Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Stepping into The Changing Land

Roger Zelazny is credited as a master of fantasy and science fiction. Though he wrote when the genres were still very new things. The Changing Land makes this quite evident (in its first chapter).

His characters read like they're building on templates made by Tolkien (elves, scheming magic-users, etc.). His setting gets little description.

Since the plot is being trickled out, there's no heavy exposition as of yet. Another weirdly modern note is the apparent lack of dialogue tags. I've not yet come across a single "[character x] [word for spoke+past tense modifier]."

Though those latter two qualities are the mark of good writing in any genre. And from any point in time.

Yet, Zelazny's tone in The Changing Land reminds me of Eric Rücker Eddison's in The Worm Ourobouros. Eddison's book was published in 1922, and Zelazny's came out in 1981, but there are still tonal similarities. Both share in a writing style that comes off as pulpy and have similarly fantastical content.

I still need to find Nine Princes in Amber to complete the first part of Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber, but The Changing Lands has opened up as a fine introduction to this icon of an author.

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