is neither the best, nor worse thing to happen to science fiction--but he's certainly closer to the first (though he fall far short of Delany, Wolfe, Harrison, Vandermeer, and all the other guys that I either can't remember or haven't read).
I recently finished Creatures Of Light and Darkness and I don't remember ever seeing so beautiful an example of an author with completely individual virtues. Zelazny has written a book completely devoid of human emotion. Rather, awe (in a new, stratified spectrum of incarnations) comes to replace everything we usually look for in fiction. Is there anything lost?
Not really.
Zelazny writes well (particularly for science fiction, and especially for science fiction forty years ago) and he has a fabulous imagination. Hardly a page goes by without featuring one or more displays of utterly unbelievable imagery. I read Lord of Light so long ago I'm not sure which I like better, but I appreciate the experimental undertones that take center stage here, and I've never read anything quite like it. I particularly enjoy that while the characters take themselves completely seriously, Zelazny does not.
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