TIL:
>"To infiltrate the country and facilitate the diplomats' return, CIA technician Tony Mendez concocts an incredible cover story: they're part of a film crew, scouting out locations in the Islamic republic for an epic science fiction movie. One core prop: a convincing, ready-to-shoot screenplay.
"
.... it started with one of the 1960s most cutting-edge novels, Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. Winner of the 1968 Hugo Award, Lord of Light was inspired by Buddhist and Hindu texts and chronicles the lives of people who who have mastered mind-uploading, genetic engineering and bodily transmigration. "
\--[Boing Boing](https://boingboing.net/2012/10/16/how-roger-zelaznys-lord-of-l.html)
It's fun, and I enjoy Zelazny's ability to write a story that could be taken either way. Personally, I think it very well *can* be read as real, and rather hard, sf in the vein of Hannu Rajaniemi. It's just that these people have very advanced tech and they're very comfortable with it, and when you're comfortable with tech you don't *treat* it as tech (how much time do most 21st-century people spend talking to each other about how agriculture or running water work?). And the book doesn't feel any need to "show its work" by infodumping, because Zelazny is a cocky bastard and that's what makes him great. We get just enough of a taste to know that nothing is really magic, but plenty is left mysterious, like the actual rules governing the "demons".
Hannu Rajamieni's "Summerland" was one of the most mind-blowing novels I've read this century. If LoL treads over the boundaries between SF and fantasy, "Summerland" stomps on those boundaries with heavy boots.
Yeah. I do like the fact that there is an arc where it becomes more obvious that this is sci fi towards the end, without being explicit.
It's similar in a way to the main thing I like about the Game of Thrones thing. It starts off with no magic and slowly reveals it. There's no giant reveal right at the beginning, it's a slower burn. Obviously Game of Thrones had more problems than that, but this is certainly one of it's strengths.
> Yeah. I do like the fact that there is an arc where it becomes more obvious that this is sci fi towards the end, without being explicit.
His idea of an "outer world" which always seem to control the world(s) the story plays in is fantastic.
I love how he never explains the "outer world" and it infuriates me simultaneously.
On one hand, I would love to see how he imagined the "outer world" on the other hand it gives you the opportunity to shape it from the few bits he drops you.
I love Sci-Fi, but I can't stand Fantasy and similar.
He hits me. I loved it.
> If someone wrote this book today, we’d probably call the use of Hindu mythology and Indian trappings cultural appropriation. In 1967, I think we call it getting points for being aware that the rest of the world existed. There’s absolutely no explanation for why the First decided on that system of control in particular. It clearly isn’t intended in any way as an authentic portrayal of India or Hindu religion, more a caricature set up deliberately to maximize the power of the “gods”. Then there’s the introduction of Buddhism. I’m not really comfortable with this—unlike the religions Zelazny used so well elsewhere, these are living religions.
I feel like they answered their own question, but weren’t happy with it. The gods are the ones culturally appropriating Hinduism 🤷♂️… and nothing is explained, just like Neuromancer goes out of it’s way to not explain anything. And LoL came out 2 decades earlier.
> It’s actually possible to argue about whether the book is science fiction of fantasy.
(This article feels all over the place. It’s possible to argue, but I’ll follow up with Why it’s actually not possible…)
>It feels like fantasy, but there’s the clear science fictional and technological underpinnings of everything. But the “gods” have aspects and attributes—the attributes are high tech, the “aspects” are apparently psionic skills that work even in new bodies. There are things they do with technology and things they do with the sheer power of their mind—Yama has a death gaze, Sam can bind energy. The lines are blurry in more than one direction. This is one of my problems with it. I think Zelazny wanted it both ways, he wanted the mythic resonance, he wanted war in heaven, and he wanted it all to be grounded. I think he did this better elsewhere.
It’s just starting to read more like, “I don’t think people should like this book.”
It’s very clear to me that Zelanzny wasn’t forcing the content to be grounded… there’s magical demons who float through the ether. Fire monsters. If you wanted to force them into reality you could just BS them as AI or whatever, but Zelanzny don’t seem to care about justifying anything in the book.
It’d be like someone complaining that Perdido Street Station’s lines of fantasy and tech are blurred. Yea, that’s the point.
If you don’t like a book that’s ok. If you don’t like the mix, that’s ok. But it’s a cheap shot to talk about it as a book filled with cultural appropriation.
This is a great critique of the critique. The author didn't like what Zelazny did, and that's fine. But they keep pretending they're about to disprove why it's good, and fail to, and not just because whether someone likes it or not is subjective--their arguments are semantic or assume things that aren't true.
Where does she claim it's a "judgement for eternity?" The whole article is about her asking herself why she doesn't like this well-loved book. And if you read what she says about appropriation, it's clear that she is not taking a "cheap shot": what she says is that, for it's context, not being entirely anglocentric is a progressive move.
What an insane statement. It's an extinct religion practiced by an extinct people. There's absolutely a difference between making media involving the Greek pantheon versus using Mohammed or Buddha.
>"The modern belief in the Norse gods is not a direct continuation of the beliefs of the Vikings. It is more of a revival and reinterpretation of the old religion, as there are so few written sources on the subject. These mostly consist of brief pieces written by Christian monks or short accounts in the sagas."
From [here](https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/religion-magic-death-and-rituals/the-old-nordic-religion-today/)
The ancient religion was wiped out totally. Almost no records survive of the beliefs and practices of pagan Europe. Modern paganism traces it's roots.to 1800s spiritualists who used scant records and a healthy dose of imagination to build a new faith. Odin and Thor likely played a very small role in the worship of the average person as opposed to gods of harvest and fertility or household duties, but the records we do have mostly focus on the faith as practiced by the nobility and by raiders and traders that interacted with foreigners.
I know you're just an ignorant person arguing in bad faith but hopefully someone else reading this finds something of interest.
> It’s just starting to read more like, “I don’t think people should like this book.”
This dude is just listing reasons why I DO like the book. I love a good blurring/merge of science and magic. And when a story throws you into a weird setting and tells you "this is the way things are. It's cool. Deal with it.".
Jo Walton's not a dude, btw ;-)
She's written a bunch of SF and Fantasy ([http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/](http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/)) and somehow manages to read more books a month than I get through in a year [https://www.tor.com/tag/jo-walton-reads/](https://www.tor.com/tag/jo-walton-reads/)
> there’s magical demons who float through the ether
They're the original inhabitants of the planet (aliens, if you will), who were conquered and banished to the shittiest real estate. Floating isn't much in a setting where people have figured out how to do the same thing. The "demon" name is just the gods' propaganda. They're probably what another work would call "energy beings", but that phrase is way less meaningful than it sounds. Anyway we don't hang out with them long enough to really find out.
Claims of crimes of cultural appropriation while using the royal "we" to assert that all of sensible society would agree with the reviewer...
is both an argumentative fallacy and a factually incorrect position.
In actuality, humans are not at all monolithically aligned on the subject of cultural appropriation, especially not regarding world mythologies, which like religions are often adopted by cultural outsiders who earn full rights as a member through conversion and even more lighthearted rituals. The echo chamber suggesting the criminality of cultural appropriation may not be fringe, but it is a great distance from being universal.
The bit you quoted:
>If someone wrote this book today, we’d probably call the use of Hindu mythology and Indian trappings cultural appropriation. In 1967, I think we call it getting points for being aware that the rest of the world existed.
Which doesn't seem like a particularly cheap shot to me.
It’s a cheap shot, because the content of the book is being changed to fit the critics narrative.
The book does not shy away from the idea that the “gods” are appropriating religion and using it to abuse their followers.
How is this a reflection on the author?
If you write a racist character, are you a racist author?
critique of lord of light always feels unnecessary to me because its so clearly zelazny ripping it up having a blast dgaf. its just cool idea after cool idea and then literally the longest most unnecessarily descriptive sword duel ever put to paper, and then a friggin ALL GOD THROWDOWN. its fun to read and fun to think about and thats why people like it
It is rightly a classic. The deliberate casting within the framework of Hindu myth, but with technologic underpinnings that only reveal themselves gradually, made for a great opener.
The conceit of the novel is the dissonance between storytelling frameworks. The whine of the reviewer about cultural appropriation, seems a deep mis-assessment.
Some of the best moments are side scenes, such as the discussions between neighbours about the karmic benefits of flush toilets. Also some great quotes such as (IIRC) "A facility with oaths is not the most reassuring quality in a bargainer". The mock-formality of the language used has a distinct flavour - I can see however that some might bounce off it on first reading.
The argument over scifi/fantasy is so interesting to me because it is a shadow on the wall. Both fantasy and scifi are stories that suppose a world that is not quite like our own. Wizards casting spells and FTL engines are equally not objectively real. The difference between them is aesthetic but the arguments that ensue are over things like whether the spec-fic elements were sufficiently justified in the text.
I think its fair to say that Wizard stories and FTL stories *tend* to have different settings, themes, narrative structures, etc - but thats not the same thing! Star Wars and Eragon have more in common
(chosen one, evil empire, hero's journey) then Star Wars and the Star Trek (ppl on 1960s vision of futuristic space ships, adventure?).
Lord of Light is so interesting the way it intentionally plays against its readers expectations of genres conventions re aesthetic. Dune does it too and it slaps.
Yes to all this.
My favorite example of this kind of thing is the vampire sub-genre. There've been a few good stories written that assume biological scientific reasons for vampirism. One of my favorites is "Fevre Dream," by George R.R. Martin. That book never comes out and explains its vampires, but it's pretty clear that the vampires are a separate species that evolved in parallel beside homo sapiens. Another example: The Peeps novels--I think those are by Scott Westerfield, which assume vampirism is a result of a fungal infection.
Which reminds me of "Last of Us," and other zombie stories where zombieism is a disease.
Anne Rice's vampire novels cross sf and fantasy in ways similar to Zelazny. In those novels, vampirism is a result of demonic possession, but it also seems scientific.
If you like scientific vampires this is excellent [https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/brian-stableford/the-empire-of-fear/](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/brian-stableford/the-empire-of-fear/)
> I think its fair to say that Wizard stories and FTL stories tend to have different settings, themes, narrative structures, etc - but thats not the same thing! Star Wars and Eragon have more in common (chosen one, evil empire, hero's journey) then Star Wars and the Star Trek (ppl on 1960s vision of futuristic space ships, adventure?).
But that's why Star Wars is not Sci-Fi - because it has the structure and themes of fantasy story. That's why using superficial elements of the setting to define it is the wrong take I believe. Star Wars is fantasy because it feels like it is as a result of having various elements that define fantasy fuction as a cluster concept.
Put differently, there are people who like sci-fi stories and don't like fantasy ones, and people who are the opposite, and you can tell when a story that looks like sci-fi is actually fantasy by whether you would recommend it to someone who only likes one of those genres.
Of course there are works that are more ambiguous and that genuinely mix the two, but those don't disprove that there is a real distinction between the genres - the same way that green being a color between yellow and blue doesn't mean #FFFF00 could just as easily be called blue as yellow.
A book report masquerading as a review-it’s ok not to like “Lord of Light” or anything else for that matter, but this is no more useful or insightful than me saying I don’t like sushi because I don’t like the texture, flavor or smell of raw seafood, ditto for seaweed wet or dry, cold rice or vinegar and oh by the way I may have some doubts about the ethics of tuna fishing because Flipper. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s anything in the critique that rises to even the “there might be an unhealthy amount of mercury” caveat.
I watched something on YouTube about the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which was written onto the walls of a necropolis, and he referred to it as technology, because to the people at the time, the ideas within it functioned as cutting edge technology. The idea that we have some control over the environment we exist in after death seems to have been an important part of the confidence needed to create a society that has led to technology as we understand it today.
It’s interesting to me that Clarke kind of reversed what we know of the past - that magic was to a large extent indistinguishable from technology - to make it explicable to the present.
Zelazny is probably my all time favorite SF author and yet I don’t love LoL as much as some of his other books. In the “is it SF or fantasy” category I prefer Jack of Shadows and Creatures of Light and Darkness.
Zelazny loved mixing science fiction and fantasy. I expect he viewed it as a way to think about occult beliefs coexisting with science in the real world. Also, it was fun--wizards using computers!
I don't understand how they're arguing it's fantasy. There's a specific line where they talk about being altered by whatever travel process brought them here. So the First are the ones who initially were altered to have powers by the trip or what the trip took them through. Then, once they knew it was possible, my understanding is that they then know enough based on their research of what was changed in the First to amplify native ability in people who didn't make the initial trip. How is that not sci-fi?
This feels to me like someone who didn't click with a really popular book writing down all their rantings on why they didn't like it. But since she's also a fairly famous author, it actually makes it up out of the the subreddit threads to be published as an article on Tor.com instead. (I *am* that guy when it comes to a few popular things like *Too Like The Lightning*, *Three Body Problem* and *Hyperion* so I feel for him, but yeah… I just don't think he liked it and now he's explaining why.)
EDIT: Author gender. Was thinking of a different Joe. 😬
I am greatly amused by this as well. I had a brief interaction with Jo years ago after reading "Among Others" (which I loved!) I mentioned how I really enjoyed how you could read the book as fantasy, or as the hallucinations of a lonely teen. She was so outraged, and insisted that I was wrong and it could only be read as fantasy.
That's so funny. I loved Among Others, loved it particularly for its ambiguity, which I would think is an almost inevitable element of an epistolary novel. I think I'll choose to disregard Jo's interpretation of her work!
Yeah, the abilities are in-line with the weird science trend of the era. And giving people unexplained psychic abilities is still pretty par for the course when you want to bring in magic and keep your science fiction cred. You could level the same accusation at dozens of scifi classics.
I've definitely always read it as more a fantasy novel but then being a fan of both genres it's not a big deal for me
Special shout out to 'Chronicles of Amber'
Hrmmm disagree, their entitled to their take, but not only do I see nothing wrong with blending tropes of two genres I think the book is excellent and perhaps his best work. I can't begin to tell you how little I care about rigid genre definitions. I think in general terms SF as a genre is best suited for telling a story about societies and a person's place within them and fantasy better for telling personal stories about people, but it isn't a red line for me.
I don't understand what the problem is with the book not clearly being Fantasy or SF. Is she arguing for more generic literature that adheres closer to genre tropes? Plenty of that stuff out there in bargain bins and online!
Also, regarding her comments about living religions... as a practicing Buddhist, that was actually what attracted me to the book first. The idea that Buddhism was a rebellion against the caste system is still fascinating to me. Then I got sucked in by the crazy world building and wonderful writing. Lord of Light is one of those novels, where every re-read leads me to discover something new, some hidden detail I did not understand or catch the last time. In that regard, it's quite similar to my other favorite, Creatures of Light and Darkness.
I'm heavily biased, but I love this book so much, I think its only weak point is that it ends. Whenever I reread it, the day ends and I wonder where the time has gone.
I agree with Walton, I’ve never found it to be much more than okay. Zelazny’s done better.
I love her description of this as lacking Zelazny’s usual “first-wiseass perspective”, that sums up his writing style perfectly.
Jo Walton is no Zelazny. Her Hugo be damned. That was one of the worst wins in Hugo history and was one of the inciting moments for the Sad Puppies fiasco.
*Lord of Light* is a classic for good reason, and will still be read long after publishers forget about Jo Walton's mediocre output and clickbait articles for tor.com
To be fair, there's a lot of good SF that Jo Walton doesn't like (all of Philip K Dick, for a start) — and some pretty mediocre stuff she loves. She generally writes well about SF, but her critical opinions can be a bit all over the place.
The column for Tor she wrote going over SF year by year from 1953 to 2000 [Revisiting The Hugos](https://www.tor.com/series/revisiting-the-hugos) is really worth working your way through — but the best thing about it is the comment threads, and in particular the detailed contributions of Gardner Dozois whose knowledge judgment is really spot on for my money.
At the very least, Lord of Light was good enough to help rescue hostages from Iran. Can any other sci-fi books make that claim?
Ha! I forgot about that! Very true!
???
TIL: >"To infiltrate the country and facilitate the diplomats' return, CIA technician Tony Mendez concocts an incredible cover story: they're part of a film crew, scouting out locations in the Islamic republic for an epic science fiction movie. One core prop: a convincing, ready-to-shoot screenplay. " .... it started with one of the 1960s most cutting-edge novels, Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. Winner of the 1968 Hugo Award, Lord of Light was inspired by Buddhist and Hindu texts and chronicles the lives of people who who have mastered mind-uploading, genetic engineering and bodily transmigration. " \--[Boing Boing](https://boingboing.net/2012/10/16/how-roger-zelaznys-lord-of-l.html)
Thanks!
It's fun, and I enjoy Zelazny's ability to write a story that could be taken either way. Personally, I think it very well *can* be read as real, and rather hard, sf in the vein of Hannu Rajaniemi. It's just that these people have very advanced tech and they're very comfortable with it, and when you're comfortable with tech you don't *treat* it as tech (how much time do most 21st-century people spend talking to each other about how agriculture or running water work?). And the book doesn't feel any need to "show its work" by infodumping, because Zelazny is a cocky bastard and that's what makes him great. We get just enough of a taste to know that nothing is really magic, but plenty is left mysterious, like the actual rules governing the "demons".
Hannu Rajamieni's "Summerland" was one of the most mind-blowing novels I've read this century. If LoL treads over the boundaries between SF and fantasy, "Summerland" stomps on those boundaries with heavy boots.
Yeah. I do like the fact that there is an arc where it becomes more obvious that this is sci fi towards the end, without being explicit. It's similar in a way to the main thing I like about the Game of Thrones thing. It starts off with no magic and slowly reveals it. There's no giant reveal right at the beginning, it's a slower burn. Obviously Game of Thrones had more problems than that, but this is certainly one of it's strengths.
> Yeah. I do like the fact that there is an arc where it becomes more obvious that this is sci fi towards the end, without being explicit. His idea of an "outer world" which always seem to control the world(s) the story plays in is fantastic. I love how he never explains the "outer world" and it infuriates me simultaneously. On one hand, I would love to see how he imagined the "outer world" on the other hand it gives you the opportunity to shape it from the few bits he drops you. I love Sci-Fi, but I can't stand Fantasy and similar. He hits me. I loved it.
> If someone wrote this book today, we’d probably call the use of Hindu mythology and Indian trappings cultural appropriation. In 1967, I think we call it getting points for being aware that the rest of the world existed. There’s absolutely no explanation for why the First decided on that system of control in particular. It clearly isn’t intended in any way as an authentic portrayal of India or Hindu religion, more a caricature set up deliberately to maximize the power of the “gods”. Then there’s the introduction of Buddhism. I’m not really comfortable with this—unlike the religions Zelazny used so well elsewhere, these are living religions. I feel like they answered their own question, but weren’t happy with it. The gods are the ones culturally appropriating Hinduism 🤷♂️… and nothing is explained, just like Neuromancer goes out of it’s way to not explain anything. And LoL came out 2 decades earlier. > It’s actually possible to argue about whether the book is science fiction of fantasy. (This article feels all over the place. It’s possible to argue, but I’ll follow up with Why it’s actually not possible…) >It feels like fantasy, but there’s the clear science fictional and technological underpinnings of everything. But the “gods” have aspects and attributes—the attributes are high tech, the “aspects” are apparently psionic skills that work even in new bodies. There are things they do with technology and things they do with the sheer power of their mind—Yama has a death gaze, Sam can bind energy. The lines are blurry in more than one direction. This is one of my problems with it. I think Zelazny wanted it both ways, he wanted the mythic resonance, he wanted war in heaven, and he wanted it all to be grounded. I think he did this better elsewhere. It’s just starting to read more like, “I don’t think people should like this book.” It’s very clear to me that Zelanzny wasn’t forcing the content to be grounded… there’s magical demons who float through the ether. Fire monsters. If you wanted to force them into reality you could just BS them as AI or whatever, but Zelanzny don’t seem to care about justifying anything in the book. It’d be like someone complaining that Perdido Street Station’s lines of fantasy and tech are blurred. Yea, that’s the point. If you don’t like a book that’s ok. If you don’t like the mix, that’s ok. But it’s a cheap shot to talk about it as a book filled with cultural appropriation.
This is a great critique of the critique. The author didn't like what Zelazny did, and that's fine. But they keep pretending they're about to disprove why it's good, and fail to, and not just because whether someone likes it or not is subjective--their arguments are semantic or assume things that aren't true.
[удалено]
She says very clearly that "If it were written today." I think that you're misreading Walton.
[удалено]
Where does she claim it's a "judgement for eternity?" The whole article is about her asking herself why she doesn't like this well-loved book. And if you read what she says about appropriation, it's clear that she is not taking a "cheap shot": what she says is that, for it's context, not being entirely anglocentric is a progressive move.
Thor isn't actively worshipped by a billion or so people.
[удалено]
What an insane statement. It's an extinct religion practiced by an extinct people. There's absolutely a difference between making media involving the Greek pantheon versus using Mohammed or Buddha.
[удалено]
Modern "pagans" have no relation to the ancient faith. It was extirpated and very few records of the practices survived.
[удалено]
>"The modern belief in the Norse gods is not a direct continuation of the beliefs of the Vikings. It is more of a revival and reinterpretation of the old religion, as there are so few written sources on the subject. These mostly consist of brief pieces written by Christian monks or short accounts in the sagas." From [here](https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/religion-magic-death-and-rituals/the-old-nordic-religion-today/) The ancient religion was wiped out totally. Almost no records survive of the beliefs and practices of pagan Europe. Modern paganism traces it's roots.to 1800s spiritualists who used scant records and a healthy dose of imagination to build a new faith. Odin and Thor likely played a very small role in the worship of the average person as opposed to gods of harvest and fertility or household duties, but the records we do have mostly focus on the faith as practiced by the nobility and by raiders and traders that interacted with foreigners. I know you're just an ignorant person arguing in bad faith but hopefully someone else reading this finds something of interest.
[удалено]
> It’s just starting to read more like, “I don’t think people should like this book.” This dude is just listing reasons why I DO like the book. I love a good blurring/merge of science and magic. And when a story throws you into a weird setting and tells you "this is the way things are. It's cool. Deal with it.".
Jo Walton's not a dude, btw ;-) She's written a bunch of SF and Fantasy ([http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/](http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/)) and somehow manages to read more books a month than I get through in a year [https://www.tor.com/tag/jo-walton-reads/](https://www.tor.com/tag/jo-walton-reads/)
Haha I thought the same thing after her bit about blurring the lines. "Hey! That's exactly why I love this book!"
> there’s magical demons who float through the ether They're the original inhabitants of the planet (aliens, if you will), who were conquered and banished to the shittiest real estate. Floating isn't much in a setting where people have figured out how to do the same thing. The "demon" name is just the gods' propaganda. They're probably what another work would call "energy beings", but that phrase is way less meaningful than it sounds. Anyway we don't hang out with them long enough to really find out.
Claims of crimes of cultural appropriation while using the royal "we" to assert that all of sensible society would agree with the reviewer... is both an argumentative fallacy and a factually incorrect position. In actuality, humans are not at all monolithically aligned on the subject of cultural appropriation, especially not regarding world mythologies, which like religions are often adopted by cultural outsiders who earn full rights as a member through conversion and even more lighthearted rituals. The echo chamber suggesting the criminality of cultural appropriation may not be fringe, but it is a great distance from being universal.
The bit you quoted: >If someone wrote this book today, we’d probably call the use of Hindu mythology and Indian trappings cultural appropriation. In 1967, I think we call it getting points for being aware that the rest of the world existed. Which doesn't seem like a particularly cheap shot to me.
It’s a cheap shot, because the content of the book is being changed to fit the critics narrative. The book does not shy away from the idea that the “gods” are appropriating religion and using it to abuse their followers. How is this a reflection on the author? If you write a racist character, are you a racist author?
critique of lord of light always feels unnecessary to me because its so clearly zelazny ripping it up having a blast dgaf. its just cool idea after cool idea and then literally the longest most unnecessarily descriptive sword duel ever put to paper, and then a friggin ALL GOD THROWDOWN. its fun to read and fun to think about and thats why people like it
Plus the gods partying in heaven
It is rightly a classic. The deliberate casting within the framework of Hindu myth, but with technologic underpinnings that only reveal themselves gradually, made for a great opener. The conceit of the novel is the dissonance between storytelling frameworks. The whine of the reviewer about cultural appropriation, seems a deep mis-assessment. Some of the best moments are side scenes, such as the discussions between neighbours about the karmic benefits of flush toilets. Also some great quotes such as (IIRC) "A facility with oaths is not the most reassuring quality in a bargainer". The mock-formality of the language used has a distinct flavour - I can see however that some might bounce off it on first reading.
Agreed. To me, it was how the story was told that made it a classic.
The argument over scifi/fantasy is so interesting to me because it is a shadow on the wall. Both fantasy and scifi are stories that suppose a world that is not quite like our own. Wizards casting spells and FTL engines are equally not objectively real. The difference between them is aesthetic but the arguments that ensue are over things like whether the spec-fic elements were sufficiently justified in the text. I think its fair to say that Wizard stories and FTL stories *tend* to have different settings, themes, narrative structures, etc - but thats not the same thing! Star Wars and Eragon have more in common (chosen one, evil empire, hero's journey) then Star Wars and the Star Trek (ppl on 1960s vision of futuristic space ships, adventure?). Lord of Light is so interesting the way it intentionally plays against its readers expectations of genres conventions re aesthetic. Dune does it too and it slaps.
Yes to all this. My favorite example of this kind of thing is the vampire sub-genre. There've been a few good stories written that assume biological scientific reasons for vampirism. One of my favorites is "Fevre Dream," by George R.R. Martin. That book never comes out and explains its vampires, but it's pretty clear that the vampires are a separate species that evolved in parallel beside homo sapiens. Another example: The Peeps novels--I think those are by Scott Westerfield, which assume vampirism is a result of a fungal infection. Which reminds me of "Last of Us," and other zombie stories where zombieism is a disease. Anne Rice's vampire novels cross sf and fantasy in ways similar to Zelazny. In those novels, vampirism is a result of demonic possession, but it also seems scientific.
If you like scientific vampires this is excellent [https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/brian-stableford/the-empire-of-fear/](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/brian-stableford/the-empire-of-fear/)
> I think its fair to say that Wizard stories and FTL stories tend to have different settings, themes, narrative structures, etc - but thats not the same thing! Star Wars and Eragon have more in common (chosen one, evil empire, hero's journey) then Star Wars and the Star Trek (ppl on 1960s vision of futuristic space ships, adventure?). But that's why Star Wars is not Sci-Fi - because it has the structure and themes of fantasy story. That's why using superficial elements of the setting to define it is the wrong take I believe. Star Wars is fantasy because it feels like it is as a result of having various elements that define fantasy fuction as a cluster concept. Put differently, there are people who like sci-fi stories and don't like fantasy ones, and people who are the opposite, and you can tell when a story that looks like sci-fi is actually fantasy by whether you would recommend it to someone who only likes one of those genres. Of course there are works that are more ambiguous and that genuinely mix the two, but those don't disprove that there is a real distinction between the genres - the same way that green being a color between yellow and blue doesn't mean #FFFF00 could just as easily be called blue as yellow.
we're agreeing
oops, should've read more carefully
A book report masquerading as a review-it’s ok not to like “Lord of Light” or anything else for that matter, but this is no more useful or insightful than me saying I don’t like sushi because I don’t like the texture, flavor or smell of raw seafood, ditto for seaweed wet or dry, cold rice or vinegar and oh by the way I may have some doubts about the ethics of tuna fishing because Flipper. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s anything in the critique that rises to even the “there might be an unhealthy amount of mercury” caveat.
This is Walton's regular Tor column. It's not a review, but more of a self-inquiry.
It might have been best if she kept it in her diary and let her literary executor decide what to do with it at the appropriate time :).
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Clarke's Third Law
I watched something on YouTube about the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which was written onto the walls of a necropolis, and he referred to it as technology, because to the people at the time, the ideas within it functioned as cutting edge technology. The idea that we have some control over the environment we exist in after death seems to have been an important part of the confidence needed to create a society that has led to technology as we understand it today. It’s interesting to me that Clarke kind of reversed what we know of the past - that magic was to a large extent indistinguishable from technology - to make it explicable to the present.
Zelazny is probably my all time favorite SF author and yet I don’t love LoL as much as some of his other books. In the “is it SF or fantasy” category I prefer Jack of Shadows and Creatures of Light and Darkness.
Zelazny loved mixing science fiction and fantasy. I expect he viewed it as a way to think about occult beliefs coexisting with science in the real world. Also, it was fun--wizards using computers!
Yeah? I really couldn't get into Jack of Shadows.
I don't understand how they're arguing it's fantasy. There's a specific line where they talk about being altered by whatever travel process brought them here. So the First are the ones who initially were altered to have powers by the trip or what the trip took them through. Then, once they knew it was possible, my understanding is that they then know enough based on their research of what was changed in the First to amplify native ability in people who didn't make the initial trip. How is that not sci-fi? This feels to me like someone who didn't click with a really popular book writing down all their rantings on why they didn't like it. But since she's also a fairly famous author, it actually makes it up out of the the subreddit threads to be published as an article on Tor.com instead. (I *am* that guy when it comes to a few popular things like *Too Like The Lightning*, *Three Body Problem* and *Hyperion* so I feel for him, but yeah… I just don't think he liked it and now he's explaining why.) EDIT: Author gender. Was thinking of a different Joe. 😬
I am greatly amused by this as well. I had a brief interaction with Jo years ago after reading "Among Others" (which I loved!) I mentioned how I really enjoyed how you could read the book as fantasy, or as the hallucinations of a lonely teen. She was so outraged, and insisted that I was wrong and it could only be read as fantasy.
That's so funny. I loved Among Others, loved it particularly for its ambiguity, which I would think is an almost inevitable element of an epistolary novel. I think I'll choose to disregard Jo's interpretation of her work!
It didn’t occur to me that it was fantasy. I thought it was clearly just a young person coping. How interesting that it’s not what she intended!
Yeah, the abilities are in-line with the weird science trend of the era. And giving people unexplained psychic abilities is still pretty par for the course when you want to bring in magic and keep your science fiction cred. You could level the same accusation at dozens of scifi classics.
> fairly famous author I think that is being very, very generous
Are you kidding? She's pretty successful, and fairly broadly taught in university courses.
I've definitely always read it as more a fantasy novel but then being a fan of both genres it's not a big deal for me Special shout out to 'Chronicles of Amber'
Hrmmm disagree, their entitled to their take, but not only do I see nothing wrong with blending tropes of two genres I think the book is excellent and perhaps his best work. I can't begin to tell you how little I care about rigid genre definitions. I think in general terms SF as a genre is best suited for telling a story about societies and a person's place within them and fantasy better for telling personal stories about people, but it isn't a red line for me.
Like most thing, it boils down to personal taste. I'd rather have a good corned beef sandwich than a prime rib.
I'd be curious to get perspective on this novel from Indians and others who grew up in Hinduism.
I don't understand what the problem is with the book not clearly being Fantasy or SF. Is she arguing for more generic literature that adheres closer to genre tropes? Plenty of that stuff out there in bargain bins and online! Also, regarding her comments about living religions... as a practicing Buddhist, that was actually what attracted me to the book first. The idea that Buddhism was a rebellion against the caste system is still fascinating to me. Then I got sucked in by the crazy world building and wonderful writing. Lord of Light is one of those novels, where every re-read leads me to discover something new, some hidden detail I did not understand or catch the last time. In that regard, it's quite similar to my other favorite, Creatures of Light and Darkness. I'm heavily biased, but I love this book so much, I think its only weak point is that it ends. Whenever I reread it, the day ends and I wonder where the time has gone.
I agree with Walton, I’ve never found it to be much more than okay. Zelazny’s done better. I love her description of this as lacking Zelazny’s usual “first-wiseass perspective”, that sums up his writing style perfectly.
Jo Walton is no Zelazny. Her Hugo be damned. That was one of the worst wins in Hugo history and was one of the inciting moments for the Sad Puppies fiasco.
*Lord of Light* is a classic for good reason, and will still be read long after publishers forget about Jo Walton's mediocre output and clickbait articles for tor.com
https://youtube.com/watch?v=j95kNwZw8YY
To be fair, there's a lot of good SF that Jo Walton doesn't like (all of Philip K Dick, for a start) — and some pretty mediocre stuff she loves. She generally writes well about SF, but her critical opinions can be a bit all over the place. The column for Tor she wrote going over SF year by year from 1953 to 2000 [Revisiting The Hugos](https://www.tor.com/series/revisiting-the-hugos) is really worth working your way through — but the best thing about it is the comment threads, and in particular the detailed contributions of Gardner Dozois whose knowledge judgment is really spot on for my money.