Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. Review on Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

There is a book called Lords of Light by Deepak Chopra, but my review is on Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. This is a lively novel with plenty of action – duels, battles, confrontations, defiances, and repartee. Following the structure of Indian epics, elaborated sub-stories adorn a simple overall plot, with each chapter an episode in Sam's war against Heaven: his taking up arms against Heaven, his revival of Buddhism and the attempts to kill him, his loosing of the demons, his capture and imprisonment in the Celestial City, his escape and defeat in a climactic battle, his return from Nirvana, and his final victory.

While few of the characters have much depth, they manage to be both human and, when they take on their Aspects and wield their Attributes, embodiments of fundamental forces. Sam himself is a crotchety old-timer and a con-man and a trickster – but also an embodiment of military prowess and defiance against odds. The scientific scaffolding always remains visible — Shiva's trident is a device, ''reincarnation'' is done through body farms and mind transfer machinery, the heretic Nirriti uses guided missiles – and Lord of Light is clearly science fiction rather than fantasy.

This is affirmed explicitly within the story by Yama, engineer and god of Death, explaining that demons are ''malefic, possessed of great powers, life span, and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape'' – but not ''supernatural''. It is well written enough and has enough ''scope'', whatever that is, to qualify as ''literature'' to many more high-minded than I. I just like it a lot. I was just re-reading it last night, which is probably why I'm writing this now. It is basically about an isolated human colony on an unnamed planet. In order to combat the indigenous terrors of the planet, the leaders of the colony develop Aspects and Attributes. They do this with a mixture of technology, and just plain will.

They also make reincarnation a reality, though by technological means rather than supernatural. In the process, the crew members of the colony ship, who become Gods and demigods, keep the ''passengers'' oppressed and in a rigid caste system. A number of crew members think this is unjust. But the crew leaders like being gods, and adopt a paternalistic, ''they aren't ready'' kind of attitude. The effective leader of the opposition is a warrior/con man with many names, but we can call him Sam. He starts a counter-movement to the Hindu establishment: Buddhism! The book relates his struggles against the Gods in the Celestial City. Along the way you meet 'Yama', the God of Death, 'Agni' the God of Fire, 'Shiva' the Destroyer, 'Kali', the Goddess of Death and Despair, all of which are very convincing in their roles. We also meet fire-demons, which behave much like classical Hindu demons. They are pure-energy beings, who were the inhabitants of that planet before the humans came. In fact, Sam's ''power'' is more or less psychokinetic electrodirection, which among other things, means he can control these beings. Anyway, there are a number of battles and twists and turns before the end. One warning: Between chapters one and two, we flash back a number of years. This was not immediately obvious to me.

I was confused until chapter four. So watch out for the timeframes in this novel as you go along. And is a good re-read even after you know what is going to happen. The book has I think been relatively neglected.

------- Pradeep Ratnaparkhi