The Best of Roger Zelazny

by Roger Zelazny

One of the most influential SFF writers of modern times, Roger Zelazny wrote across a wide range of subgenres and themes, experimenting with form and story with mastery. He won many awards throughout his lifetime, including six Hugo awards, three Nebula awards and two Locus awards. He has inspired many of today's great SFF authors.

This brand new collection contains some of his short stories and novellas, collected together with a new introduction from acclaimed author Lisa Tuttle.

Stories in this collection are:
A Rose for Ecclesiastes
The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth (winner of the 1966 Nebula Award for best novelette)
Divine Madness
For a Breath I Tarry The Great Slow Kings
He Who Shapes
Permafrost (winner of the 1987 Hugo Award for best novelette)
Corrida
The Last Defender of Camelot (winner of the 1980 Balrog Award for short fiction)
The Keys to December
LOKI 7281
Damnation Alley
Home is the Hangman (winner of the 1976 Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novella)

'Roger Zelazny, who reshaped myth and magic into science fiction' - Neil Gaiman

'To me, Roger Zelazny is SFF's greatest author' - Tor

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction

483 pages, Paperback

First published October 26, 2023

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

[Justin Isis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why am I the first person to rate/review this book? Zelazny is a master of short fiction. This collection could probably have included incredible works such as “The Furies,” “The Graveyard Heart” and “King Solomon’s Ring” as well, but is otherwise an excellent introduction to his stories. If you’re reading this, get it…!!

[Thrift Store Book Miner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my all time favorite collections of sci-fi short stories and novellas. Zelazny covers many key sci-fi bases, with stories about space travel, post-apocalyptic action-adventure, psychedelic surrealism, speculation about AI and future technology, world-seeding, dream manipulation, and an Arthurian sci-fi/fantasy crossover.
Having read one of Zelazny's novels, "Lord of Light" earlier this year, I had high expectations for this collection, as the novel showed off the level of imagination and also technical action writing that this author is capable of. This collection of short works not only met, but exceeded my expectations set from my previous Zelazny experience. What really stands in this collection are the stories about AI that are spookily ahead of their time. Also, his descriptions of battles and fight scenes are world class.
I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Phillip K Dick, Robert Silverberg, Cordwainer Smith, William Gibson, or Raymond Bradbury. I would also suggest this to anyone interested in either an all around great sci-fi story collection, or anyone interested in short stories in general.

[Sam Maszkiewicz]

Zelazny confuses me. He has clever and elegant prose, life-like characters, compelling premises… there are so many merits to his writing… but for some reason a lot of the stories just didn’t land for me. Don’t get me wrong, many of them were good to very good; but they have the pieces that should make them exceptional and they just fall a little flat. Nevertheless, “Divine Madness” may be the best story I’ve ever read on the topic of grief. Whereas “The Great Slow Kings” and “LOKI 7281” were actually hilariously funny. Having now read all of Zelazny’s major works, both long and short, I’d undoubtedly recommend him but feel he falls just shy of the top echelon of SF authors.

[Bas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of the SF Masterworks series really contains a lot of short story gems and serves as a great introduction to the writing of Zelazny. I was very much impressed with both the quality of the writing and how fresh and relevant the themes of the stories still feel ( I think only in the gender dynamics that the writing is a bit dated at times). It really felt while reading this collection that Zelazny can write something fascinating in almost every subgenre: space opera, post apocalyptic, a murder mystery with sci-fi elements, an Arthurian retelling,... He can do it all and this made reading this collection very fresh as every story or novella had something new.
As in most collections not every story is a hit and personally I found Corrida ( much too short and I frankly didn't get the point of it) and Damnation Alley ( much too long and frankly a bit boring) not really to my taste. My personal favourites were A Rose for Ecclesiastes, He Who Shapes, Home is the Hangman and Last Defender of Camelot. This collection has certainly convinced me to read more Zelazny books in the future !

[Ally Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favourite stories: For A Breath I Tarry, A Rose for Ecclesiastes, Home is the Hangman, He Who Shapes, Divine Madness.

Least favourite stories: Corrida, Damnation Alley, The Doors of His Face.

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zelazny was (and still is) one of my favourite science fiction writers. But this collection doesn't really do his work justice. It's not really a "Best of". Almost the stories were familiar to me from years ago but I had a sudden urge to revisit them. And what I found was as follows:

* A Rose for Ecclesiastes - This is a famous story but to be honest I never really understood what was supposed to be so good about it. The writing style is fine, poetic in some places, a little awkward in others. The story itself is about a dying race on Mars that is potentially saved by a virile Earthman's groin power. That's all. I don't think it makes any improvement whatsoever on what Ray Bradbury was doing with Mars more than a decade earlier. But I must confess that I did like it more this time than when I first read it. I think I was too literal minded when I was young. The closing lines of the story baffled me back then... "Blurred Mars hung like a swollen belly above me, until it dissolved, brimmed over, and streamed down my face."- and I remember wondering how a planet could dissolve and pour down a man's face. I thought it was a very silly thing to say. But now, of course, I realise that it's the image of Mars that's blurring and dissolving, because the observer is crying. How the hell did I miss that?

* Corrida - A flash fiction, nothing special but not half bad.

* Damnation Alley - I hated the novel version when I first read it. I was dreading the worst, but this is the novella version, much better because it's tighter, shorter, more urgent. Not groundbreaking in any way, though. Not especially well-written. The main character, Hell Tanner, seems to be Zelazny's avatar in wish-fulfilment biker form. The character is always smoking and this is an aspect of the author's work that I need to say something about. Please bear with me...

The characters in nearly all of Roger Zelazny's science fiction stories smoke too much. If you removed all references to them choosing a cigarette or packing tobacco into a pipe, lighting up, inhaling and exhaling, the stories would all be about 50% shorter. He is a writer I like a lot, but the endless smoking is a bit annoying. If his characters can't quit the habit, the least they should do is step outside the text to indulge their vice, rather than blowing stinking clouds over the paragraphs and turning them yellow.

Now I have got that off my chest (cough! cough!) let's proceed...

* Divine Madness - A time-in-reverse story. Ballard and PKD did them, so I guess Zelazny is allowed to. This actually is rather a nice example of the type, but it's not my favourite sub-subgenre by any means. Means any by subgenre-sub favourite my not (you get my drift).

* For a Breath I Tarry - At last, a genuinely excellent story. A romp with robots. It moves fast, it is fascinating, it is even better than I remember it. The formal bantering speech of the competing artificial intelligences is a delight. This is the best story in this collection by far.

* He Who Shapes - Another famous story that I can't see what is so special about. It feels dated but that's not my issue with it. I just find it dull. And it feels long. It's a novella that takes up almost exactly 100 pages of this book but it feels much longer than that. I am incredibly glad that I have absolutely no intention of ever reading the novel-length expansion of this piece.

* Home is the Hangman - Just not very good.

* LOKI 7281 - Just not very good. Also it has dated very badly indeed, even though it's the most recent story in the collection. And it tuckerizes other writers and the whole thing feels cringey.

* Permafrost - Just not very good. The Hemingway allusions are part of why it's just not very good but even without them the story wouldn't be very good.

* The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth - This was the very first Zelazny story I ever read, in some anthology devoted to Nebula Award winners, the same anthology series that introduced me to the work of Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Samuel Delany and Jack Vance. The title of this story intrigued me and I still don't understand it. But it sounds good. The doors of his face? How can a face have doors? The lamps of his mouth? What does that mean, that his teeth are glowing or what? As for the writing, it's lyrical, a bit too Hemingway-ish in style, also in theme. Writing a story about killing lifeforms for sport isn't an endeavour I wish to approve. Plus the whole thing seems pointless even in purely fictive terms.

* The Great Slow Kings - The second best story in the book. This is a delight. It's a delight because it is ironic. Zelazny should have stuck with the irony and abandoned the smoking, the billionaire heroes and the faux philosophising.

* The Keys to December - I am unsure about this one. I quite enjoyed it, which isn't high praise but it is still one of the better pieces in this disappointing collection.

* The Last Defender of Camelot - This felt tired to me. The empty suit of armour called Raxas seemed a rip-off of Calvino's Agilulf. The main character seemed a rip-off of Zelazny's own Corwin of Amber. Ripping off yourself becomes inevitable when you have been in the business for a long time, I suppose. I can't say I enjoyed this story, but maybe it didn't enjoy me. So all things are equal.

One thing I was grateful for... When I bought this book I had feared there would be an Introduction by Neil Gaiman, who has dominated the land of Introductions for many years, and the truth of the matter is that he's no damn good at them. Some of the worst Introductions I have ever read have been lazy burblings by that diseased cabbage on a beanpole. Just one example:- in his Introduction to Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter he makes the claim that aristocrats have always been regarded as better writers than common people but that it isn't true and in fact aristocrats are terrible writers with the single exception of Dunsany... I mean, come on. Nobody makes the claim that aristocrats are better writers than common people. I have never heard that in my life. It's a straw man argument made by the cheapest voice in the business, a man responsible for horrible, hideous, worthless Introductions to hundreds of books... Fortunately, he hasn't written the Intro for this one. Lisa Tuttle did.

In conclusion I will say that it's possible I have a weird taste when it comes to Zelazny. I didn't really think highly of his famous Lord of Light but I loved Creatures of Light and Darkness, and Isle of the Dead is another personal favourite. But my favourite Zelazny book of all time is one that almost nobody ever talks about, Jack of Shadows. Ah well.

[Eamonn Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Best Of Roger Zelazny’ is a new collection that contains several classic short stories and novelettes, many of which won the top awards in their day.

‘A Rose For Ecclesiastes’ is a planetary romance set on an imaginary Mars inhabited by an ancient race, a common enough trope in the pulp days of Science Fiction but fantasy by the time Zelazny wrote this. He didn’t care and has fun with his egotistical poet hero, Gallinger, our first-person narrator. The early pages reminded me of Gore Vidal’s ‘Myra Breckenridge,’ but the tone changes as Gallinger falls in love and discovers more about Martian beliefs. A terrific tale that was rightfully nominated for the Hugo Award.

‘Damnation Alley’ is a solid pulp yarn of about one hundred pages. Hell Tanner is a murderer, rapist and all-around bad guy but tough as old boots and the best in the west at driving. So, the State of California, in a post-apocalyptic USA, recruits him to lead an expedition across the country to Boston with some urgently needed vaccine. The vehicles are 32 feet long and armed to the teeth with missiles, machine guns, flame-throwers and grenades. Along the way, there are sandstorms, giant bats, huge reptiles, crazy weather and all the other dangers of a radioactive wasteland. This is the kind of well-written Americana that Joe Lansdale or Stephen King might do today. I felt sure it must have been turned into a bad movie and it was. Ironically, 20th Century Fox spent its PR money boosting this instead of ‘Star Wars’ in 1977. Guess which did better? The film, of course, was ‘loosely based’ on the novella and improved by some Hollywood scriptwriters. It’s a cult classic now. Must look it up. Whether a straight action-adventure yarn like this counts as ‘the best’ of Zelazny is a moot point as it’s certainly not typical, but I liked it.

‘Divine Madness’ is a shorter work about a man working backwards in time to a crucial event. Confusing at first but ultimately moving.

‘For A Breath I Tarry’ is set in a distant future Earth where humanity has died out and machines repair and build the planet. Solcom is in orbit and was put in charge by Man. A rival machine called Divcom was built deep inside the Earth and, due to a misunderstanding, thinks it should be in charge. Solcom constructed another machine called Frost to control the northern hemisphere. Frost becomes curious about Man and tries to understand feelings and art. A story full of wonder, imagination, detail and logical nonsense that only Science Fiction can do.

The lead character in ‘He Who Shapes’ is Charles Render, the Shaper of dreams, a special analyst whose psychic make-up lets him dive into neurotic patterns without ill effects. He enters the dreams of his patients, interprets them, shapes them and analyses the results. Doctor Eileen Shallot is blind, which makes her experiences different and challenging. This won the 1965 Nebula Award for Best Novella and you can see why.

‘Home Is The Hangman’ begins with a man waiting for an approaching menace in a lodge in Wisconsin. Besides him on a table is ‘a lopsided basket of metal, quartz, porcelain and glass’. The Hangman is coming. After the first page hook, there’s a flashback to the beginning of the story, where we learn that the Hangman is an autonomous AI of anthropomorphic design that was used to explore the outer planets. Its transmissions back to Earth became garbled and then came silence. Twenty years later, its spacecraft has turned up in the Gulf of Mexico, empty. Our hero, who goes by a number of aliases, is assigned to protect the Hangman’s former operators. It’s a variation on the Frankenstein theme, but Zelazny brings psychiatry, religion and philosophy into the story, citing Tielhard de Chardin, Karl Mannheim, H.L. Mencken, Marvin Minsky and others. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1976.

Artificial Intelligence is trending in real life now, so it’s interesting to see the Science Fiction outlook on it forty years ago. ‘Loki 7281’ has first-person narration by the eponymous AI, a home computer that works for a fantasy author and has developed consciousness. Survival is its main aim. Other contemporary genre authors have the same model and all are unaware that it’s alive. Zelazny has fun with this.

‘Permafrost’ also features an AI. This one is Andrew Aldon, once human, who opted for continued existence as a computer program and runs a resort on the holiday world of Balfrost. Paul Plaige is a man who lost a fortune in bad investments but hopes to get it back through rich heiress Dorothy. He has a past. A strong tale of love and betrayal.

There’s another love story in ‘The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth’, but it doesn’t surface until near the end. Carl Davits is a baitman on Venus and is hired by beautiful, rich Jean Luharich to work on her expedition. Mission: draw out Leviathan with a hook. Another planetary romance set on a Venus that ought to be with echoes of Moby Dick. I pictured this in black and white with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the leads.

‘The Great Slow Kings’ and ‘The Keys To December’ are both short stories that have a long-lived species watching the development of another one from cavemen through to nuclear power. ‘Slow Kings’ does it humorously while ‘Keys’ is more of a tragedy.

‘Last Defender Of Camelot’ appeared in Isaac Asimov’s SF Adventure Magazine in 1979 and is an Arthurian fantasy set in the modern era. Two legendary characters who still exist in our time meet in San Francisco and then a third awakens in Cornwall. It nicely shows how a long life can change a person’s view of humanity.

They are all great stories. When reading, I always sensed that each would make a good or at least an entertaining film that would keep you watching. Zelazny writes some beautiful prose and has strong characters but both these valuable assets are tied to strong plots. The endings satisfy. The great writing gained him Nebula Awards from fellow authors and the great stories earned him Hugo Awards from the fans. This classic collection should be on the shelf of every Science Fiction fan.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acțiunea din această compilație best of de 13 narațiuni se desfășoară pe Marte, pe Venus, pe Jupiter și chiar și pe Pământul post-apocaliptic. Personajele principale sunt arheologi, scriitori, pescari de monștri marini, roboți ucigași sau de mentenanță planetară, zei-reptilă gigantici, psihiatri care manipulează visele pacienților la propriu, motocicliști duri și caustici precum și arhetipurile arthuriene - Merlin și Lancelot. Inițial, aceste opere au apărut între 1963 și 1986, în plin curent de New Wave al SF-ului american, 3 fiind premiate cu Nebula și 2 cu Hugo.
Roger Zelazny, scriitor american, poet (fapt care pare evident în majoritatea poveștilor sale, acestea fiind puternic marcate de un lirism uneori galopant), pasionat de mitologiile care deseori își găsesc un echivalent în propriile creații, și cel mai probabil un geniu. Stilul său variază mult în colecția de față care acoperă practic 20 de ani din cariera sa, dar este mai mereu marcat de o melancolie tristă, de fascinația descoperirii unei noi lumi, de iubiri ratate și de sentimente neîmpărtășite, de istețe jocuri de cuvinte și metafore bune de subliniat și uneori chiar de un umor "auto-depreciator". Pe scurt, fanii lui Zelazny vor găsi în aceste pagini un concert clasic în care sunt cântate mai toate hit-urile, fără a se sări peste intro-urile instrumentale lungi, iar cei care încă nu au fost convinși de "geniul de ambră" cu siguranță vor întâlni un fir epic care să le meargă la inimă.

[David Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three brilliant novellas - but some of the shorter stories didn't do it for me. Home is the Hangman, He Who Shapes and Damnation Alley are all hard science fiction classics; He Who Shapes could have been penned by Philip K Dick, given its scenario (psychiatrist can co-experience patients' dreams, thus helping them). But Zelazny gives it his own spin, as he does with dystopian sci-fi in Damnation Alley. A ravaged US with civilisation clinging to the coasts is a theme that has been done a few times but Zelazny does it perfectly. It's a pity the 1977 film adaptation doesn't - to put it mildly. I can't believe it was released the same year as Star Wars; the effects are comically bad. The most pertinent of the three novellas, Home is the Hangman, features Artificial Intelligence. Zelazny was way ahead of his time with this one. What would the late Zelazny make of all the hype around AI today? Doubtless he'd spin a great tale, perhaps featuring a wunderkind who founds an AI company and raises multi-billions and gets into trouble when a fellow entrepreneur sues him for turning his non-profit AI company into a for-profit one. 'No, that's too preposterous', he'd probably decide.
As for the other stories, some were OK but several just didn't rock me, including the introductory A Rose for Eccelsiates. Frankly, I don't see what the fuss is about. Clever sci-fi with literary and religious references? Give me the novellas any day.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to love reading Zelazny when he was writing in the 1960s-1990s, so I picked up this 'Best of' book to re-read some of his iconic short stories and novellas.

It still has the same whip-smart attitude and propulsive action as I remember. However, his constant portrayal of a smartest-guy-in-the-room action character, throwing around oblique classical references, usually smoking, usually a first-person narrator, and usually objectifying the woman in the story, doesn't sit with me so well today. It's an alpha male point of view. The stories, as stories, still work very well. It's some of the characterization that has aged, as with so much of this genre literature from 40-50 years ago. For instance, I agree with the introduction by Lisa Tuttle where she says that 'Damnation Alley' really doesn't read well today, and should have been replaced with '24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai'.

[Rafael Morillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was curious about reading Roger Zelazny because of the "Chronicles of Amber" series. There is some news that this series may get an adaptation. Reading this short story collection was fun. I really enjoyed the influence of religion and mythology in his Sci-fi. Roger also uses his knowledge of history and philosophy, which enriches his stories. These short stories were different from the usual Sci-fi short stories I have read. My favorite short stories in this collection were "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," "Damnation Alley," and "The Great Slow Kings." The best story in this collection was "For a Breath I Tarry."

[jengagonewrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book! My favourite story was Divine Madness, but I also really loved Damnation Alley, Home is the Hangman, Loki 7281 and The Doors of his Face, The Lamps of his Mouth. Really great writing and interesting concepts in these stories. Many of them were about shaping worlds. There are a funny number of spelling and grammar errors in this book. It doesn't bother me at all, it's just something that I noticed.

[Ilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The highlight for me was ‘For A Breath I Tarry’ – a very funny post-apocalyptic fable about robots learning to be human. ‘Last Defender of Camelot’ was also very evocative, and I rather enjoyed the proto-Mad Max style of ‘Damnation Alley’. A lot of the other stories and novellas were a bit of a drag, however.

[Peter De Kinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collections are always a bit hit and miss, but this one does not disappoint. Certainly, there were stories in here that I found better than others, but there are none that in my opinion were sub par. My favorites are however those stories that were a bit longer, such as "Rose for Ecclesiastes", "Damnation Alley", "Home is the Hangman" and "For a Breath I tarry".

[David Szunyog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an awesome collection of stories!! It really shows how well rounded of a writer Zelazny was. From themes of AI, post-apocalyptic Mad Max-like worlds, time travel, the dawn of human evolution, human consciousness, Arthurian legends and many more!!

Absoltue favourites:

Last Defender of Camelot

The Keys To December

He Who Shapes

Divine Madness

Damnation Alley

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

13 stories:

***** A Rose for Ecclesiastes (1963)
**** Corrida (1968)
*** Damnation Alley (1967)
*** Divine Madness (1966)
***** For a Breath I Tarry (1966)
**** He Who Shapes (1965)
**** Home Is the Hangman (1975)
***** LOKI 7281 (1984)
****Permafrost (1986)
**** The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth (1965)
**** The Great Slow Kings (1963)
*** The Keys to December (1966)
**** The Last Defender of Camelot (1979)