Conference noted::sf

    Yes, both of them have been writing faithfully.  After the five
    books of the Mallorean, Eddings has written two more, a new series
    which picks up where the other left off.  The first is called
    "Guardians of the West", which just came out in paperback.  The
    second one, the name of which escapes me although I just bought
    it last week, has just come out in hardback.
    
    I believe there are two new Zelazny Amber books out as well.  One
    of them is "Blood of Amber."  Again, I don't remember what the other
    is called (if it even exists!).
    
    Kim
    (who uses her TARDIS for her books)
    

    	For more on Eddings see SF Topic 7, and for more on Zelazny
    see Topics 97, 195, 385, 417, and 575.
    
    	For future reference, use the DIR/TITLE=topicname command to
    first look for a subject yourself.  There are some basic VAX Notes
    Commands and Rules in Notes 1.50-.53 to help you (and other new
    Noters) out in this Conference.
    
    	Larry
    

    I just finished reading "This Immortal" by Roger Zelazny. Quite
    interesting.  Its main character is a greek who has been on earth
    for a large number of years.  I was wondering if there are other
    books where he has used this character?

    Yes and no.  I know of no other books where he uses exactly that
    character, but a lot of Zelazny's heroes are very, very similar.
    Almost any novel of his in the first person features a narrator
    like Conrad, and a large proportion of them are very long-lived
    for one reason or another.  They all have an attitude of wry, worldly-
    wise, reluctant virtue, with poetic streaks they are shy of showing.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    "This Immortal" (aka "...and Call Me Conrad") is hardly new; it
    won a major SF Award for best novel at least twenty years ago.
    
    (Sorry, I don't have Jerry's encyclopedic memory - I can only
     approximate the date, and I can't remember if it won the Hugo
     or the Nebula.)             
    
    					andrew

    re:.6
    
    You may not have my encyclopedic memory, Andrew, but you *do*
    have my book listing Hugo and Nebula nominees and winners. :-)
    
    It won the Hugo, tying with DUNE (which was the sole winner of
    the Nebula that time around).
    
    --- jerry

    
    	Is "THIS IMMORTAL" available?
    
    	I've never seen it.
    
    						Mauricio
    

    reply .8
    
     At bookstores everywhere, (at least the ones that stock SF).
    

    That's a very compact review.  Could you expand just a little?   Is 
    "A Dark Travelling" a new part of the second Amber series, or an
    anthology, or a separate novel, or what?  Thanks.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

re: .41
>                                                           I read one
> book about Amber, and  wasn't impressed enough to read anything else
> by Zelazny.

Don't judge Zelazny by the 'Amber' series.  I, too, was disappointed by the
first Amber book - so much so that I didn't read any more of them.
Fortunately, that was after I had read _Lord of Light_ and _Creatures of Light
and Darkness_, which were both GREAT.  _Lord of Light_ won a Hugo for
Zelazny.  Good stuff, especially if you're into Fantasy or SF/Fantasy hybrids.

Jim

                Re: .43
                
                Blasphemy!!!!!
                
                :')
                
                TOo each  their  own.  I have never read anything
                better than the COA ...
                
                

    
    	Also try _Jack of Shadow's_ by Zelazny....quite good.
    
    Charlie
    
    ps I as well yell BLASPHEME  :-) teho
    
    

                Jack of  Shadows  was  also  great!  I have never
                seen such a  short  book  written  so well.  Most
                books like that I  find  lacking  in  details and
                events.  Not JOS!   It's  well  worth  taking  an
                afternoon to read.
                
                

Well, the new Zelazny book has surfaced.

title:  Knight of Shadows
price:  14.95
isbn:   0-688-08726-4

oh, yes... where...

Pheasant Lane Mall  Nashua NH USA
Lauriats.  As of tonight they
had 4 copies left.  They were on the book cart in the SF
section (not on the shelf).
Booksmiths also had some (two whole copies).  Both of those have been
sold.  So, off to do some
reading.

-Joe

    Re .55
    
    Is "Knight of Shadows" the latest installment of the latest Amber
    series?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Yes, "Knight of Shadows" is the new Merlin/Amber book.
    
    It's also out at the Book Corner in Westboro.
    
    Me, I'm going to wait for the paperback.  I just can't make myself pay
    ~$15 for a short book.  Also, for some reason this series hasn't
    grabbed me as much as the Corwin books.  I keep wanting to shake Merlin 
    and say, "Look!  This is *obvious*!"   :-)
    
      Scott

    re .56:
    
    "Knight of Shadows" is an interesting title given the much older
    Zelazny book, "Jack of Shadows" (is this what you were thinking of
    Earl?). I can  imagine ten years from now someone picking up KoS
    thinking it's the sequal to JoS and being thrust into the latter
    portion of a relatively long series. I wonder if that was the intent?
    (I doubt it since JoS, to me, seems like one of the more obscure 
    Zelazny's)
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    Re .58
    
    No, I had forgotten "Jack of Shadows."  I connected "shadows" in KoS
    with the "shadows" used in the other Amber novels.  It would be like
    Zelazny, though, to try working "Jack of Shadows" into the Amber
    series.  He likes sly allusions, and once had Corwin encounter a
    fantasist named "Roger" down in the dungeons of Amber's castle.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    The Eddings replies have been moved to topic 640.  It was an arbitrary
    choice to move the Eddings replies, especially since they outnumber the
    Zelazny replies.  I apologize to all the other Eddings fans for any
    inconvenience caused.  I don't know if this affects any markers you may
    have set.  Please check if you have any.
    
    I would like to thank the moderators for letting me do this split of
    the topic.
    
    --Simon
    

    An abysmal collaboration that dares to compare itself to "Lord of 
    Light" on the cover.  Zelazny is given top billing over one 
    Thomas T. Thomas, but there's hardly a trace of his style in the book.
    The story switches between a white magician who lived during the 
    Crusades in Palestine, and a piano-player who is being chased by 
    mysterious assassins.  The magician is given various inconsistent 
    powers by a gem called Loki's Stone, and is opposed by Hasan 
    al-Sabah, founder of the sect of the Assassins.  The 
    piano-player, of course, is a modern incarnation of the magician.
    Hasan keeps killing him through the ages, but a new one is always born.
    The plot is incoherent and the style clumsy.  
    Zelazny should be embarrassed.
    
    /jlr

    I was at Barnes&Noble in Nashua, NH a week ago and saw a book called
    _Throne_of_Darkness_ on the racks by Saberhagen and Zalazny--the blurb
    on the back was fairly cryptic, so I have no idea what this is
    about---has anyone read it?
    
    _Randy

    If it's the book I think it is, it's about a man from our world who
    is moved to a parallel world by the psychic power of his true love,
    who, unfortunately, is under the control of the Bad Guys.  Also, it
    turns out that our hero is the parallel of Edgar Allen Poe, who was
    really from this parallel world but is now exiled to our world.
    
    In short, our hero has numerous adventures trying to save his lady fair
    in a parallel 19th century where all Poe's stories are true at once.
    It was a fun read, especially if you've read some Poe first.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Thanks for the quicky review Earl--it sounds like fun so I decided to go 
    for it--maybe 'the black throne' is in the House of Usher...or even
    worse places.  Btw, I was skimming it in the store and at the end of a
    chapter I saw that 'something' was calling out Tekeliki-Tekeliki (not
    sure I spelled it right) ---I thought that phrase was a Lovecraft 
    invention for his shoggoths and old ones--did HPL steal it from Poe,
    or is HP Lovecraft mixed up in this as well (Hmm, might have to put
    this on the top of my 'to-read' pile...)
    
    -randy 
    

E-teli-keli (or similar spelling) appears in Cordwainer Smith's "The Ballad of
Lost C'mel".

\dave

re: .64

I thought that the "tekeli-li" cry came from the (ant?)arctic birds
in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym", which i guess
you could call a short novel.  Very intriguing read.
								- paul

    .66 has it--I checked the Lovecraft book I was thinking of (At the
    Mountains of Madness), and sure enough, Lovecraft identifies the sound
    his characters are hearing as the sound heard by Arthur Gordon Pym as
    chronicled by Poe.
    
    There, that should fill that rathole...
    
    -Randy

Article: 529
From: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca (Humphrey Aaron V)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: Prograde Reviews--Roger Zelazny & Thomas T. Thomas:Flare
Date: 18 Mar 94 02:22:01 GMT
 
Roger Zelazny & Thomas T. Thomas:Flare  [some spoilers]
 
_Flare_ is, essentially, a disaster novel.  Big solar flare happens,
disrupts lots of stuff on Earth.  The catch, in this case, is that
it's 2081, and the sun has been quiescent for 80 years.  No sunspots,
no flares.  People have forgotten how dangerous solar flares are, for
the most part; radiation shielding for the settlements off Earth is
considered an 'extra'. 
 
One scientist, the _only_ current sun scientist, is manning a
Mercury-orbit space station to observe the sun.  He _happens_ to see a
huge sunspot pair start up, and the flare start out. 
 
The book is very fragmented.  The closest we have to a plot involves
the scientist, and his grad student on Earth who's trying to convince
anyone that there's danger.  But most of the book focuses on specific
incidents related to the flare--the Moonwalkers who get a big
radiation dose and a bunch of static on their headphones, the ship
carrying trillions of tons of methane from Titan, the millions of
people using VR headsets who get fried (including a fair chunk of
people in the stock market)...  All of the individual vignettes are
interesting, but together they don't make a coherent plot. 
 
The writing is great; it's not Zelazny style as I know it, so Thomas
must have some nontrivial share of it, as well as apparently supplying
the impeccable scientific knowledge behind the book.  I enjoyed
reading it.  But it has no plot. 
 
Also, as a disaster novel, it has a more-than-usual share of the
cautionary tale in it.  It depicts graphically the hazards of
cost-cutting, and of relying too much on technology without a less
sophisticated, but more reliable, backup.  For instance, planes of
2081 have consoles accessible only via VR; after the flare, one pilot
ends up having to look out the _window_ to try to see the ground,
while the other responds to her spoken directions, wearing VR goggles
to operate the instruments.  There's also a jibe about the
administration who won't listen to the doomsaying scientist who
happens to be right... 
 
If you like hard SF and Analog-type stuff, you'll like the book.  In
that way, it's more Thomas than Zelazny... 
 
%A Zelazny, Roger
%A Thomas, Thomas T.
%T Flare
%I Baen
%C Riverdale, NY
%D September 1992
%G ISBN 0-671-72133-X
%P 344 pp.
%O Paperback, US $4.99, Can $5.99
 
--
--Alfvaen(Editor of Communique)
Current Album--Yello:One Second
Current Read--Charles de Lint:Spiritwalk
"curious george swung down the gorge/the ants took him apart"  --billbill

    
    sigh...  zelazny *USED* to be my favorite author by far.  unfortunately
    it seems all he's been able to come out with (or have someone else come
    out with with his name on it) is shite.  i'm really wondering if
    there's any hope of him coming out with something as well written as
    the old amber stuff, jack of shadows and lord of light....
    

    
    I read a new Zelazny opus called "A Night In The Lonesome October" and
    enjoyed it very much. It's hard to characterize it ... perhaps a bit
    more like "pure" occult as opposed to the alternate universe approach
    of Amber.
    
    The Cast includes The Great Detective and assistant (never actually
    named Holmes and Watson), the Count (never actually named Dracula), a
    few more I never did recognize, plus the Lovecraftian Elder Gods. 
    The story is told from the viewpoint of the characters' familiars,
    notably Snuff (a dog) and Graymalk (a cat).
    
    I thought this was a great read -- and a lot more like the "old"
    Zelazny style...
    
    JP

    I read in this morning's paper that Roger Zelazny passed away from
    cancer at the age of 58.

    Although I wasn't overly fond of his later works, Creatures of
    Light and Darkness, Lord of Light, This Immortal, Damnation Alley,
    the original Amber series and a few of his short stories
    (_Becalmed in Hell_, _The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His
    Mouth_, and _Home is the Hangman_) all had *major* impacts on me. 
    I'm really gonna miss him.

	Mike

    Well, damn.  Lord of Light is one of my all-time favorites.

..and Isle of the Dead, and Doorways in the Sand...  *sigh*

    I always wished he had written more in the "Jack of Shadows" universe.
    
    					andrew

>>    I always wished he had written more in the "Jack of Shadows" universe.
  	
	Yeah, I know what you mean.  I read this a LONG time ago and have
never seen it since.  Did someone make a movie loosly based on this?

ps:
	I keep thinking of other works of his that are on my all-time 
favorite list - A Rose for Ecclesiates (?).  And Eye of Cat really affected
me - so much so I kept trying to explain it to my husband!  I think it
is easier to list ones of his I didn't like - the list is so much shorter!

The most recent Zelazny I read was "A lonely night in October".

I liked the Amber series very much indeed.  He'll be greatly missed.


Chele

    
    I recently finished "Forever After," allegedly Zelazny's last book.
    
    Capsule summary: Great quests were completed to gain the
    weapons/talismans needed to win the final battle between good and evil.
    The battle was won, and this is all prologue to the book itself.
    
    Before the good guys can begin living happily ever after, the talismans
    have to be put back, because their collective presence is straining the
    local reality. So more quests are needed...
    
    Definitely a good read if you like any of his stuff. I sure will miss
    his work.
    
    Also picked up a Zelazny/Sheckley collaboration called "A Farce to be
    Reckoned With," the third book in the Prince Charming series ("Bring Me
    the Head of Prince Charming," "If at Faust You Don't Succeed"). Haven't
    read it yet but I'll post a review when I do.
    
    JP