From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!mclure
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Title: Re: Roger Zelazny and ReReVenus - (nf)
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.5338
Posted: Wed Mar  9 07:22:52 1983
Received: Fri Mar 11 20:45:52 1983

#R:cwruecmp:-49700:sri-unix:13200013:000:7978
sri-unix!mclure    Feb 21 16:18:00 1983

Since there's been a lot of interest in this list about Zelazny lately,
here's the entry from Nicholl's (THE SCIENCE FICTION ENCYCLOPEDIA), an
excellent reference book on SF.

    ZELAZNY, ROGER (1937- ).

    American writer, born in Ohio, with MA from  Columbia  University
    in 1962.  With Samuel R.  Delany and Harlan Ellison he is a lead-
    ing and representative figure of the American "new wave" sf  that
    urged  a  shift  of  emphasis from the external world of the hard
    sciences to the internal worlds  explorable  through  disciplines
    like  psychology (mostly Jungian), sociology, linguistics and the
    like.  From 1962 to '69, RZ was employed by the  Social  Security
    Administration in Cleveland, Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland.  From
    1969 he has been a full-time writer, and from 1975 he  has  lived
    in  New  Mexico.   The external events of his life do not, there-
    fore, show the restlessness characteristic of the  other  members
    of the new-wave triad.

    RZ's first published story was "Passion Play" (1962) in AMZ,  and
    for  several  years  he was reasonably prolific in shorter forms,
    for a time using the  pseudonym  Harrison  Denmark  when  stories
    piled  up in AMZ and Fantastic; but more and more he concentrated
    on novels.  The magazine titles of his first  two  books  are  as
    well known as their book titles, and the awards given them attach
    to the magazine titles.  THIS IMMORTAL (1965 FSF as "...And  Call
    me Conrad"; exp 1966) won the 1966 Hugo award for best novel; THE
    DREAM MASTER (1965 AMZ as "He Who Shapes"; exp 1966) won the 1965
    Nebula for best novella.  Both books are remarkably intense, nar-
    ratively experimental, explosively  conceived  new-wave  efforts,
    and with RZ's concurrent Nebula for best novelette for "The Doors
    of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth" (1965)  decisively  signaled
    the  arrival on the sf scene of new styles and new concerns.  All
    are substantial works.  THIS IMMORTAL  features  a  favourite  RZ
    protagonist, the extremely long-lived or immortal (or somehow in-
    vulnerable) human who lives a kinetically active but highly  cul-
    tured life, spending much of his time manipulating and protecting
    his fellow Homo sapiens, in this case  against  a  complex  alien
    threat.   "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth" depicts
    with an unparalleled literate intensity the  hunting  of  a  huge
    sea-monster.  In some ways THE DREAM MASTER is the most interest-
    ing of the three.  Throughout his career RZ has had a tendency to
    side,  perhaps  a  little  too openly, with his complexly gifted,
    vain, dominating protagonists, and his treatment of neuropartici-
    pant  psychiatrist  Charles Render seems no different.  Render is
    eminent in his new field of psychiatry, which involves his  actu-
    ally  entering and controlling (for therapeutic reasons) the sub-
    conscious experiences of his patients, and he does  so  superbly;
    nor  does his involvement witha congenitally blind woman, and his
    attempt to give her dreams a visual content, appear to provide an
    exception.   But  gradually his own deficiencies as a person, his
    patient's character, and dovetailing crises in his own life subt-
    ly  and  terrifyingly trap him in a highly plausible psychic cul-
    de-sac.  All the sf apparatus of the  story,  and  its  sometimes
    overly  baroque manner, are integrated into RZ's unveiling of the
    nature of a character under stress.  This  reversal  of  emphasis
    lies at the heard of what the new wave was all about.

    RZ's two story collections are drawn mainly from  these  scintil-
    lating  early years.  They are FOUR FOR TOMORROW (coll.  1967; vt
    A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES UK) and THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE  LAMPS
    OF  HIS  MOUTH, AND OTHER STORIES (coll.  1971).  His next novel,
    LORD OF LIGHT (1967), which won a 1968 Hugo, is also richly  con-
    ceived  and  plotted  dealing  expansively with a group of men on
    another planet who, aided  by  superior  technology,  impersonate
    (and  in  a  sense  become) the Hindu pantheon of gods.  However,
    from ISLE OF THE DEAD (1969) and CREATURES OF LIGHT AND  DARKNESS
    (1969),  some  falling-off became evident; RZ's storylines became
    simpler, somewhat coarser, darker.   DAMNATION  ALLEY  (1969)  is
    perhaps  the  most  savage  of  all,  depicting  a post-holocaust
    motorcycle-treak across a vicious America;  it  has  been  filmed
    with many changes as DAMNATION ALLEY (1977).

    In 1970 RZ began his continuing "Amber" series - NINE PRINCES  IN
    AMBER  (1970),  THE  GUNS  OF  AVALON (1972), SIGN OF THE UNICORN
    (1975) and THE HAND OF OBERON (1976), with, it is understood, one
    further  volume  projected,  [final book in the quintology is THE
    COURTS OF CHAOS], but no end as yet in  sight  -  to  a  somewhat
    mixed reaction.  The land of Amber (like C.S> Lewis's Narnia) ex-
    ists on a plane of greater fundamental reality  than  Earth,  and
    provides normal reality with its ontological base; unlike Narnia,
    however, Amber (to date) is ruled by a cabal  of  squabbling  si-
    blings,  whose quasi-Olympian feudings have provided a great deal
    of complicated plotting; the climax (which must  be  forthcoming)
    may resolve the somewhat aimless though often locally interesting
    impression the sequence gives so far.  More recently, RZ has made
    something  of  a comeback.  Though his collaboration with Phillip
    K.  Dick, DEUS IRAE (1976) finds him labouring  somewhat  in  the
    unstable Dick world.  MY NAME IS LEGION (coll.  of linked stories
    1976), about another behind-the-scenes manipulator  who  has  ob-
    tained  his invisibility from the omnipresent computers, contains
    the novella "Home is the Hangman" (1975), winner of both  a  Hugo
    and a Nebula, in which the protagonist is hired to protect guilty
    programmers from the robot-cum-computer with  a  brain  of  human
    complexity  that  has  apparently  returned to Earth to kill them
    off.  This turns out not to  be  the  case,  very  interestingly.
    DOORWAYS  IN THE SAND (1976) is also a relatively successful sto-
    ry, close to space opera in theme but expertly handled.

    Through his career RZ has suffered the inevitable price of  writ-
    ing  at the peak of intensity and conviction - that of slackening
    into routine when his obsessive concerns have been given  defini-
    tive  form.  With RZ this happened early.  His arduous investiga-
    tions of "inner space", into the ways  human  beings  respond  to
    deep psychic challenges, seemed to have exhausted him for several
    years, a period during which he sustained his career  by  writing
    competent  but somewhat distant novels.  Without the burning con-
    viction of the first novels, his secret-guardian protagonists be-
    gan  to  seem rather self-indulgent.  But, as he is still a rela-
    tively young writer, the recent signs  of  creative  renewal  are
    good news indeed for the genre he has so invigorated.

                                -- John Clute, 1979

    Other works: JACK  OF  SHADOWS  (1971);  TODAY  WE  CHOOSE  FACES
    (1973);  TO  DIE  IN ITALBAR (1973), featuring the protagonist of
    ISLE OF THE DEAD; BRIDGE OF  ASHES  (1976).   As  editor:  NEBULA
    AWARD STORIES THREE (anth.  1968) .

    About the author: "Faust & Archimedes" in THE  JEWEL-HINGED  JAW:
    NOTES  ON THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (coll.  1977) by Samuel
    R.  Delany; "Introduction" by Ormond Seavey  to  the  1976  Gregg
    Press  printing  of THE DREAM MASTER; "Zelazny's DAMNATION ALLEY:
    Hell noh" by Carl B.  Yoke in Extrapolation (Vol.  15 no 1).  Dec
    1973

    Several recent works: DILVISH THE  DAMNED,  COILS  (with  F.  Sa-
    berhagen), THE CHANGING LAND, THE CHANGLING, EYE OF CAT.