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Roger Zelazny

4.70

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Roger Zelazny made his name with a group of novellas that demonstrated just how intense the stock imagery of SF could generate an emotional charge; the most famous of these is A Rose for Ecclesiastes, in which a poet struggles to convince dying and sterile Martians that life is worth continuing. 

Zelazny continued to write excellent short stories throughout his career. Most of his novels deal, one way or another, with tricksters and mythology, often with rogues who become gods, like Sam in Lord of Light, who reinvents Buddhism as a vehicle for political subversion on a colony planet.

The fantasy sequence The Amber Chronicles, which started with Nine Princes in Amber, deals with the ruling family of a Platonic realm at the metaphysical heart of things, who can slide, trickster-like, through realities and their wars with each other and the related ruling house of Chaos. 

Zelazny never entirely fulfilled his early promise—who could?—but he and his work were much loved and a potent influence on such younger writers as George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman.

He won the Nebula award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo award six times (out of 14 nominations). His papers are housed at the Albin O. Khun Library of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

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4.60

Lord of Light

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