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Isle Of The Dead (1969)

Isle of the Dead (1969)

Book Info

Author
Rating
3.86 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0441374697 (ISBN13: 9780441374694)
Language
English
Publisher
ace

About book Isle Of The Dead (1969)

Nutshell: top-hatted twerp settles vendettas on planet molded after Symbolist painting. Pretty sure that I'm not getting this one. Highlights:Tokyo Bay is full of used condoms, "limp, almost transparent testimonies to the instinct to continue the species, but not tonight" (6).A "triple-asterisk break" indicates that narrator is getting laid (21).Narrator is "87th wealthiest man in the galaxy" (12). FTL magic involves travel through a "phase point" (26). Hell if I know, either.Extraterrestrials at issue have written an encyclopedia about themselves, now complete, "in 14,926 volumes, they may have decided that there's no reason to continue any further" (35).There is a Burkean rant against gratuities to service industry workers: "we all became tourists the minute we set foot outside our front doors, second-class citizens, to be ruthlessly exploited by the smiling legions who had taken over" (45)--stay classy, Z!Engages expressly in polemic with Weber regarding rationalization/bureacratization theory (62).Anticipates Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs books, to the extent that "record plates" capture the "electromagnetic matrix of the nervous system" at the time of death (64), from which a person might be reinstalled into a new body.Endorsement of Malthusian population theory, apparently (72).Narrator admits guilt for planetary genocide, via his "worldscaping" craft, in making a planetoid mass driver for use against the homeworld of an enemy species (106). He apparently felt bad enough about it to stay drunk for a whole week.Subject aliens consider vendetta to be an art form, build their vengeance for centuries in order to show victim "that his entire life has been but a preface to this irony" (126).Tries to do something with alchemical theory and various world religions. Could've been cool, but not sustained or clear enough for me (136-38).Anyway, there it is. Z likes immortal protagonists who get into bizarre intrigues. I don't really see the virtues.

Francis Sandow jest nieśmiertelny, nosi imię bóstwa i dzięki temu ma moc tworzenia. To dopiero znaczy czuć się jak Bóg! Jest samotny, mieszka na odludnej planecie, żywiąc się resztkami wspomnień. Tak jest do dnia, kiedy dostaje wiadomość, a w niej zdjęcie kobiety którą kochał. Pojawia się jego stary wróg i Francis musi podjąć wyzwanie. Zanim podejmie się walki, Francis odwiedza najpierw swojego mistrza, przedstawiciela starej, niezwykle inteligentnej rasy, który wie wszystko o zemście. Sandow dociera na wyspę, na której ma się spotkać ze swoim wrogiem. Po drodze jednak wiele się zmienia i Sandow dochodzi do wnioski, że może walka na śmierć i życie nie zawsze jest konieczna. Może i to co napisałam nie brzmi najgorzej, ale książka nie zainteresowała mnie na tyle, żeby ją na dłużej zapamiętać. Niczym mnie nie zaskoczyła, niestety.

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I was never sure if this book was science fiction trying to be a little bit fantasy or vice versa. Zelazny systematically avoids giving us enough detail to make it clear. From the first sentence, it is philosophical. At times it seems merely a prose poem reflecting on life, death, love, wealth, and revenge. The sparse story is just a wireframe on which to arrange those deeper thoughts. Yet even these seem belabored, cold, and distant. The only character that comes alive is Frank Sandow. In the end, I wonder if we really care about him (or were even meant to).
—Bill

I feel like I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how much they love Francis Sandow in Zelazny discussions online. As such, I was excited to dive into this book, and had very high expectations.To put things simply, it was great. But there was something about Isle that I felt kept it from being on the level of stuff like the Amber series, Lord of Light, This Immortal, A Night in the Lonesome October . . . you get the idea. I’m not sure what it was. I think it may have just been that the book felt like it started a little slow to me. Once things really started taking off, it was great, but I wasn’t immediately sucked in like I was with some of the aforementioned titles.The thing I probably liked most was the mythology Zelazny created here. In a lot of his books he used pre-existing mythology and adapted it to a real-world (or, rather, future-real-world) setting (like with Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness). And I love those books. But in Isle, Zelazny created his own religion (which, as far as I know, wasn’t based on any real mythology) and melded it with the scientific process of “worldscaping.” The idea was that, in order to create a new world, you have to have a sort of God-complex, and that means invoking the power of a deity during the creation process. The question is: are the gods invoked by worldscapers real, or are they just a belief that gives the worldscapers the confidence they need to make their creations?As I write this, I respect Zelazny’s creativity in this book more and more. A part of me wants to give Isle 5 stars, but I’m going to stick with 4 just because it’s becoming too much of a habit to just immediately give Zelazny books 5. (It sorta cheapens things for the rest of the books!)Overall, Isle of the Dead was fantastic, and I’ll be happy to read it again some day.
—Alazzar

Yes, my inspiration came from the departure ceremony of Dra Marling on page 80 of my copy of the novel... Not being telepathic or having a supply of glitten root guided meditation, a form of hypnosis, has been substituted. Smahain honors the ancestors so there is a journey to the barrier of Side, the curtain that separates life from death, and the participants spend some time in conversation with those of theirs who have passed beyond.
—George

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