Roger
Zelazny
During his career, Roger Zelazny won 6 Hugos and 3
Nebulas as well as many other major awards in the SF field. Several
of his novels and short stories are considered landmarks, including Lord
of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, "Home is
the Hangman," and "A Rose for Ecclesiastes." The
10-volume Chronicles of Amber is regarded as a classic
fantasy series. For the last 10 years of his life (he died in 1995),
Zelazny lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This is a novel about a world conquered by Earth
men who, through ultratechnology, give themselves godlike powers and
set themselves up as the Hindu gods to rule the common people.
Called The First, they have achieved a kind of immortality by
transferring their identities from old bodies to new ones. These
deicrats (as Zelazny calls them) through centuries of
"divine" rule, have become corrupt, and only one among
them will openly oppose their tyranny. He is the hero, "…who
was variously known as Mahasamatman, Kalkin, Manjusri, Siddhartha,
Tathagatha, Binder, Maitreya, the Enlight-ened One, Buddha and
Sam" (Lord 16). Sam, in looking for an ideal way to oppose the
Hindu "gods," takes on the personification of the Buddha
and teaches the Way of Enlightenment. Preaching Accelerationism,
"the belief that the Hindu pantheon should share their
technological knowledge with the other people of the planet"
(Krulik 70), Sam liberates the minds of the people and turns some of
them away from the laws of Karma and the gods. He then assumes his
old identity as Siddhartha, the Binder, and releases the old energy
beings that once ruled the planet to raise an army against the city
of Heaven. Though he gains allies among the First and costs the
forces of Heaven dearly in the battle of Keenset, he is defeated,
and his atman or soul is scattered into the magnetic cloud
surrounding the planet.
During his absence of some 50 years, the gods,
severely weakened, are unable to stop the spread of Acceleration and
Buddhism. They no longer have control over the entire population of
men. Another of the First called Nirriti, who was the crew’s
chaplain and who left Heaven of his own will, decides to take
advantage of the situation and wage a Christian holy war to destroy
utterly the Hindu religion. At about the same time, Yama-Dharma,
Lord of Death, one of Sam’s early allies, manages to collect his
atman and reincarnate him to lead them again in their fight against
Heaven. But Sam and his forces finally end up joining the Hindu gods
against their greater enemy, Nirriti. After this second great battle
at Khaipur, Sam’s side is the true winner: Nirriti is destroyed,
and the old gods are weakened sufficiently that men are free to live
as they choose; only Vishnu, the Preserver, reigns in Heaven.
There are direct parallels to be drawn between the
interaction of Hinduism and Buddhism and Zelazny’s form and chaos
theory. Yoke writes:
In the relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism,
Zelazny found a perfect metaphor for his own doctrine. The
parallels between the historical relationship of the two great
religions and the novel are obvious. Buddha found Hinduism to be
static and corrupt, weighed down by its own dead and meaningless
ritual, insensitive to the common man, and too complex to be
understood by him. Sam …found the Hindu system of the novel
…to be the same. Buddha’s mission on Earth was to reform the
old religion, not to start a new one. Sam’s mission…is
identical, to reform the old religion through Accelerationism.
Both men are instruments of change (Reader’s Guide 61).
And we see the change brought on in the world by
Sam’s actions. He must be a force of destruction in order to
restore the proper rhythm to men’s lives. Sam himself evolves
throughout the course of the story. His immortality grants him the
length of time necessary for such personal change. Each of his many
names reflects a different person he has become, even to the point
that he says, about the Buddha, "‘I don’t recall any longer
whether I was really that one, or whether it was another. But I am
gone away from that one now’" (Lord 311). At first, he takes
a Machiavellian approach to it all, doing whatever he deems
necessary to achieve his goals. Though he spends years as the
Buddha, he doesn’t believe a word of his own teaching; he is still
willing to murder Brahma and Shiva in the city of Heaven; he still
goes to battle against the gods. And he loses, because he is flawed:
he has failed to integrate all the creative and destructive forces
within himself. But by the end of the story, Sam has become all of
the men/gods he once was, and his side prevails. He has managed to
attain true enlightenment.
This is a novel about a world conquered by Earth
men who, through ultratechnology, give themselves godlike powers and
set themselves up as the Hindu gods to rule the common people.
Called The First, they have achieved a kind of immortality by
transferring their identities from old bodies to new ones. These
deicrats (as Zelazny calls them) through centuries of
"divine" rule, have become corrupt, and only one among
them will openly oppose their tyranny. He is the hero, "…who
was variously known as Mahasamatman, Kalkin, Manjusri, Siddhartha,
Tathagatha, Binder, Maitreya, the Enlight-ened One, Buddha and
Sam" (Lord 16). Sam, in looking for an ideal way to oppose the
Hindu "gods," takes on the personification of the Buddha
and teaches the Way of Enlightenment. Preaching Accelerationism,
"the belief that the Hindu pantheon should share their
technological knowledge with the other people of the planet"
(Krulik 70), Sam liberates the minds of the people and turns some of
them away from the laws of Karma and the gods. He then assumes his
old identity as Siddhartha, the Binder, and releases the old energy
beings that once ruled the planet to raise an army against the city
of Heaven. Though he gains allies among the First and costs the
forces of Heaven dearly in the battle of Keenset, he is defeated,
and his atman or soul is scattered into the magnetic cloud
surrounding the planet.
And we see the change brought on in the world by
Sam’s actions. He must be a force of destruction in order to
restore the proper rhythm to men’s lives. Sam himself evolves
throughout the course of the story. His immortality grants him the
length of time necessary for such personal change. Each of his many
names reflects a different person he has become, even to the point
that he says, about the Buddha, "‘I don’t recall any longer
whether I was really that one, or whether it was another. But I am
gone away from that one now’" (Lord 311). At first, he takes
a Machiavellian approach to it all, doing whatever he deems
necessary to achieve his goals. Though he spends years as the
Buddha, he doesn’t believe a word of his own teaching; he is still
willing to murder Brahma and Shiva in the city of Heaven; he still
goes to battle against the gods. And he loses, because he is flawed:
he has failed to integrate all the creative and destructive forces
within himself. But by the end of the story, Sam has become all of
the men/gods he once was, and his side prevails. He has managed to
attain true enlightenment.