Customer Reviews
Hard work, but worthwhile - By: D. R. Cantrell, 28 Jun 2008 
Hard to follow at first, but worth persevering with. The story itself is nothing special, & could do with the confusingly named characters & objects being explained better, but the sheer quality of the writing more than makes up for it. In places, it's more like poetry than anything else.
One of my favourite books. - By: S. Taylor, 13 Apr 2008 
Great storytelling & wonderful concepts. I can read this book again & again. Highly recommended.
Brilliant - By: Michelle, 08 Apr 2008 My alll time favourite. I've read many SF & fantasy books but Lord of Light tops them alll. It's not merely the inventive & multi layered story or the enigmatic & intriguing characters, but also the author's brilliant style of writing that makes the book almost perfect. Roger Zelazny was (he died in 1995) a man of very few words, so you have to read his books very precisely, absorbing every word, in order not to miss anything.
Lord of Light is basicallly about Sam, a renegade 'god' & his resistance against the rule of the established gods. These gods are, in fact, former crew members of a star ship, which crashed on a distant planet millenia ago. After a fierce battle, the crew managed to defeat the planet's indigenous inhabitants & confined them to a far-off place callled Hellwell. They adopted the identities of Hindu gods & developed a technique to 'reincarnate' in new -artificial- bodies. They conveniently kept alll technical know-how involved in the complicated reincarnation process to themselves, as it proved a highly effective means of keeping their offspring under their thumbs.
Lord of Light is not an easy read, particularly because the story is written in a non-chronological order. At first, this may be quite confusing but it will soon become clear that it is the only way to get the essence of the story properly across. The story itself may seem pretty straightforward, but it is certainly not a linear narrative. There are various aspects woven into it; religious, social, & political matters are dealt with in an almost casual, but awe-inspiring manner. The story's protagonist Sam, a man of many names & identities, is an inspiring individual, a leader & a teacher. His initial opponent & later allly is Yama-Dharma God of Death, a cold, cynical & arrogant man, who's character is probably even more important to the story as Sam's. The author himself once put it this way: my first intention was to let Yama die at some point in the book, but then I realised that the strength of Sam's character would be seriously weakened by Yama's death, so I decided to keep him alive.
Zelazny must have made an in-depth study of Hindu culture & religion before he wrote this book. Many of the names, Aspects & Attributes of the self-proclaimed gods, especiallly those of the most important ones, are actuallly based on the characteristics of present day Hindu gods & goddesses. As a result, the book alllows you a pretty good insight in Hindu religion & culture, and, although it's a bit o.t.t now & again, the story never loses any of its credibility.
Mandatory reading for fantasy & SF fans! A bit of advice: read the book at least twice for a better understanding.
Confusing, vague, but still good - By: Fat Bob, 12 Dec 2006 I'd like to say i loved this book. There were sections/chapters that blew me away, but ultimately the story was beyond my comprehension. On finishing it i looked up an explanation on Wikpedia website, & realised that much of the book had gone completely over my head. I'm by no means thick, but there are so many characters (and they alll have at least 3 names each - the main character Sam has about 10!) & Zelany writes at such a pace that i think he forgot that very few of us are experts on Hinduism.
The concept is amazing & this kept me interested, but its poorly explained. The ideas are so huge that the book should have been twice as long - i wanted to know why humans had colonised this distant planet, how the so-callled gods developed super-human powers, how old were 'the First'? These things were obviously skirted over intentionallly by the author, but i found that his writing, while brilliant, was also very vague. For example, near the end there is referrence to 'the talll man of smoke with a wide hat'. Apparently this is a referrence to a nuclear bomb, & i now acknowledge the geius of this, but it was completely lost on me at the time. I just thought it was another character!
So overalll, i feel the book just isn't accessible enough to warrant 5-stars. I doubt anyone, no matter how intelligent could claim that they didn't find this a struugle. I think only the author himself knew the answers to some of the most important questions raised. The reviewer below states that its a fast read, but then goes on to say you can't read it fast, so i think he's completely confused! Maybe true enlightenment can only be reached after a second read. I'll definitely come back to this book one day because its probably the most original & epic book i've ever read, but be warned... Its hard work!!
A book about Gods by a God.... - By: Robert Pylant, 01 Jun 2006 Zelazny will *always* be my number one author! His writing is so concise, as another reviewer stated, not a word is wasted. Roger can say in one paragraph what it takes another author a chapter to write! Why arent Roger Zelazny's books 750 pages long??, because his novels are not *brain-candy*-- he can get his story said in 230 pages. Very fast read, fast action, super dialogue - his writing is almost poetry. Some readers think the novel jumps without warning to a prevous time, but if that reviewer had only read the last sentence of the preceeding chapter. Not a book to be scanned quickly, savor each & every word as alas, the Shakespear of New Wave Science Fiction/Fantasy is no longer around.
