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Writer's picturemikeofthepalace

"Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny

This had me thinking a lot about the difference between fantasy and science fiction.


In no small part, because I'm looking for a book with a god as a protagonist forr/Fantasy's reading bingo, I was dwelling quite a bit on whether or not this book would count. The protagonist is known as (among other things) Siddharta, the Buddha, Lord Kukril, the Binder of Demons, and Mahatmasamatran, but he prefers to go by Sam. Plenty of people call him a god, and he doesn't deny it, but he doesn't admit it either.


This book is set on a world with pre-Renaissance technology, colonized by refugees from "vanished Urath" generations and generations ago. The original generation of colonists had the technology to grow new bodies and transmit their minds into them when their current bodies get old, and in a very easy-to-follow progression, they ended up setting themselves up as the gods of the Hindu pantheon and suppressed technology among the masses to make their society easier to control. Sam is one of them, but seeks to undermine the ruling "gods" and spread the benefits of their advanced knowledge and technology to all the people.


So that brings me back to my original thoughts of sci-fi versus fantasy, and whether or not Sam counts as a god for purposes of a bingo square. And I'm firmly on the side of "yes." Sam, along with Bhrama (aka Madeline) and Kali (aka Candi) and Shiva and Ghanesha and all the rest are functionally immortal, with knowledge far beyond that of mortal men, and awesome powers that they have developed and cultivated through the centuries. Whether they achieve that through divine ascension or Clarke-ian sufficiently-advanced science doesn't really change much, in my opinion.


My only real complaint about this book is that I wish I knew more of the Hindu religion. I'm certain there was a great deal of stuff that I missed simply because I was unfamilar with Hinduism, and had a little trouble telling apart everyone who's name started with a K. So I'm going to read up a bit and revisit this book at some point in the future.


I particularly want to compliment Zelazny's writing style in this. This felt like I was reading the Iliad or Gilgamesh, a very old tale translated into modern language. He did a great job of capturing that feel.


This review was more than a little rambling. I need to think about this book for a while to really process it, I'm realizing.

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