The Last Defender of Camelot

by Roger Zelazny, Robert Silverberg (selection & foreword)

Here are 16 strange, beautiful stories spanning the full spectrum of Roger Zelazny's remarkable career. One of the most acclaimed writers in the field, Zelazny's rare ability to mix fantastical dream imagery with the real-life hardware of science fiction has won him more than a score of Hugo and Nebula nominations. He creates characters who live to haunt the reader beyond the page and who inhabit worlds both enchanting and disturbing--dazzling and memorable.

7 • Introduction (The Last Defender of Camelot) • essay by Robert Siverberg
11 • Comes Now the Power • (1966) • short story by Roger Zelazny
18 • For a Breath I Tarry • (1966) • novelette by Roger Zelazny
65 • The Engine at Heartspring's Center • (1974) • short story by Roger Zelazny
76 • Halfjack • (1979) • short story by Roger Zelazny
83 • Home is the Hangman • [Nemo] • (1975) • novella by Roger Zelazny
165 • Permafrost • (1986) • novelette by Roger Zelazny
195 • LOKI 7281 • (1984) • short story by Roger Zelazny
204 • Mana from Heaven • [Magic Goes Away] • (1983) • novelette by Roger Zelazny
250 • 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1985) • novella by Roger Zelazny
329 • Come Back to the Killing Ground, Alice, My Love • [Kalifriki] • (1992) • novella by Roger Zelazny
388 • The Last Defender of Camelot • (1979) • novelette by Roger Zelazny

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Arthurian, Science Fiction Fantasy, Anthologies

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American fantasy and science fiction writer known for his short stories and novels, best known for The Chronicles of Amber. He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo Award six times (also out of 14 nominations), including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel ...And Call Me Conrad (1965), subsequently published under the title This Immortal (1966), and the novel Lord of Light (1967).

Reviews

[Carl Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm very late to the Zelazny party - this is only my second collection, and I don't think I've read a single novel of his. Of course I aim to rectify this.

Selected by the author, this is an excellent assemblage of SF with a dusting of Fantasy. Varied in theme and -perhaps to a slightly lesser extent- style, everything here is more than worth your time... some of it much more.

Stand-outs for me are: The Stainless Steel Leech (what happens to vampires when Humanity has died out, and the inspiration they inspire in the the 'faulty' metal inheritors of the Earth); the novella, He Who Shapes (mental well-being through assisted dreaming... but what if the dreamer were blind?); the whimsical Auto-Da-Fe (Cars meets bull fighting); For Breath I Tarry (Humanity is gone, but its servants still toil on. One wishes to learn what it is to be a Man...).

But, as I imply above, there are no duds here - most genre tastes are intelligently, wittily, strikingly, accounted for throughout. Strongly recommended.

[Keith Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Zelazny's short fiction, each story introduced by the author himself. The stories date from the beginning of his career into the 1980s. There are some great stories here: the title tale is an imaginative tale of what might happen when the wizard Merlin awakes from 1000 years enchantment. He Who Shapes is a novella later expanded into the novel, The Dream Master, not one of my favourite Zelazny novels, but it works better in this shorter original form.

My favourite tale in the collection is For a Breath I Tarry, of an earth where man has become extinct, but machines continue to maintain and repair infrastructure. One such computer, known as Frost, has a hobby, the study of mankind, which leads to all sorts of complications and an uplifting ending.

Indeed mankind's relationship with machine is a theme which runs throughout; The Stainless Steel Leech, a comic tale, inspired by The Stainless Steel Rat stories of Harry Harrison (or not) also has robots surviving in a world without humanity, and Halfjack, a cyborg, half man, half machine, must make up his mind who or what he is most content to spend time with.

Great stuff.

[Бранимир Събев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Чудесен сборник с разкази на легендата Зелазни, който съм пропуснал и досега само бях чувал за него. Е, грешката е поправена. Издаден е от "Дамян Яков" преди 18 години и е нещо наистина много, много добро, включва творби, които са били най-най първите на американския фантаст. Не ми хареса корицата, а и не знам дали само моята бройка е така, но разказите са отпечатани с доста бледо мастило, налагаше се бая да се кокоря. За сметка на това преди всеки разказ има по няколко реда от самият автор, разправящ нещо интересно за творбата - как се е родила и прочее. Преводът е на Комата, ако някой се интересува да зададе дежурния въпрос "кой е преводача".

И така, какво се крие в този сборник, чието заглавие ме кара да настръхвам от кеф всеки път, щом го изрека на глас?

1. Страстна игра - първият публикуван разказ на Зелазни изобщо. Една чудесна фантастика и учудващо добър първи опит за автомобили, състезания и не само.
2. Конник! - разказ, който много ми напомни "Рицарство" на Геймън от "Дим и огледала". С малката разлика, че конникът тук не е от добрите.
3. Стоманената пиявица - страхотна комбинация между хорър и фантастика! Гробища, вампири и... роботи?
4. Ужасна красота - нелоша история за обсебване и живот в чуждо тяло.
5. Той, Ваятеля - много добра повест, впоследствие разширена в романа на Зелазни "Господарят на сънищата". Хубава история, макар да ми е чудно защо се е налагало да я разширява, напротив, от тази можеше да се поизреже тук и там.
6. И ето, идва силата - добър, ала тъжен разказ, самият автор казва, че го е писал в един от най-черните дни от живота си.
7. Аутодафе - много обичана от автора си творба, напомня първия разказ с разликата, че вместо състезание тук са намесени гладиаторски боеве.
8. И ето, дъх очаквам - един от любимците ми в сборника. На Земята не е останал жив нито един човек, два изкуствени интелекта-суперкомпютри се борят за надмощие с помощта на роботите и машините си... Чудесен, просто чудесен, а финалът е разтърсващ.
9. Машината от центъра „Хартспринг“ - Борк е само отчасти човек - другата му част е от метал... и не само. Но нима киборгите нямат право на любов?
10. Играта на Кръв и Прах - Кръв и Прах постоянно се съревновават и надпреварват, бъркайки в различни времеви участъци, променяйки хода на човешката история. Ала как?
11. Награда няма да има - малко странен разказ, който не харесах особено.
12. Има ли в къщата демон любовник - прекалено къс разказ с лек хорър уклон за Джак Изкормвача.
13. Последният защитник на Камелот - титулната творба, много силна. Един-единствен от рицарите на Кръглата маса е останал жив и скита вече 1000 години по земята, търсейки Граала.
14. Стой и чакай, рубинен камък - лудичък разказ, подозирам че авторът е бил на някаква дрога или халюциноген като го е писал. Едни странни отношения между нечовешка раса, прилични на тези между богомолките.
15. Полуджак - добра творба, подобна на тази под номер 9.
16. Коридорът на огледалата - ех, този разказ е най-най последната история от любимата ми фентъзи поредица: Хрониките на Амбър. Коруин и неговият племенник Люк, сина на брат му Бранд са въвлечени в нещо, меко казано странно. Как ли ще завърши всичко?

Нямам какво повече да кажа - книгата е страхотна, Зелазни е велик, ако намерите: прочетете.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 1 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3822535.html

An entire page has been omitted from the ebook. I repeat, the entire first page of the third story has been omitted. In fact, the last page of the previous story, "For a Breath I Tarry" is missing as well. Other pages are missing throughout the ebook. I don't think that I have ever seen this before, from any other ebook that I have ever read. It is shockingly contemptuous of the author and of the reader. I acquired this over a decade after publication, so there is no excuse for not fixing the problem.

In addition, the very title of the collection shows disrespect to both reader and writer. In Zelazny's lifetime, a largely different collection of stories was published with the same title, in 1980. Each story had an introduction from Zelazny, shedding light on what he was trying to do (and largely succeeding) in each case. There's none of that here, just an introduction from Robert Silverberg saying that Zelazny was a great guy and a great writer.

I never thought that the day would come when I actively disrecommended a book by Zelazny, one of my favourite authors, but that day has in fact come. All of the stories here are great, but all of them are readily available elsewhere, mostly in collections authorised by Zelazny in his lifetimes, and many of them can be found for free online. Shame on ibooks, Inc. for publishing such a crappy effort, and shame on the Zelazny estate for authorising it. I understand that the print edition of this collection was poorly produced and some buyers found that their copies fell apart.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read several of Zelazny's novels in the past, but this is the first of his short fiction that I've read. I thought it was a decent collection, there are a few really good stories in here, but some others aren't all that special.

I think my favourite in the collection was 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai. I think it could have worked even better as an illustrated edition, although I was able to refer to Wikipedia to find out what pictures the main character was looking at. Like many of Zelazny's stories it packed a lot of ideas into a small number of pages and started off very bizarre but made much more sense as it went along (even if some things were left unexplained). I thought For a Breath I Tarry, Permafrost and the title story were good as well, although some of the other stories were a bit more average - a story like Home is the Hangman has some interesting ideas and isn't as dated as a story about A.I. written in the 70s should be, but I found the plot a bit dull.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does include Home is the Hangman which is decent. Some of the others are worth reading as well.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

SF & Fantasy short stories, several of which won awards. As always, he's a great read. The title story is his take on the Arthurian Legend & is, as always, unique. Other stories take fantasy into SF & vice versa in strange ways with a deft touch. He's one of the few authors that was a master of both the novel & short story.

[Alan Broz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short story of the title is among my all-time best-ever stories. I can think of only 2 other shorts that have stayed so well in my mind through my life, and Zelazny wrote one of those as well (Unicorn Variations). It may not sit well with Camelot purists, but to me it's just amazing.

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well what else is there to say than...Roger Zelazny....short stories.Excellent!!

[William Leight · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is basically an odds-and-sods collection of Zelazny. The centerpieces are two novellas that would later be expanded into novels, though Zelazny claims, in introductions to both, that he prefers them in this form (of course, if this wasn’t the case there would be absolutely no reason to publish them). The first is “He-Who-Shapes”, which benefits from a better title than its novel-length successor, “The Dream Master”, as well as the simple, classical, pride-goeth-before-a-fall power of the story of Render, the Shaper. Plus, some of the dream scenes are quite well done. However, the novella is also, for some reason, larded with Render’s musings about the increase in suicides in the future society. Perhaps this is supposed to hint at a death-drive in Render’s own behavior, but mostly it just hangs there and distracts from the story. And the whole thing is permeated with a rather off-putting fear of the power of women. The other novella, “Damnation Alley”, later expanded into a novel of the same name, is not nearly as good: Zelazny writes in his introduction that he wrote it after reading Hunter Thompson’s “Hell’s Angels”, and it bears all the signs of the infatuation with stereotypically brutish masculinity that one runs across occasionally in intellectual types who ought to know better. The main character is literally called Hell, for one thing: luckily, that doesn’t matter, because he’s not a real person, just a literary idealization of a biker outlaw. Zelazny’s post-apocalyptic world isn't real, either: how exactly are Los Angeles and Boston, of all cities, supposed to have survived the nuclear exchange? And the terrain between them is not really a nuclear wasteland but instead filled with video-game hazards (to be fair, some of the hazards are pretty interesting). Also rather video-game like is the appearance of wave after wave of bikers for Hell to mow down at the end, as well as the woman who falls into his arms after he kills, basically, everybody she knows. Unlike in a game, though, there is no struggle to win to distract from the fact that every plot point is utterly predictable, none of the characters are memorable in the least, and the whole thing is just a misguided ode to a certain type of violent machismo. The rest of the stories are mostly pretty short, consisting mainly of an idea plus Zelazny’s style: it’s a decent combination, but the stories don’t leave much of an impression. The only real exception is the title story, which manages to find an interesting and different angle on the Arthurian legend: however, it really needs to be longer, to flesh things out a bit more and make the characters a bit more believable. Zelazny undeniably has style, but too much of this book consists of him failing to really marry that style anything worthwhile.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

People, he decided. That explains everything.

Roger Zelazny spins wildly different short stories in this compilation, which takes its name from one of the strongest of the batch.

Here we find a malfunctioning robot vampire who survives by draining the energy of other models, a driver who has to cross a radioactive and ravaged America to deliver vaccines, a bug creature heading into a macabre ritual, and a knight grown wiser over a centuries-long quest.

Like almost all of Zelazny’s writing I’ve come across, the stories read as relaxed, like he’s smoking on a front porch somewhere spinning up these stories for friends and nailing the dialogue throughout.

A foreword to one of these stories, his first published, speaks to some of the growth that took him there. After placing his first short story, Zelazny reread all his rejected stories and discovered he was over explaining and committed to stopping himself short from then on. The rest I suppose is history!

While not every story is for me - the driving novella was particularly a slog - the overall collection and particularly the story that gives this collection its title make it worth your time. 3.5/5.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, somewhat hit or miss, named for the final entry in the book: The Last Defender of Camelot which feels like a brief or proof of concept for a larger work.

For me the standouts were:

Loki 7281 which almost had a Douglas Adam’s feel - a twilight zone esque premise where Zelazny’s computer has obtained sentience and is working towards its own purposes.

For a Breath I Tarry: a post apocalyptic fable where robotic AIs enact drama with parallels to Christian mythos, and the sort of vibrant wording I expect from Zelazny.

Home is the Hangman: a noirish murder mystery starring a unique robotic AI. I was mostly intrigued by a secondary plot line involving a parallel digital reality which had become more important in most people’s lives than reality - and a few other pretty decent hits of speculative fiction.

[Zec · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a Breath I Tarry, Comes the Power and the titular story were my favourites. Fantastic ideas and the characters are well written enough that they don't get in the way. There is a certain crassness to some of the characters, especially Hell Tanner from Damnation Alley, but many of the stories end in surprisingly heart-warming ways. After reading Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison you sometimes forget that great sci-fi stories can have happy endings too. Don't know if I'd read this collection again but definitely will revisit the ones that stuck with me.

[Christian Farwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was my first book by Zelazny, despite reading SF since forever. Weird, since he is a household name. The collection has been a pleasant surprise. sitting between hard SF and Fantasy, giving a bit of both. The prose was excellent, the ideas and plots great and sometimes surprising: It was good entertainment.

"Come back to the killing ground" was the weakest of the stories, I did not buy the stories device (although the story had a great ending). The titular "Last defender" the one that touched me the most, gripping and fast paced.

[Timothy]

(8/11 read)

11 stories:

**** Comes Now the Power (1966)
***** For a Breath I Tarry (1966)
**** The Engine at Heartspring's Center (1974)
**** Halfjack (1979)
**** Home is the Hangman (1975)
**** Permafrost (1986)
***** LOKI 7281 (1984)
Mana from Heaven (1983)
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985)
Come Back to the Killing Ground, Alice, My Love (1992)
**** The Last Defender of Camelot (1979)

[David Harriss · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Great Challenge

Zelazny is never an easy read, but his work is always worth the effort.
His short fiction exemplifies that, taking half the tale to figure what is happening before burying the reader in a powerful tale that lasts for years.

Read it.

[Will Macmillan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, scintillating, tantalising

zelazny is best known for some spectacular novels (Lord of light in particular) but his breadth of imagination superlative prose make his collections of short stories a must read for any fan of speculative fiction

[Zach de Walsingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of fantasy & science fiction short stories by Roger Zelazny, who was one of the cited literary influences on Gary Gygax and the original Dungeons and Dragons.

I really enjoyed his writing style and am interested in reading some of his longer novels.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good tight short stories. Title story is a struggle between Lancelot, Merlin and Morgana regarding interfering in human fate. Does make you think who are the good guys and who are the bad and maybe no one is really bad.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of short stories!!!

[Lee Jenkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A feast for those who love word play

Zelazny is an artist with words. The visions he evokes with his stories are not easily forgotten. A treat to read.

[Darren Merson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly disappointing.

[Joanne Smith]

nice change. love this kind of book with short stories.

[Mark Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started out strong but then the second half of the book was pretty meh. I would just read the first two or three stories which are excellent and skip the rest.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is mostly just fine. There's not a ton that I think will stick with me. I do wonder a bit whether The Game of Blood and Dust influenced This is How You Lose the Time War at all.

[Deepti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just for Stainless steel leech, He who shapes, For a breath I tarry.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zelazny is one of the great acknowledged masters of fantasy, and a rather large gap in my coverage of the field. I thought a short story collection might make a good starting point. I have somewhat mixed feelings on these, I'm afraid. While I find Zelazny's prose to be quite poetic, I also frequently found it to be a little too purple, to the point of needlessly obscuring his plots. I also had trouble liking most of his characters, which is less of a problem in short stories, but still a problem.

In "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai", a mysterious woman goes on a pilgrimage to see the various viewpoints of a classic set of Japanese prints, while her initially confusing paranoia becomes increasingly justified. Here, the poetic refusal to give all the relevant details serves the story well, creating a minimalist mood while slowly increasing the tension to come to a surprisingly satisfying ending. But in "Home is the Hangman", where a space probe comes back to haunt its creators, the overabundance of unused worldbuilding makes the ending a confusing letdown--far more is hinted at than finally provided. "Come Back to the Killing Ground, Alice, My Love" and "Permafrost" also promise more than they deliver.

"For a Breath I Tarry", a post-apocalyptic Paradise Lost, and "Mana from Heaven", about sorcerors from Atlantis, did not age well at all. I'm willing to grant that when written, they may have been ground-breaking. Now, there are far too many similar stories out there, and these are not clever enough to be particularly interesting.

I think it's the most simply written stories that I appreciated the most. "The Last Defender of Camelot" is a straightforward modern Arthurian legend. "LOKI 7281" is a puff humor piece, but still quite amusing. And "Comes Now the Power" is incredibly bleak, but far more moving that the more flowery "Hangman" or "Alice". None are particularly original, but each are remarkably well-executed.

Sometimes authors are far more experimental in their short fiction than in longer forms, so it's difficult to evaluate whether or not the novels will be enjoyable if you were not crazy about the short stories. Here, I am left impressed by Zelazny's pyrotechnics, but not quite sure if I want to spend a novel-length worth of time in one of his characters' heads.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished re-reading this awesome book. Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite all time authors. This contains some great short stories dating from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s.
"The Stainless Steel Leech" is the humorous story about a "werebot," a vampiric type robot that feeds off the energy of other robots in a post apocalyptic world.
"Auto Da Fe" is of course a play on words with the Inquisition's title for "Act of Faith" or the public penance of a condemned heretic usually by burning at the stake. In this case, Zelazny uses it to describe the great "El Mechador" who is basically a matador who battles automobiles in the ring instead of bulls. It was first published in Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions".
"He Who Shapes" won the Nebula Award the first year they began in the story was later expanded to the novel "The Dream Master" although this short story is better. It has concepts in it that have been since used in many other stories including Philip K Dick's story that the movie "Total Recall" was based on as well as the hit movie "Inception". It's the story of a Psychiatrist who enters a patient's sub-concious dream state to aid them in with their psychiatric recovery. He is brilliant man with a fatal flaw.
"Damnation Alley" was the basis for the later novel and the great 20th Century Fox blockbuster science fiction epic movie of 1977. Oh, you don't remember it? That's because it was a total bomb starring Jan Michael Vincent and George Peppard. Another movie released that year by the same studio is the science fiction blockbuster that made history... called "Star Wars". I read somewhere that the studio was surprised by that one. The DVD for the movie "Damnation Alley" just became available and it is just as bad as I remember. The short story included in this collection was awesome though. Great action adventure story. Zelazny had just finished reading "Hell's Angels" when he wrote this so the protagonist rides a motorcycle through key parts of the story.
Other great stories are "For a Breath I Tarry" and of course "The Last Defender of Camelot" which is a continuation of the Arthurian story in present day setting up a final battle between Lancelot, Morgan Le Fay, Merlin, and a ghostly "suit of armor" powered by Merlin's magic.

[J]

The 2002 ibooks version of this was included in the "Humble Book Bundle: Sci-fi Classics". The ibooks version (same as the kindle version) is very different than the original. The 1980 version includes author introductions. The two versions also have a different list of stories..

Most importantly, the 2002 ibooks version is missing text. For example, the short story "Engine At Heartspring's Center" is missing the first 250 or so characters. The text in this edition starts with the sentence fragment "week at most—in their migrations". This actual story starts with "Let me tell you of the creature called the Bork." The ibooks version, obviously, has no recollection.

Avoid the 2002 ibooks version.