Jack of shadows by roger zelazny books
Item 3 of 8: Jack of Shadows is a science fantasy novel by American author Roger Zelazny. It was serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in and published in book form that same year.
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Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny - Goodreads
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Podcast episode Save Seinfeld and Solnit. Save Seinfeld and Solnit for later. I am the enemy of my enemies. Jack is cold, cruel and vengeful, merciless and brutal, on par with the world in which he lives and which he plans to rule after vanquishing those who have wronged him. Zelazny manages to make this very short novel feel much longer through sheer economy of words, setting up horrifying scenes in just a few phrases, making them efficiently chilly.
I will have taken my life long before. You will struggle briefly and you will yield to me-first your body, then your will. You will lie passive for a time, then I will come to you again and yet again. After that, it will be you who will come to me. Now you will sleep while I sacrifice Smage upon his Lord's altar and cleanse this place of all things which displease me.
Dream well. A new life awaits you. And still some of his charm improbably keeps you in its grip. And yet again Zelazny just throws you smack into the middle of the story with zero handholding and expects you to sink or swim, no extra help provided , which I love. And that works yet again. And he keeps it short and to the point in this slim novel.
And anyone who can hammer this out in a single draft is indeed a skilled writer. A little more on his time in the dayside could have helped with giving Jack just a bit more dimension. Almost - because the ending has just enough ambiguity to sow the seeds of doubt. I am a darksider. Your people are cold but their world is warm, endowed as it is with enchantment, glamourie, wonder.
The lightlanders know feelings you will not understand, though their science is as cold as your people's hearts. Yet they would appreciate your realm if they did not fear it so and you might enjoy their feelings but for the same reason. Still, the capacity is there, in each of you.
Jack of shadows by roger zelazny books
The fear need but give way to understanding, for you are mirror images of one another. So do not speak to me of souls when you have never seen one, man. Along with Jack Vance to whom this book was an homage , there is no author better at stuffing story into less than pages. This GEMtastic example weighs in a svelte pages and contains a full serving of juicy plot with zero filler fat.
Jack of Shadows takes place on a world that does not rotate and so half of the planet is always sun side and the other half of the planet is perpetual night. The sun side is similar to our world and is governed by science and natural law. The night side is a place of magic where supernatural entities reign supreme. In addition, and important to the story, daysiders have souls and only one life, whereas nightsiders are soulless and can be resurrected numerous times though a finite number.
Our title character is a thief, powerful wizard and a lord of the nightside though, even among his brethren, Jack is unusual. Most of the nightside lords have places of power where they are at the strongest i. Jack has no one place of power but is strongest wherever he can create shadows. Inside shadow he has unmatched strength.
At the beginning of the story, Jack is apprehended as a thief and decapitated by one of this rivals OUCH!! Years later as resurrection is not immediate , Jack awakens in the Dung Pits of Glyve at the West Pole of the world and begins his quest for revenge against those who killed him. Jack quest for revenge becomes the catalyst for events that will shake the foundations of the planet and lead either to a brand new world ….
It has an aspect to it that is left purposely ambiguous and I think adds to the mystery of the work. He does very bad things during the course of this book, some of them down right despicable. He's selfish, lonely, angry, filled with bitterness and shows zero compassion for those who have wronged him. Again…all this in pages.
He does this in a variety of ways. One of them is to take a pivotal event that will occur over a significant period of time and lay it out in such a way that the impact is immediate and yet the power of the event is not diminished. You will struggle briefly and you will yield to me—first your body, then your will.
After that, it will be you who come to me. In a paragraph, Zelazny provides a chilling account of the brutal subjugation, rape and brain washing of one character by another. Often, dark and dire situations in stories can be gratuitously dragged out FOREVER or else you will find characters fearing promised torments that never come to pass as event intervene to save the characters.
While lacking the tension that drawing out the process might bring, he injects a powerful image into the readers mind and then moves on with the story leaving the reader to fill in the cracks and catch up because the next evocative moment could occur and probably will in the next paragraph. I thought this was a terrific story with a wonderful backstory, some memorable characters and an interesting plot.
Again, loved the ending. One of Zelazny's standalones; a dark and finely-faceted jewel of a book. Oh, OK, fine. The world is fixed; the East Pole points ever towards the sun, and the eastern hemisphere is forever in daylight and ruled by science. The West Pole is in eternal darkness, and the Darkside is ruled by magic. In between, of course, is a narrow strip of twilight.
Shadowjack is a thief the greatest in all of the Darkside? A potentially routine heist goes badly wrong, leaving Jack to make his way back from the West Pole through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, his mind fixed upon revenge upon those who wronged him, a quest that will take him through the Twilight into the Dayside and back. The language is evocative and precise -- Zelazny freely owns that the book is his tribute to Jack Vance and is his [Zelazny's] attempt to emulate Vance's style.
Certainly, he comes a whole lot closer than most Time to te-read some Roger Zelazny stuff. Though I re-read the Amber series periodically, I've been very lax about revisiting the other stuff of this top-tier fantastic author! In retrospect, as an older, wiser and more well-read person, I find that to be a narrow opinion.
Yes, this book is definitely not Amber, but maybe that's for the best. We are spoiled with epic new fantasy now, but this classic nonetheless remains a taut, compelling read still. And, for a standalone book, there's quite a fair bit if depth to the setting. Though that always was Zelaznys strong suit, IMO.
In short, not Amber, for better or worse. But it's still a hidden gem that deserves more attention than it gets. Author 7 books 2, followers. The characters aren't complex, but I think this is done on purpose. The only ones that much time is spent on are Dark Siders who have no soul. I thought his lame attempts at introspection were great.
The few glimpses we get of those with souls are normal, complicated people. The ending was fantastic. MacBeth Zelazny blends fantasy with SF until you're not quite sure which label applies. The story is told in his wonderfully concise style that makes re-reads a pleasure while the story haunts you in odd moments. He is nearly incapacitated in complete light or complete darkness, but given access to even a small area of shadow, his potency is unmatched.
Jack's only friend, the creature Morningstar, is punished by being trapped in stone at the edge of the night, to be released when dawn comes. His torso and head protrude from the rock, and he awaits the sun that will never rise. The Key itself and the consequences of its use parallel Jack's progress in his own endeavors. Ultimately, the Key will be responsible for Jack's salvation and his doom.
Fleeing the dark side, Jack gets access to a computer and uses it to recover Kolwynia. This makes him unbeatable, but not all-powerful. Having made a mess of ruling with his new powers, he seeks the advice of Morningstar, who advises him to destroy The Machine at the Heart of the World, which maintains the world's stability, and set it rotating. Zelazny intended the name, but not the titular character, as an homage to Jack Vance.
In his introduction to the novel he mentioned that he tried to capture some of the exotic landscapes that are frequent in Vance's work.
Zelazny wrote it in first draft, with no rewrites. It was nominated for a Hugo Award [ 2 ]. The serialized version and the later book are slightly different. Lester del Rey received the novel unfavorably, noting that while the opening half was "minor Zelazny, quite enjoyable", the conclusion was "rather grim and ugly…[ultimately] dull". Don't subscribe All new comments Replies to my comments Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.
If you prefer, you can click here to subscribe without commenting. Pretty much as expected going into , Nicola Griffith's Menewood was my pick for best book read in that year. What a dunderhead, not like the Horseclans series?
Jack of shadows by roger zelazny books in order
I just like stories that are pure entertainment like these or Stirling's…. In a world half of light, half of darkness, where both science and magic strive for dominance, there dwells a man who is friendly with neither side. Jack, of the realm of shadows, is a thief who is unjustly punished. The vendetta on which he then embarks results in his becoming a man of prominence and, ultimately, perhaps, a hero.
Steven Harbin. Paul Weimer PrinceJvstin on October 26, at am. I concur. One of my favorite Zelazny reads. Steven Harbin on October 26, at am. Kat Hooper on October 26, at am.