The Best of Roger Zelazny (SF) - Roger Zelazny ****

If there was an A to Z of SF greats, while even younger science fiction readers could probably come up with A for Asimov, far fewer are likely to make Z for Zelazny - which is a shame. Unusually, Zelazny spanned science fiction and fantasy - although a touch pulpy, his Princes in Amber series of books were a genuinely different fantasy series - but he was also, without doubt one of the leading SF writers of the twentieth century.

Here we get collected what should be some of his greatest short stories and novellas, starting with the classic and poignant A Rose for Ecclesiastes. For some reason in the intro we are told about a story that's not included that should be - 24 Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai - why isn't it here, then? In some ways, the experience of reading the book was a disappointment, because I think I prefer the lowbrow version of Zelazny's writing in those Amber books, rather than his new wave, more intellectual work, which mostly features here.

I did enjoy Home is the Hangman where a mysterious character tries to intercept a killer AI robot with unexpected consequences (doubly interesting as AI is so much more a real thing now than it was when Zelazny wrote this), while LOKI 7281 is a fun little in-joke story where well-known (named) SF writers' work is being rewritten without their knowledge by AI PCs. He Who Shapes is also impressive: a long story about an analyst who Inception-like goes into and shapes people's dreams, facing the ultimate challenge of a blind subject. On the other hand, even the intro has a bit of a downer on Damnation Alley, which I agree hasn't aged well, and typically of new wave SF, too many of the shorts were miserable: for example, Corrida featuring a kind of human bullfight and the tedious Permafrost. 

Tellingly, three of the best here were really fantasy. One of his best-known is The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, which has a touch of Melville and Hemingway about it, but despite the pretentious title is an engaging tale of a sea monster hunt on a fantasy, inhabitable version of Venus. And A Rose for Ecclesiastes is set on a fantasy inhabitable Mars, where Martians are biologically human. The short story chosen to close the book is another of Zelazny's best, a pure fantasy about three figures from Arthurian legend in the present day: Last Defender of Camelot.

In his intellectual mode, Zelazny has a tendency to go into lectures, or characters' thought processes, where he can drop names of intellectuals of the period and what they thought - for me this too doesn't age well. The book hasn't put me off Zelazny. I still love Roadmarks, Doorways in the Sand, A Night in the Lonesome October, the Amber books (which I must re-read) and more. And there's some really good material in here. But it wasn't quite as enjoyable an experience as I expected it to be.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here