This Immortal in Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy

Dec 19, 2007 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2fiction, 1paper, apocalyptic, scifi, favorites, 3classics

This is a lot of fun to read & one of my favorite books of all time. Post apocalyptic earth is being toured by an alien, whose species helped save us after we mostly blew up our home. The tour guide, Conrad, who tells the story from his POV & most of the trip is through a surreal blending of SF & diverse mythology brought to life by radiation. It's short, quirky, & simple on the surface, but there are offhand references, names & partial quotes that make this story a bit of a treasure hunt. They ...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: apocalyptic, scifi, favorites, 2fiction, 3classics, 1audio, fantasy

I've worn out several paperbacks of this book. It's brilliant & well worth multiple re-reads. There's always a new tidbit to find, but it's also just a wonderful journey. Zelazny poetically & subtly uses classical references to draw a 'fantastic' post-apocalyptic world. On its face, the book is a good, straight SF story with a bit of PSI powers tossed into the radioactive mix. The subtexts & foreshadowing are so masterful, all set to prose that is often poetic.

When I saw there was an audio versi I've worn out several paperbacks of this book. It's brilliant & well worth multiple re-reads. There's always a new tidbit to find, but it's also just a wonderful journey. Zelazny poetically & subtly uses classical references to draw a 'fantastic' post-apocalyptic world. On its face, the book is a good, straight SF story with a bit of PSI powers tossed into the radioactive mix. The subtexts & foreshadowing are so masterful, all set to prose that is often poetic.

When I saw there was an audio version, I HAD to listen to it. I thought the reader, Victor Bevine, was horribly slow at first, but now I'm appreciating his slow rhythm more. I still want to spur him on at times, though. He has a fairly deep voice which fits the story well since it is first person, past tense. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much inflection. Every sentence is read like the preceding one no matter what the action.

Sometimes Bevine's steady voice really worked, though. Conrad, the narrator, tends to understate everything including their sudden encounter with a cannibal tribe while he is twirling a sling with a stone in it:

They were Kouretes.
Kouretes are bad.
They always get their pound of flesh.
Usually roasted.
Sometimes fried, though.
Or boiled, or raw…
The speaker seemed to be the only one carrying a firearm.
...And I had a handful of death circling high above my shoulder. I
decided to make him a gift of it.
His head exploded as I delivered it.

LOL! How perfect! There are other humorous moments, not all as black as this one. The discussion of a new species has an amusing discussion of its attributes. One of the participants is a premier biologist who goes into some detail about it, but no one knows how many legs it has - the original question - just that there are a lot of them.

If you have a decent familiarity with the classics & Greek mythology, it is much, much more than just a journey across a bit of the ruined earth. Especially on a re-read, it's easy to find the subtle references to the fantastic side. (view spoiler) Nothing is particularly sure since it's obvious that the narrator is completely unreliable, an accomplished liar & forger, albeit for good reasons. His mystery is never completely solved & is better for that. Still, the book concludes wonderfully.

I've also reviewed this book in paperback with a few more tidbits of information here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... ...more

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Jan 18, 2019 Robin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019

Conrad Nimikos, Earth’s Minister of Culture, Arts and Monuments, has been assigned to play tour guide to blue-skinned Vegan, Cort Myshtigo. The Three-Day War, a nuclear event, has left most of the Earth destroyed by radiation, and the Vegan occupation hasn’t helped much either. Myshtigo seems intrigued by Conrad’s identity and apparent immortality – is he the god Pan, some other superhuman, or just a human affected by nuclear radiation? And why is Myshtigo actually touring Earth – to write a tou ...more

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May 29, 2014 Michelle rated it liked it

This review refers to the audiobook version. I think I like to read zelazny better than I like to listen to his books... I like to go back and re-read stuff to make sure I got the right idea, because his writing is dense with ideas...

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