mastertorgo 's review for:

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

3.0

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Hmmmm. I get why this book won a Hugo, especially in 1968. A book of Hindu mythology that slowly reveals itself to be a sci-fi novel about crashed settlers that decide (for some reason) to establish a caste system with the original colonists as gods and the god who decides to be Prometheus by way of Buddhism. It was slow to reveal that it was science fiction. It READS like a cold mythology text. I was having flashbacks to reading the Bhagavad Gita in college. I haven't read a lot lot classic (pre-1970) sci-fi, but so far they mostly feel the same in tone: light on character, heavy on plot, and narration that is far removed from the subject. I've yet to read one where I become emotionally engaged in the story. This one is no different. I know very little about the Hindu religion and I feel it was a detriment going into this book. I mean, I know the basics (reincarnation, many gods, wheel of karma, Nirvana), but I don't know the details. Those details probably would have helped maintain my interest. But characters with multiple names who reincarnate into other characters is not easy to keep track of especially when those characters are pretty shallow to begin with. The plot is a straight forward one of revolution, and how it's told is pretty clever. "Hightechnology indistinguishable from magic" is certainly at play. The simple plot is also broken up by making it all separate long stories (again, a form I don't care for) and those stories being told out of sequence. There were some high points for me. I enjoyed the entirety of the Hellwell story and the freeing of the Rahaska. I like that The Christian had an army of zombies. And I enjoyed when the characters got long winded about philosophy. And there were some cute puns along the way. But I'm a reader that likes to connect emotionally with what I'm reading and that seems to be rare in classic sci-fi. This book is no different. I really wanted to like it more than I did. However, if I were to re-read it, I would probably like it more the second time. It seems to be a book that rewards multiple passes. If I read a book about Hindu myths, then Siddhartha, then re-read this, I think I would gain much more from it. I appreciate the book for what it is and what it was when it released, but it's not my cup of soma.