Book Review: Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny

There is a lot to love about Zelazny's writing that is utterly present in Doorways in the Sand.

Now, I've given Zelazny a small amount of shit in the past, at least in the limited context of this blog, but only in the interest of being an honest reviewer.  I now feel obligated to give the old boy some love, publicly and on the Internet, at the cost of my nil critiquing cred, but fortunately that won't be necessary; I actually read Doorways, and enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed any other book ever.

Book Review: Wizard World, by Roger Zelazny

Who couldn't love that face?

There is a lot to love about Zelazny's writing that is totally absent from Wizard World.

Now I am a huge fan of Roger Zelazny.  The Great Book of Amber is the best 1258 pages I ever spent, twice.  Lord Demon, Donnerjack, and Creatures of Light and Darkness are among the most imaginative, atypical works of fantasy I've read.  Zelazny's main characters are typically demigods, in one way or another, dealing with their demigod problems, but with some kind of connection to something like the modern world (e.g., the main character of the second half of Amber has a CS degree from Berkeley, and is also a sorcerer).  Something about this is strangely compelling to me.  As another e.g., Amber starts with the main character waking up in a hospital with amnesia, and is very much in a noir style; the true nature of things is revealed only slowly.  Great stuff.

For these reasons and more, I really, really wanted to like Wizard World.