelanzyzyysyey has a much worse first 100 pages.
It has non-linear story telling which I don't mind, it's a good pick for the story but that doesn't excuse the first 100 pages.
It is not a sci-fi book or a fantasy book, it's slipstream. The first 100 pages are the worst about that, they won't fucking cough up any details on how the world actually works behind the scenes.
There are 3 page long dialogues by a single character, there are pages of back and forth conversation with no indication of who is talking (I'm sure this could be bad for some people, if you really hate it, listen to the audiobook as you read, that fixes all of it.)
There are long long monologues especially toward the beginning where it's just pseudo philosophy stuff.
The story reminds me more of a fable, religious text, or ancient story rather than a fucking novel at times. It has influences from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and even has references to the monkey King journey to the east or whatever at the end. All of that is cool.
I am not completely unaware of the hindu gods and some of the stories, but I wouldn't say I know them, if someone started telling me them I could probably guess the gods name involved. If I lovedddd that shit or atleast knew more of it, this book would have been better, but still it has other faults not originating from my lack of background knowledge.
I almost DNF'd it so many times during the first 100 pages, I am not even particularly happy I finished it to be honest. I find it was an 'okay' novel, I see why some people would love it and I am not saying it's objectively bad but it definitely wasn't great for me.
Does it deserve to be called the greatest science fiction novel of all time like I have seen a few times? Fuck no, you are smoking dicks.
The whole story wraps up very quickly at the end too. Sort of in a rush.
Should you read it? Idk, maybe try it.
It's like Ringworld, I want to know what the fuck is going on, and it takes forever, and then when they do explain some of it, it's not as cool as I hoped.
I think the whole idea could be much more entertaining, but Roger had his own vision, and that's fine.
I think it'd be more interesting to see how they have changed and modified the pantheon along with I'm sure there are allusions and similarities I missed because I am not deeply knowledgeable on that religion. I saw many Christian allusions and even it felt like some for scientology.
Infact, I wanted to discuss the relation to scientology more. I wonder if anyone has explored that angle or thought of it. The energy being shit, the mind probe and karmic system.
The founders lying to everyone even the new Gods to some degree.
And in relation to breaking the 'actual lore', isn't that sort of the point? The characters are reenacting Hinduism for their own benefit. It would never be a complete and accurate retelling of the stories.
And as for the philosophical stuff, yeah I don't mind it and even can enjoy it in a book when it's good, the problem was it was somewhat front loaded and shoved at me before I should care about the book.
The weird setting is awesome, like I said, I'd have rather explored the setting in a more 'hard scifi' novel or something, I guess Roger is new wave like PKD and doesn't like doing that sort of stuff but I wanted to stick around and explore the world.
It has non-linear story telling which I don't mind, it's a good pick for the story but that doesn't excuse the first 100 pages.
It is not a sci-fi book or a fantasy book, it's slipstream. The first 100 pages are the worst about that, they won't fucking cough up any details on how the world actually works behind the scenes.
There are 3 page long dialogues by a single character, there are pages of back and forth conversation with no indication of who is talking (I'm sure this could be bad for some people, if you really hate it, listen to the audiobook as you read, that fixes all of it.)
There are long long monologues especially toward the beginning where it's just pseudo philosophy stuff.
The story reminds me more of a fable, religious text, or ancient story rather than a fucking novel at times. It has influences from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and even has references to the monkey King journey to the east or whatever at the end. All of that is cool.
I am not completely unaware of the hindu gods and some of the stories, but I wouldn't say I know them, if someone started telling me them I could probably guess the gods name involved. If I lovedddd that shit or atleast knew more of it, this book would have been better, but still it has other faults not originating from my lack of background knowledge.
I almost DNF'd it so many times during the first 100 pages, I am not even particularly happy I finished it to be honest. I find it was an 'okay' novel, I see why some people would love it and I am not saying it's objectively bad but it definitely wasn't great for me.
Does it deserve to be called the greatest science fiction novel of all time like I have seen a few times? Fuck no, you are smoking dicks.
The whole story wraps up very quickly at the end too. Sort of in a rush.
Should you read it? Idk, maybe try it.
It's like Ringworld, I want to know what the fuck is going on, and it takes forever, and then when they do explain some of it, it's not as cool as I hoped.
I think the whole idea could be much more entertaining, but Roger had his own vision, and that's fine.
I think it'd be more interesting to see how they have changed and modified the pantheon along with I'm sure there are allusions and similarities I missed because I am not deeply knowledgeable on that religion. I saw many Christian allusions and even it felt like some for scientology.
Infact, I wanted to discuss the relation to scientology more. I wonder if anyone has explored that angle or thought of it. The energy being shit, the mind probe and karmic system.
The founders lying to everyone even the new Gods to some degree.
And in relation to breaking the 'actual lore', isn't that sort of the point? The characters are reenacting Hinduism for their own benefit. It would never be a complete and accurate retelling of the stories.
And as for the philosophical stuff, yeah I don't mind it and even can enjoy it in a book when it's good, the problem was it was somewhat front loaded and shoved at me before I should care about the book.
The weird setting is awesome, like I said, I'd have rather explored the setting in a more 'hard scifi' novel or something, I guess Roger is new wave like PKD and doesn't like doing that sort of stuff but I wanted to stick around and explore the world.
On the surface, this book appears to be a fantasy built around Hindu mythos. Along the way, there's a slow reveal of the science fiction underpinning of the story - the immortal gods are ancient colonists to this planet with advanced technologies that allow reincarnation and their powers. They rule over their descendants by suppressing technological progress, keeping them in a sustained dark age. One god is rebelling against this social order, seeking to tear down the deicracy and its worship by the introduction of Buddhism, science and technology.
The writing is flowery, with long philosophical dialogues as characters explore their motivations. Each episodic chapter, is a story in the lives of the rebel god as he moves to defeat the existing order over deep time. There's a fair amount of allegiance swapping along the way, which, when combined with the multiple names for each character, and the time jumping, can create a fair amount of confusion for the reader.
The back story is partially revealed over the length of the novel - it peeks out from under the fantasy, offering the occasional morsel of tech or colonist history before ducking back out of sight. This is not the story of how this world came to be, which is a shame as these parts really appealed to my SF-biased tastes.
The novel won Zelazny the 1968 Hugo - at the time, it was almost certainly something unique, bringing Eastern cultures and religions into what is mostly a Western genre. However, this was also its weakness for me. I, unfortunately, know very little about these religions, and I expect that those who understand the cultural underpinning more deeply, as Zelazny clearly did, would get more out of the retelling.
Overall this was, in places, a tough read and in others, a delight. It's an important work worth reading, but for me, it leans too much towards fantasy with the intriguing science fiction underexplored.
The writing is flowery, with long philosophical dialogues as characters explore their motivations. Each episodic chapter, is a story in the lives of the rebel god as he moves to defeat the existing order over deep time. There's a fair amount of allegiance swapping along the way, which, when combined with the multiple names for each character, and the time jumping, can create a fair amount of confusion for the reader.
The back story is partially revealed over the length of the novel - it peeks out from under the fantasy, offering the occasional morsel of tech or colonist history before ducking back out of sight. This is not the story of how this world came to be, which is a shame as these parts really appealed to my SF-biased tastes.
The novel won Zelazny the 1968 Hugo - at the time, it was almost certainly something unique, bringing Eastern cultures and religions into what is mostly a Western genre. However, this was also its weakness for me. I, unfortunately, know very little about these religions, and I expect that those who understand the cultural underpinning more deeply, as Zelazny clearly did, would get more out of the retelling.
Overall this was, in places, a tough read and in others, a delight. It's an important work worth reading, but for me, it leans too much towards fantasy with the intriguing science fiction underexplored.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Lord of Light is utter chaos. It´s really heavy on information, religion (dominantly Hinduism), and talking. It also lacks action.
This novel is about “gods”—advanced humans who are able to reincarnate their souls using new bodies. They are divided into two factions: one wants humanity to advance, and the other is purposefully halting humanity's progress so they still get worshiped.
The book is extremely slow to get going, and you really need to pay attention to detail and write information down to fully grasp what is happening and who is who.
I mostly struggled with the characters—many of the gods have multiple names, and some of the names are just a title that gets passed to a different character later in the story.
While, at first glance, this book only has a few chapters, they are in fact different and separate stories. They are (more or less) only connected by the characters, which was extremely confusing to me, as I was expecting something different entirely.
I also had to consult the internet multiple times as I had no clue what was going on half the time. I think that without looking the additional information up, I would have despised this book completely.
Lord of Light also deals with topics such as classism, colonialism, and even racism (between different species). But unfortunately a lot of it gets lost between the pages.
Honestly, the sole reason I have picked up and read this book was that I thought a stand-alone by Zelazny would be easier to digest than The Amber Chronicles. Lord of Light has also been named one of the best sci-fi novels of all time, and it won a Hugo award. Unfortunately, it did not meet my expectation.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Very good, but not such a great audiobook. There's simply too much going on with the numerous characters, locations, and time periods to understand it all without the ability to re-read portions and refer to other chapters. Stick to words on paper (or screen) for this one.
The premise of this story sounded really interesting and knowing that it had great reviews spanning across decades I was very intrigued.
I appreciate the skill of being able to weave an entire world and a whole pantheon of characters within a mere 500 pages, which is basically unheard of, or at least very rare, in the fantasy genre.
However, this book left me wanting more. We only got brief glimpses of each of the characters, their traits and Attributes. I wanted to know more of how the gods came to the world and what the true nature of their Attributes/Aspects were (never really got my head around it).
The battles were brief and not very descriptive and I admit that I found myself getting confused between all the gods, demigods and lords...and priests? Should I have researched Hinduism before reading? I felt like I was missing some context in parts. I liked Sam but I don't feel that I really saw him grow as a character or fully understood his motives.
I wish this had been a trilogy to allow for the depth that I think the concept and the characters deserved.
I appreciate the skill of being able to weave an entire world and a whole pantheon of characters within a mere 500 pages, which is basically unheard of, or at least very rare, in the fantasy genre.
However, this book left me wanting more. We only got brief glimpses of each of the characters, their traits and Attributes. I wanted to know more of how the gods came to the world and what the true nature of their Attributes/Aspects were (never really got my head around it).
The battles were brief and not very descriptive and I admit that I found myself getting confused between all the gods, demigods and lords...and priests? Should I have researched Hinduism before reading? I felt like I was missing some context in parts. I liked Sam but I don't feel that I really saw him grow as a character or fully understood his motives.
I wish this had been a trilogy to allow for the depth that I think the concept and the characters deserved.
This was a short book for me (just over 300 pages) and very concise — which I loved! (Sometimes I feel that authors can get too caught up in expositional details that don't usually advance the plot in meaningful ways, but NOT so with this gem!)
How do describe this story? The best I can come up with is that it's a genius mix of far-flung futurism (with some engineered societal and tech regression), Hinduism, Buddhism — really, a little bit of religiosity in general — and the myths thereof, with elements of Altered Carbon and Iain M. Banks' The Culture series (this novel being published before those works). It was so good, so very, very good.
I highly recommend to anyone that likes any of the aspects I've described here. If you decide to read it, enjoy!
How do describe this story? The best I can come up with is that it's a genius mix of far-flung futurism (with some engineered societal and tech regression), Hinduism, Buddhism — really, a little bit of religiosity in general — and the myths thereof, with elements of Altered Carbon and Iain M. Banks' The Culture series (this novel being published before those works). It was so good, so very, very good.
I highly recommend to anyone that likes any of the aspects I've described here. If you decide to read it, enjoy!