Dilvish series by Roger Zelazny (#1-#2)
Requirements: Epub reader, 1.07 Mb
Overview: Roger Zelazny made his name with a group of novellas which demonstrated just how intense an emotional charge could be generated by the stock imagery of sf; the most famous of these is ‘A Rose for Ecclesiastes’ in which a poet struggles to convince dying and sterile Martians that life is worth continuing. Zelazny continued to write excellent short stories throughout his career, which share the inventiveness of these early novellas, but perhaps lack some of their intensity. Most of his novels deal, one way or another, with tricksters and mythology, often with rogues who become gods, like Sam in Lord of Light, who reinvents Buddhism as a vehicle for political subversion against his fellow-crew members who, using transhumanist technology, have appointed themselves gods on a colony planet, where the social system is derived from classical Hinduism.
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Dilvish, the Damned
Contents:
Passage to Dilfar
Thelinde’s Song
The Bells of Shoredan
A Knight for Merytha
The Places of Aache
A City Divided
The White Beast ss Whispers
Tower of Ice na Flashing Swords!
Devil and the Dancer
Garden of Blood ss Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Dilvish, the Damned
The Changing Land
This book has the grandest theme & the most strangely-named demon. The name is Melbriniononsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior.
Zelazny includes a touching love story between Queen Semirama & a tentacled semi-elder-god who lives in a cesspit below Castle Timeless. The Queen is hard to like since she’s indifferent to prisoners chained in the dungeon & only talks to her slave when she has to work. She’d been raised from the dust by the evil sorcerer Jelerak in order to communicate with the ancient denizen of the cesspit, a source of tremendous occult power even tho he resembles a gigantic, smelly octopus.
The theme of The Changing Land is the death & rebirth of the universe & the meddling of the Elder Gods in human, elvish & demonic affairs. Some of the characters, such as Dilvish the Damned & his hell-horse, Black, spring fully-formed onto the pages. They were actually born in earlier short stories, collected in Dilvish, the Damned. It might be easier to read Dilvish, the Damned before diving into The Changing Land because the latter fantasy has many characters. There are gods, demi-gods, semi-demi-gods, black & white magicians, heroes, elves, mechanical horses, demons & at least one Queen. A couple of them change bodies at least once, which doesn’t make it any easier.
Castle Timeless is the center of the action, the goal of every power-hungry sorcerer who has a staff to wave at its numerous demons. Its corridors are a constantly changing maze. The land surrounding it is a mad god’s dream of exploding volcanoes of mud, hedged with flame, alive with winged monkeys.
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