Fiction Addiction: Lord of Light - one final reading

Roger Zelazny's science-fantasy novel Lord of Light is widely regarded as one of the best SF novels ever written. It sets up a series of puzzles, the action is non-stop, and plot still gave me small surprises even though this is the fourth time I have read it. It uses Hindu mythology to re-envision the often-told story of a planetary colony that develops an oppressive ruling class.

It is clearly a work by an exceptional poet and professional writer at his best. It shares a core narrative with many other Zelazny stories: a seriously imperfect self-centred immortal protagonist surrounded by vividly defined supporting characters. If you take a look at Isle of the Dead, Lord Demon, and the carefully crafted Roadmarks you will see a pattern that evolves to its most profitable form in the Princes in Amber potboilers.

Zelazny was part of the New Wave of science fiction of the 1960s, postwar writers who had the freedom to challenge the dominant social ideas about religion, sexuality, social identity and literary forms. He shows a skill and willingness to take risks with language that is matched by few others.

But ...

The book, like Herbert's Dune, simply disregards what was known of biology and physics to construct a story. Yet it is clearly "science" fiction, not because it shows the slightest grasp of the scientific process, but because it is chock-full of imaginary technology. Imaginary technology and swordfights.

Yep, swordfights. There are classic ways that commercial authors maintain the interest of various readers by "turning up the voltage". For romance authors, that means an emphasis on relationships and interaction, for those selling erotica and its pulp cousins, it means more detail about sex. But for many SF authors, while relationships and sex are present as an integral part of the narrative, the pornography of violence and combat and warfare is the main feature. 

So while Lord of Light is seriously worthwhile for its unflinchingly look at religion as a racket set up to keep a ruling class securely in place, it demonstrates only a little about how a more functional and more fair society can be built on "right conduct" in personal interactions.

As a dramatist and poet, Zelazny presents few details about how his future society works, especially how people interact in their daily lives. Social progress is seen in terms of technological progress. And as someone growing up in the postwar growth-driven American technoboom, Zelazny seems reluctant to talk about where the path of industrialization leads and what it will do to the farmland and jungles and wilderness that form the backdrop of the novel. 

What really struck me looking back a half century is that Zelazny's novel does not really explore how selected Buddhist ideals could potentially transform people's lives for the better. And that is the great irony of Lord of Light: a man obsessed with personal immortality could not see the real pathways to a less elitist future with a progressive medical system that might have given him more life beyond his 58 short years.