In my resolve to read more mainstream canon, I had forgotten how great a writer Roger Zelazny is. This must never happen again. He writes a beautiful blend of science and fantasy, and sometimes plays them off each other, which appeals to me very much since I’m fascinated by that balance between measurable knowledge and mystery.<\/p>\n
Frost and Fire<\/em> is a collection of short stories, two of which won the Hugo. It also includes two essays on writing: one contrasting science fiction and fantasy, and another on his creative process while he was writing Eye of Cat<\/em>, which I haven’t read, but now probably will.<\/p>\n In most of his books, Zelazny translates and bends various brands of mythology to his purposes, and he certainly does that in Frost and Fire<\/em>, though it’s more subdued. He deals with gods and planets personally; he examines their flaws and triumphs like a watchmaker, and translates his observations through beautifully poetic language. The main stories of this collection, Permafrost<\/em> and 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai<\/em> both examine lovers’ conflicts and bitterness and resolve in tragedy. They’re both in present tense, which I usually hate when it’s used in fiction, but I barely noticed it in either case. Maybe I’m getting used to it, I don’t know. These stories were wonderful, though, which probably helped me bypass my stylistic hangups.<\/p>\n I have, through some horrible, enduring oversight on my part, never read his Amber books, though I read the first one or two. I have the omnibus, but it’s sitting on my shelf (and not the floor, so you know know I’ve had it a while) where it will wait, unread, for a while yet. I’m still reading through webs of mainstream. My strategy: take one writer and jump to his influences, then to that one’s students, to this one’s mentor, and so on. That’s not a bad way to get a lot of books, considering how it’s potentially exponential and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In my resolve to read more mainstream canon, I had forgotten how great a writer Roger Zelazny is. This must never happen again. He writes a beautiful blend of science and fantasy, and sometimes plays them off each other, which appeals to me very much since I’m fascinated by that balance between measurable knowledge and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[202,2546,44],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-books-i-wish-id-written","tag-sf","tag-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}