This Immortal

Picture this..
Earth is now a shadow of itself after going through a nuclear holocaust. The Vegan's have taken over - no no, not that type, picture Vogons (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). Conrad (the narrator) has been tasked with being the tour guide.. he's not keen on the idea.. but during this the Vegan's life is threatened and we find that it has become imperative that the Vegan stays alive... but why... the book gently takes you and carries you through to the end..


Definitely one of those books that I would put up there with:
Karel Capek - R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World

BTW: those that have read my review will know I am quite particular about narration - has to be engaging and clear.. definitely a thumbs up here. Victor Bevine is definitely someone to follow.

I love Zelazney and this is one of my favourites. The reader is a bit too intense. He doesn't use enough inflection for my taste. He can do Zelazney's wonderful lyricism, but he doesn't emphasis the throw away humour, the great sense of timing and the bathos that undercut the lyricism. Conrad is complex, sincere,cynical and full of energy. He should sound more like Zorba the Greek or Steamboy, not like an English teacher.

This is not one of my favorite RZ books, but even his least is light-years ahead of others' best, and all are worth re-reading. I found the narration excellent, just right for the quirky, world-weary Nomikos of many pasts. I am amazed at Victor Bevine's talent. He did a splendid job. If Audible produces more Zelazny books with Mr Bevine's narration I will buy them immediately...I sincerely hope they do. "Roadmarks" or "Jack of Shadows" would be wonderful.

When reading Zelazny, you have to get the context in which it was wriiten, otherwise it just seems dated. Zelazny, Harlan Ellison and others were part of the "New Wave" of SF writers that ushered in a new age of SF to counter the post world war II "golden age" SF of the 1950s. Gone were the superhuman warrior heroes of Robert Heinlein and the rest. Now we had anti-heroes with human flaws and a more introspective/cynical world views. Having said that, Zelazny was still able to strike a balance between cynicism of the new and the romanticism of the old. This book, while not my favorite of his, still shows off Zelazny's power to blend Science, History and Ancient Myth. I also like the narrator they chose for this one. Good listen!

I've been going through the Hugo and Nebula winners and was gratified to finally find This Immortal at last. The book is excellent. Some of the older winners don't hold up well but this does.

This was the first "mash up" book, bringing together nuclear war with Greek mythology. The post-nuclear holocast setting raises questions of were myths real-- with gods and demigods just mutations, if the Earth was mostly destroyed and you lived on a space colony would you come back to it, and what is it like for an entire race (us) to be an underclass of a well-meaning, benign alien society, and how do you manage a rebellion over a hundred years. Nice flashbacks and letting the reading make the connections. Excellent ending.

Although this is a classic, it's one of the few older sci-fi stories that isn't too dated, as the setting is a post-nuclear war Earth at some indefinite point in the future and all the technology is vague and generically futuristic (like "skimmers"). It's the characters where Zelazny exercised his imagination. Earth is now overrun by mutants who resemble creatures out of myth, and the main character, Conrad, appears to be an immortal and may even be a god. He's a typical Zelazny main character: mysterious, complicated, immortal and superhuman but not invincible, and fundamentally heroic but kind of an a-hole.

All of the characters are interesting in this book, especially Conrad's friend, the assassin Hassan, and I particularly liked the dialog and the action scenes. Zelazny has always been good at writing great fight scenes.

The story wasn't perfect -- a lot of things were just dropped in without explanation, and it seemed a lot of plot points were just handwaved away. But if you like Zelazny or good old fashioned science fiction written much better than most Sixties sci-fi, it's worth a read.

He was one of the finest writers in SF, and its nice to seem some audiobooks being made. I am not a purist and I would even purchase the Amber audiobooks. I have read Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert and a host of others and he is still one of the best.
Please more audiobooks from him. Thanks, James

...and I _love_ Zelazny. I've read this many times over the years and it was great fun to hear it in a different form. If you enjoy more contemporary authors like Neil Gaiman you'll definitely dig this.

This is filled with lots of imagery and references to mythology. It reads like poetry.

If you are well educated and like poetry you will love this. There are lots of big words. If you are a fan of Gaimen's American Gods, I believe you will like this.

I am not a fan of poetry, Gaimen or academia, so I did not enjoy the book. Having also read Dream Master and not liking it, I am not a RZ fan.

To each his own, Gaimen and RZ have a huge following and probably are not fans of Orson Scott Card and Robin Hobb.

You will either love it or hate.

When Zelazny was good, he was great. I love the way that he combined science fiction, Classical mythology, and more recent Greek folklore. I love the little vignettes about Nomikos' past, like Hassan talking about the boxing match with the Vegan, the story about him breaking the neck of the Spiderbat, etc. Zelazny had a great feel for mythologizing, as well as for the myths. Some of the metaphors are a little jarring, but this was written in the 60's, after all.

On the other hand, I don't think I've ever known a writer to lose it all so suddenly. He reminds me of Tom Watson after he just suddenly lost the ability to putt. I think it started around the time of the publication of "Eye of Cat." After then, Zelazny never really had it again, and pissed away his time writing that "Amber" drivel. Still, he probably made more money as a hack than he did when he was at the peak of his powers, which I'm glad for because he left us some great stuff.

The audiobook is great to listen to at the gym. It's the kind of stuff that really makes you push yourself. The narrator is fine, and does a particularly good Vegan.