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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
I couldn't get into this book and was a bit of a chore towards the end. The concept is great but the language and style made it a hard read.
I'm mixed on this book.
Let's start with the good: this book does, imo, does what a scifi book should do. It placed all kinds of questions in my mind. My favorite sequence is one where Sam, a sham Buddha, leads another person to true enlightenment somewhat unintentionally. This is such an interesting idea! Sam himself is really interesting in all kinds of ways.
The bad for this book is more or less that it contains a bit of the kind of unthinking transphobia which you might expect from the 60s. Given the current climate where people are attacking power stations to disrupt drag shows, I don't think the book can be recommended in spite of this. Another weakness for the book is that it retains a "religious" kind of feel for the prose. I can understand why this decision was made, but it prevented me from ever being truly immersed in the story.
Let's start with the good: this book does, imo, does what a scifi book should do. It placed all kinds of questions in my mind. My favorite sequence is one where Sam, a sham Buddha, leads another person to true enlightenment somewhat unintentionally. This is such an interesting idea! Sam himself is really interesting in all kinds of ways.
The bad for this book is more or less that it contains a bit of the kind of unthinking transphobia which you might expect from the 60s. Given the current climate where people are attacking power stations to disrupt drag shows, I don't think the book can be recommended in spite of this. Another weakness for the book is that it retains a "religious" kind of feel for the prose. I can understand why this decision was made, but it prevented me from ever being truly immersed in the story.
Hugo award winner for 1968.
I was pretty excited when I read the premise for this book. Typically when myth or religion makes it into sci-fi it's very western-centric. So the idea of a more Eastern focused book with Hinduism and Buddhism was refreshing. The set-up is kind of vague about how things exactly came about, but humans with advanced technology are posing as the gods of the Hindu pantheon, and one of them rebels by bringing Buddhism back to the people as an attempt to overthrow his fellow "gods".
I lean more towards hard sci-fi a lot of the time. I love to see technology explained and well thought out. Here though, technology just was. I found it semi acceptable in this case because it went along with the ideas in the book. To the people in the book, the technology the gods use is so far above them that it's considered magic. So the lack of explanation kind of added to that feeling of it being magical. Still, it was kind of irritating to me that things just magically worked because they did. Also the gods somehow magically maintained their powers even though they switched bodies because of some weirdly vague explanation about imposing their patterns on new bodies.
The back story for how everything came to be is left kind of vague. You get the general idea only. A human ship comes to this planet and with their technology they defeat the current inhabitants who then become the demons of myth. The crew of the ship sets themselves up with the technology while the passengers are somehow allowed to revert to a primitive state and build themselves up to civilization slowly. I love world building, and I would have liked to have seen/heard a lot more about these origins.
Overall the story was great. I just wanted more detail.
I was pretty excited when I read the premise for this book. Typically when myth or religion makes it into sci-fi it's very western-centric. So the idea of a more Eastern focused book with Hinduism and Buddhism was refreshing. The set-up is kind of vague about how things exactly came about, but humans with advanced technology are posing as the gods of the Hindu pantheon, and one of them rebels by bringing Buddhism back to the people as an attempt to overthrow his fellow "gods".
I lean more towards hard sci-fi a lot of the time. I love to see technology explained and well thought out. Here though, technology just was. I found it semi acceptable in this case because it went along with the ideas in the book. To the people in the book, the technology the gods use is so far above them that it's considered magic. So the lack of explanation kind of added to that feeling of it being magical. Still, it was kind of irritating to me that things just magically worked because they did. Also the gods somehow magically maintained their powers even though they switched bodies because of some weirdly vague explanation about imposing their patterns on new bodies.
The back story for how everything came to be is left kind of vague. You get the general idea only. A human ship comes to this planet and with their technology they defeat the current inhabitants who then become the demons of myth. The crew of the ship sets themselves up with the technology while the passengers are somehow allowed to revert to a primitive state and build themselves up to civilization slowly. I love world building, and I would have liked to have seen/heard a lot more about these origins.
Overall the story was great. I just wanted more detail.
funny
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
An interesting take on blending religion with futuristic sci-fi (kinda?), but a pretty tedious read.
mysterious
slow-paced
medium-paced
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I think I'm destined to unfairly compare Zelazny's other work to my personal favourite (Doorways in the Sand) and come out less in favour of these myth/religion based experiments. It's an intriguing exercise to take on a certain writing style that echoes bits of scripture, far away (historically or geographically) or fantastical periods and places but it created a bit of distance from the characters for me. Similar to my high fantasy issue. Long chapters seem more like short stories in a book-ended chronology. The bummer is that I would have liked a bit more in the timeline of the first and last chapters, instead of detailed retrospective of 'how they got here'.
I can appreciate a Promethean figure, someone more than human working on behalf of humans to improve civilization/human progress, but I feel like we only got snippets of that Sam, and him being relatable in his words and actions - the rest of the cast was particularly esoteric from a western perspective - I'll admit my schooling/pop culture references steep me in Greek/Roman/European myths and religions rather than Eastern ones - and following an ancient pantheon known to be selfish and violent is always pretty alienating (the Olympians are at least as bad, I recognize this).
I think if certain Buddhist concepts were new to me upon reading this it might have made for more interesting musings, but I had a period where I went hard on non-fiction on the topic and as a result this felt pretty surface level.
I don't know whether Buddhists or Hindus would consider this a work of creative fiction with a decent heart/message or actually offensive?
Less ambiguous downside involves messy gender stuff - gods taking new bodies to match certain roles, might be dated/offensive slang about lesbians in there, insinuation they'd prefer to be men.
Heteronormative BS that they couldn't stay committed, that Yama couldn't stay with Kali when she changed to male form/new position. And then there's the 'tragedy' of Kali's transfer issue, mega ableist.
And yet, definitely better than Creatures of Light and Darkness.
⚠️ableism, fatphobia, non-consensual demon possession, mention of SA, outdated/offensive term for cognitive disability
I can appreciate a Promethean figure, someone more than human working on behalf of humans to improve civilization/human progress, but I feel like we only got snippets of that Sam, and him being relatable in his words and actions - the rest of the cast was particularly esoteric from a western perspective - I'll admit my schooling/pop culture references steep me in Greek/Roman/European myths and religions rather than Eastern ones - and following an ancient pantheon known to be selfish and violent is always pretty alienating (the Olympians are at least as bad, I recognize this).
I think if certain Buddhist concepts were new to me upon reading this it might have made for more interesting musings, but I had a period where I went hard on non-fiction on the topic and as a result this felt pretty surface level.
I don't know whether Buddhists or Hindus would consider this a work of creative fiction with a decent heart/message or actually offensive?
Less ambiguous downside involves messy gender stuff - gods taking new bodies to match certain roles, might be dated/offensive slang about lesbians in there, insinuation they'd prefer to be men.
And yet, definitely better than Creatures of Light and Darkness.
⚠️ableism, fatphobia, non-consensual demon possession, mention of SA, outdated/offensive term for cognitive disability