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A review by samg113
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
3.0
Picture a bell curve. The start is low, flat… but gradually the curve rises until it peaks in the middle. Then, the downward trend begins and before you know it, you’re at the end of the curve - just as flat as the beginning. This pretty much sums up how interesting/ engaging I found this book as it progressed.
The first two chapters had me scratching my head and very disinterested. There were way too many characters who were bland and faceless, lacking any distinguishing traits except for their roots in Hindu mythology. The plot didn’t really make sense, and the constantly shifting pov in the first chapter left me feeling untethered and confused.
However, about ninety pages in, things randomly clicked for me. Everything suddenly made sense: the plot, the world, the characters, everything. The Hellwell chapter was mostly responsible for this - it was so good!! Exciting, intriguing, unique - everything a high-concept sci-fantasy fusion should be. I quickly devoured the following few chapters eagerly anticipating what was to happen next.
But sadly, as with the bell curve, it wasn’t set to last. Things got quite convoluted with the last few chapters (bearing in mind there were only seven chapters for a nearly three-hundred page book???) and it all sort of fell apart with the last two. The stakes felt infinitesimally small - with death and reincarnation a prominent theme, there lacked a further, more dire consequence for failure (there’s only so many times one can die before it starts to feel inconsequential). The final battle scene - which should’ve been an exciting climax - felt a relief, for it signalled that the book was finally coming to an end.
Looking back, I think this book does too much ‘telling’ and not enough ‘showing’, which is why it felt sluggish and disinteresting: a PBJ sandwich with white bread - an exciting filling squashed between two slices of bland.
Feeling a bit betrayed since George R R Martin supposedly thinks this is ‘one of the five best sf novels ever written’, which is absolutely not the case, sorry George xx
The first two chapters had me scratching my head and very disinterested. There were way too many characters who were bland and faceless, lacking any distinguishing traits except for their roots in Hindu mythology. The plot didn’t really make sense, and the constantly shifting pov in the first chapter left me feeling untethered and confused.
However, about ninety pages in, things randomly clicked for me. Everything suddenly made sense: the plot, the world, the characters, everything. The Hellwell chapter was mostly responsible for this - it was so good!! Exciting, intriguing, unique - everything a high-concept sci-fantasy fusion should be. I quickly devoured the following few chapters eagerly anticipating what was to happen next.
But sadly, as with the bell curve, it wasn’t set to last. Things got quite convoluted with the last few chapters (bearing in mind there were only seven chapters for a nearly three-hundred page book???) and it all sort of fell apart with the last two. The stakes felt infinitesimally small - with death and reincarnation a prominent theme, there lacked a further, more dire consequence for failure (there’s only so many times one can die before it starts to feel inconsequential). The final battle scene - which should’ve been an exciting climax - felt a relief, for it signalled that the book was finally coming to an end.
Looking back, I think this book does too much ‘telling’ and not enough ‘showing’, which is why it felt sluggish and disinteresting: a PBJ sandwich with white bread - an exciting filling squashed between two slices of bland.
Feeling a bit betrayed since George R R Martin supposedly thinks this is ‘one of the five best sf novels ever written’, which is absolutely not the case, sorry George xx