American Novels

"Lord of Light is a wonderful novel, fully worthy of the praise it has garnered. It is set many centuries in the future, after "the death of Urath." On a colony planet, men have battled the previous inhabitants and won, and have established a society. This society is based on technological means of imitating the Hindu religion. Specifically, when the body nears death, it is possible to transfer the "mind" or "soul" to a new body, even the body of an animal. But some of the earliest colonists, including the "First," have additional powers, which give them the status of gods. They also have taken control of the means of reincarnation, and a faction among them is using that means in political ways: punishing their enemies with reincarnation as animals, or with the "true death." The result is a society of humans living in a world in which something resembling Hinduism is literally true. Furthermore, the leading faction of "gods" is using its powers to keep the technological level of human society low enough that their own position cannot be threatened. The book opens with a renegade "god" at an isolated temple calling the book's hero back from "heaven.""

""Colonists from another planet conquer Earth and become the historic Hindu Gods until they turn against each other for control of the world. From this heralds the return of the Buddha, magic, spirituality, unification of all forces, and a new generation of mankind" … The international best-selling Hugo Award winning novel of science fantasy by: Roger Zelazny Lord of Light is … A metaphysical action adventure love story where the crew of a space ship colonize an ancient planet, their passengers become the populace, and they use their technology to turn themselves into powerful gods and goddesses. One man stands alone to fight his old colleagues and free mankind. … Sam is the dreamer and master schemer. He is the strategist and cosmic trickster who becomes Siddhartha and then the Buddha to ward off the iron grasp of Heaven. Sam is the ancient renegade god Kalkin whose powers become ever-more revealed to him as he fights to change the course of an entire civilization — and upon whose shoulders rests the future of the entire world. In the end he will be recognized by history as the true leader, the Binder of Destiny, The Lord of Light…"

"Lord Of Light is a novel about a future world after the destruction of Earth, conquered by men who, through ultratechnology, give themselves godlike powers and set themselves up as the old Hindu gods to rule the common people. Called The First, they have achieved a kind of immortality by transferring their identities from old bodies to new ones. These deicrats (as Zelazny calls them) through centuries of "divine" rule, have become corrupt, and only one among them will openly oppose their tyranny. He is the hero, "who was variously known as Mahasamatman, Kalkin, Manjusri, Siddhartha, Tathagatha, Binder, Maitreya, the Enlight-ened One, Buddha and Sam.""

"It's fantasy, or it's science fiction, or it's a retelling of the tales of the Hindu gods, as they encounter Mahasamatman, who may be Buddha and may just be a guy called Sam. It's a book I reread every few decades, and love."

"Tricky and brilliant and heartfelt and dangerous."

"I was pleased to get a copy of Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light the other day. It's one of my favourite books (I think the first thing author Steve Brust ever said to me was "Let's have an argument. Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is the best book anyone's ever written." "Ah," I said, "If you make it best SF book of the 1960s, I'll go along with it." "Oh. Fair enough." It was the first of a long line of failed arguments.) It's got a blurb from me on it, which I hope sells many copies."

"Death and Light are everywhere, always, and they begin, end, strive, attend, into and upon the Dream of the Nameless that is the world, burning words within Samsara, perhaps to create a thing of beauty. As the wearers of the saffron robe still meditate upon the Way of Light, and the girl who is named Murga visits the Temple daily, to place before her dark one in his shrine the only devotion he receives, of flowers."

"The spoon came alive with spoon-ness and the ball with ball-ness and the block with block-ness, and the girl laughed. Even the puppy seemed to study the objects."

"“Something always manages to draw me near the tree that lightning is about to fall upon.” “Destiny, sir.” “Rather an accidental social conscience and some right mistake-making, I fear.”"

"I shall return to being a man, and I shall let the people keep the Buddha who is in their hearts. Whatever the source, the message was pure, believe me. That is the only reason it took root and grew."

"You? You rose again?" "It doesn't count," said Sam. "I didn't do it the hard way." Tears filled the Black One's eyes. "It means you'll win, though," he gasped. "I can't understand why He permitted it..."

"Taraka screamed as Siddhartha rode toward him upon a white horse, the air crackling and smelling of ozone: "No, Binder! Hold your power! My death belongs to Yama . . ." "Oh foolish demon!" said Sam. "It need not have been...""

"I know my power is returning. I can feel it. Many things are returning now. During the weeks we have dwelled here in Ratri's palace I have meditated upon my past lives. They were not all failures, deathgod. I have decided this today. Though Heaven has beaten me at every turn, each victory has cost them much."

"Time like an ocean, space like its water, Sam in the middle, standing, decided."

"Taraka of the Rakasha was uneasy. Flitting above the clouds that moved through the middle of the day, he thought upon the ways of power. He had once been mightiest. In the days before the binding there had been none who could stand against him. Then Siddhartha the Binder had come. He had known of him earlier, known of him as Kalkin and had known him to be strong. Sooner or later, he had realized, they would have to meet, that he might test the power of that Attribute which Kalkin was said to have raised up. When they had come together, on that mighty, gone day when the mountaintops had flared with their fury, on that day the Binder had won. And in their second encounter, ages afterward, he had somehow beaten him even more fully. But he had been the only one, and now he was gone from out the world. Of all creatures, only the Binder had bested the Lord of Hellwell. Then the gods had come to challenge his power. They had been puny in the early days, struggling to discipline their mutant powers with drugs, hypnosis, meditation, neurosurgery — forging them into Attributes — and across the ages, those powers had grown. Four of them had entered Hellwell, only four, and his legions had not been able to repel them. The one called Shiva was strong, but the Binder had later slain him. This was as it should be, for Taraka recognized the Binder as a peer."

"Men no longer fear Heaven so much as they used to. They are more willing to defend themselves; and now that they are better equipped, the gods are less willing to face them." "Then Sam is winning. Across the years, he is beating them."

"Another name by which he is sometimes called is Maitreya, meaning Lord of Light. After his return from the Golden Cloud, he journeyed to the Palace of Kama at Khaipur, where he planned and built his strength against the Day of the Yuga. A sage once said that one never sees the Day of the Yuga, but only knows it when it is past. For it dawns like any other day and passes in the same wise, recapitulating the history of the world."

"The Buddha has gone to nirvana," said Brahma. "Preach it in the Temples! Sing it in the streets'. Glorious was his passing! He has reformed the old religion, and we are better now than ever before! Let all who would think otherwise remember Keenset!"

"Overhead, the thunder chariot passed once again. Sam raised his lance and pyrotechnic hell broke loose about the passing vessel. "You should not have let them know you could do that! Not yet!""

""There are only demigods and men upon the field," said Death. "They are still testing our strength. There are very few who remember the full power of Kalkin." "The full power of Kalkin?" asked Sam. "That has never been released, oh Death. Not in all the ages of the world."

"It is said that each day recapitulates the history of the world, coming up out of darkness and cold into confused light and beginning warmth, consciousness blinking its eyes somewhere in midmorning, awakening thoughts a jumble of illogic and unattached emotion, and all speeding together toward the order of noontide, the slow, poignant decline of dusk, the mystical vision of twilight, the end of entropy that is night once more."

"The gods are strong — stronger than they have ever been before." "But tell me who is coming to aid us." "Lord Nirriti the Black, who hates all things, hates the Gods of the City most of all. So he is sending a thousand unliving ones to fight on the plains beside the Vedra. He said that, after the battle, we of the Rakasha may take our choice from the bodies which yet remain among the mindless ones he has grown." "I do not relish aid from the Black One, but I am in no position to discriminate..."

"I decided that mankind could live better without gods. If I disposed of them all, people could start having can openers and cans to open again, and things like that, without fearing the wrath of Heaven. We've stepped on these poor fools enough. I wanted to give them a chance to be free, to build what they wanted." "But they live, and they live and they live." "Sometimes, and sometimes not. So do the gods." "You were about the last Accelerationist left in the world, Sam. No one would have thought you were also the deadliest."

"Revenge is part of the illusion of self. How can a man kill that which neither lives nor dies truly, but which exists only as a reflection of the Absolute?" "You did a pretty good job of it, though, even if, as you say, it was only a rearrangement." "Thank you."

"Death is mighty, and is no one's friend."

"I am but young, as gods go, but I have heard it said that in the early days of the world the hero with whom you rode — Kalkin — was the same as the one called Sam. If you had reason to hate your ancient Lord, and Sam was truly he, then could I see their enlisting you against this thing he had started. Might this be true?"

"During the time that followed the death of Brahma, there came upon the Celestial City a period of turmoil. Several among the gods were even expelled from Heaven. It was a time when just about everyone feared being considered an Accelerationist; and, as fate would have it, at some point or other during this period, just about everyone was considered an Accelerationist. Though Great-Souled Sam was dead, his spirit was said to live on, mocking. Then, in the days of disaffection and intrigue that led up to the Great Battle, it was rumored that more than his spirit might have lived on."

""I have seen all-colored Mara atop the spire of the highest tower, and I have felt the power of the weird he lays — for I have seen the phantom cats troubled within the wood, then hurrying in this direction. I have seen the tears of a man and of a woman. I have heard the laughter of a goddess. I have seen a bright spear uplifted against the morning, and I have heard an oath spoken. I have seen the Lord of Light at last, of whom I wrote, long ago:"

"Are you not Maitreya, Lord of Light, for whom the world has waited, lo, these many years — he whose coming I prophesied long ago in a poem?" "No, my name is Sam," he replied, "and I am about to depart the world, not enter into it. Who are you?" "I am a bird who was once a poet. All morning have I flown, since the yawp of Garuda opened the day. I was flying about the ways of Heaven looking for Lord Rudra, hoping to befoul him with my droppings, when I felt the power of a weird come over the land. I have flown far, and I have seen many things, Lord of Light"

"Ganesha the god-maker regarded the jungle about him. Though he walked through the realm of the phantom cats, he feared no evil. For the Lord of Chaos walked by his side, and the Trident of Destruction comforted him."

"I do not have the time to give you more than my contempt."

"Doubt, Lady, is the chastity of the mind, and I bear its seal upon my own."

"You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great battle is always the next one."

"As there is a time for everything, there is a time also for the end of anything. This is an age for the consolidation of man’s gains upon this world. This is a time for the sharing of knowledge, not the crossing of blades."

"You fertility deities are worse than Marxists," he said. "You think that's all that goes on between people. We were just friends for a time, but she is too hard on her friends and so loses them."

"I knew him a long time ago," said Rudra. "Accelerationist?" "He wasn't then. Wasn't much of anything, politically. He was one of the First, though, one of those who had looked upon Urath." "Oh?" "He distinguished himself in the wars against the People-of-the-Sea and against the Mothers of the Terrible Glow." Here, Rudra made a sign in the air. "Later," he continued, "this was remembered, and he was given charge of the northern marches in the wars against the demons. He was known as Kalkin in those days, and it was there that he came to be called Binder. He developed an Attribute which he could use against the demons. With it, he destroyed most of the Yakshas and bound the Rakasha. When Yama and Kali captured him at Hellwell in Malwa, he had already succeeded in freeing these latter. Thus, the Rakasha are again abroad in the world."

"Vishnu, in his wisdom, had seen that there must be a balance between the metropolis and the wilderness. While wilderness can exist independent of cities, that which dwells within a city requires more than the tamed plants of a pleasance. If the world were all city, he had reasoned, the dwellers within it would turn a portion of it into a wilderness, for there is that within them all which desires that somewhere there be an end to order and a beginning of chaos. So, within his mind there had grown up a forest, pumping forth streams and the smells of growth and decay, uttering the cries of the uncitied creatures who dwelled within its shadows, shrugging in the wind and glistening in the rain, falling down and growing up again."

"From Hellwell to Heaven he went, there to commune with the gods. The Celestial City holds many mysteries, including some of the keys to his own past. Not all that transpired during the time he dwelled there is known. It is known, however, that he petitioned the gods on behalf of the world, obtaining the sympathy of some, the enmity of others. Had he chosen to betray humanity and accept the proffers of the gods, it is said by some that he might have dwelled forever as a Lord of the City and not have met his death beneath the claws of the phantom cats of Kaniburrha..."

"I came to Hellwell, the wrath of the gods swarming and buzzing at my back. Now sixty-six demons are loose in the world. Very soon, your presence will be felt. The gods will know who has done this thing, and they will take steps against us. The element of surprise will be lost." "We fought the gods in the days of old . . ." "And these are not the days of old, Taraka. The gods are stronger now, much stronger. Long have you been bound, and their might has grown over the ages. Even if you command the first army of Rakasha in history, and backing them in battle I raise me up a mighty army of men — even then, will the final result be a thing uncertain. To delay now is to throw everything away."

"What is your power, Siddhartha? How do you do what you do?" it asked him. "Call it electrodirection," said the other, "mind over energy. It is as good a term as any. But whatever you call it, do not seek to cross it again. I can kill you with it, though no weapon formed of matter may be laid upon you. Go now!"

"It is a difficult problem," said Taraka. "I should give anything I have to be free — but then, all that I have is power — pure power, in essence uncommittable. A greater force might subdue it, but that is not the answer. I do not really know how to give you satisfactory assurance that my promise will be kept. If I were you, I certainly would not trust me."

"A facility with oaths is not the most reassuring quality in a bargainer. And your strength is also your weakness in any bargaining at all. You are so strong as to be unable to grant to another the power to control you. You have no gods to swear by. The only thing you will honor is a gambling debt, and there are no grounds for gaming here."

"Think not, oh Siddhartha, that because you wear a different body you go now unrecognized. I look upon the flows of energy which are your real being — not the flesh that masks them."

"It is told that Pannalal the Sage, having sharpened his mind with meditation and divers asceticisms, had divined the operation of the lock and entered Hellwell, spending a day and a night beneath the mountain. He was thereafter known as Pannalal the Mad."

"Very few feet have ever trod the trail that leads to Hellwell. Of those who visited, most came only to look, to see whether the great door really existed; and when they returned home and told of having seen it, they were generally mocked."

"There is a huge, burnished metal door, erected by the First, that is heavy as sin, three times the height of a man and half that distance in width. It is a full cubit thick and bears a head-sized ring of brass, a complicated pressure-plate lock and an inscription that reads, roughly, "Go away. This is not a place to be. If you do try to enter here, you will fail and also be cursed. If somehow you succeed, then do not complain that you entered unwarned, nor bother us with your deathbed prayers." Signed, "The Gods.""

"Hellwell lies at the top of the world and it leads down to its roots. It is probably as old as the world itself; and if it is not, it should be, because it looks as if it were."

"It is told how the Lord of Light descended into the Well of the Demons, to make there a bargain with the chief of the Rakasha. He dealt in good faith, but the Rakasha are the Rakasha. That is to say, they are malefic creatures, possessed of great powers, life-span and the ability to assume nearly any shape. The Rakasha are almost indestructible. Their chiefest lack is a true body; their chiefest virtue, their honor toward their gambling debts. That the Lord of Light went to Hellwell at all serves to show that perhaps he was somewhat distraught concerning the state of the world..."

"Even a mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see."

"Some quicksand is quicker than other quicksand. Fortunately, you are settling into that of the slower sort. [...] In the meantime, I suggest you solicit aid of my followers or learn the difficult art of mud-breathing."