-Zelazny (p296, common trade paperback edition)
On endings:
Diapadion asked me, a few weeks ago, if I knew of any endings that compared to Lloyd Alexander's famous wrapping up of theme and plot points in his children's fantasy 'The High King.' It occurred to me that two other speculative fiction novels were worth mention in this regard.
Lord of Light
They're both flawed works, but Roger Zelazny's great work of science fantasy about the evolution of religion, his heroic parable of Buddhism and accelerationism in space, in addition to being 'brilliant and tricky and heartfelt and dangerous,' in the words of Neil Gaiman, is also so built up by the end that it divides into four legendary endings. Lord of Light ends (slight spoilers):'These are the four versions of Sam and the Red Bird which Signalled his Departure, as variously told by the moralists, the mystics, the social reformers and the romantics. One may, I dare say, select whichever version suits his fancy.'
The ending isn't perfect--rather, the book has become so epic that its conclusion must be splintered in order to prevent the book from sinking under its own weight. The only alternative would be to remain vague, which would be even less satisfying. It's an interesting solution.
Changeling Earth / Empire of the East
Fred Saberhagen was a genius, less recognized than he should be for his accomplishments in humanizing vampires ('The Dracula Tape', written before any of Anne Rice's stuff) and bringing philosophy and doomsday machines into intelligent science fiction ('Berserker'). One of his earlier and more uneven works was the trilogy of three small novels now known as Empire of the East, a work loosely related to his later Swords fantasy novels. While Saberhagen occasionally loses track of characters and doesn't develop all his threads, the second and third novels are both masterpieces of a sort, and the climax of the trilogy, with its newly generated god (with roots in the technology of a dead civilization) making a decision amid his life and death battle with an ancient demon, a decision that changes the dynamics of the entire world going forward, is a culmination of themes, plot-points and premises, and drama to match Luke's climactic fight with Vader and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. I can't say more, or I'll spoil it. But where Zelazny's ending is a great denoument, Empire of the East's greatness is anchored by the its climax.Buy 'Empire of the East' from the world's largest physical book store--they deserve your support
and here's 'Lord of Light'
I agree that the end of Changeling Earth is quite impressive--as well as the way that the scale broadens with each volume. Moreover, I see the way that some characters fall by the wayside and disappear as a realistic touch that is often not seen in conventional narratives. Some people who may matter in the early parts of a story, may be completely irrelevant later on. And the end, with the warning not to look back (and what it really means), the climax is beautifully written.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, I think the Lord of Light has a well-written plot arc. However, something (maybe the very episodic way the story is structured) prevents the ending from really feeling like a resolution to me. It feels like there are many episodes yet to be told, and the ending comes abruptly, only because it is the end of Sam's story, not the end of the whole epic scenario.
You may have something about 'Lord of Light.' However, in a personal letter in response to fan mail, Saberhagen acknowledged that many of the flaws in characters 'falling by the wayside' simply occurred because he was a young writer, then, and not adept at following up all the the material he brought up. Since that matches my assessment, despite its quasi-realism, I'm inclined to trust Saberhagen on that, and regard it as sort of a flaw.
ReplyDeleteYou've mentioned before that that was how Saberhagen felt about the issue of the characters not getting any follow-up in the last book. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, and he is doubtless more familiar with the books than just about anyone. However, I can't put too much stock in his statement about being a young and inexperienced writer. In fact, I do not think that Saberhagen's writing got better when he got older. I don't think I particularly care for any of his later novels, actually.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that Saberhagen's earlier works are his best: the first 'Berserker' collection, 'The Dracula Tape,' and the latter two novels of 'Empire of the East.' I believe the Dracula tape is the last of those, and dates to the mid-seventies or so--perhaps a bit earlier. However, in fairness, The First and Second Books of Swords have electrifying material from a genre standpoint, though beyond that the series declines markedly, and I haven't yet read 'An Old Friend of the Family,' which is a later 'Dracula Tape' sequel which is thought highly of.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Saberhagen did become more adept at managing his stories and characters and wrapping up loose ends as he aged--I can speak to that, having read more than fifteen of his books, from all periods of his life. And that's why 'Changeling Earth' has some issues, that way.
P.S. - You're right that the ending of 'Lord of Light' has problems, but it's still genius. It's simply too good a book to end well, and I doubt writing any further episodes would have helped the situation. Such epic science fantasy can only be sustained so long, though if anyone were to prove me wrong, it would have been Zelazny (who, unfortunately, died around 1995, but did furnish us with an excellent example of an series that went on way too long in his ten 'Amber' books [they grow problematic around the third book] )
I'd add that from the fourth book in Amber, Zelazny (who, interestingly, speaking of endings, cowrote 'The Black Throne' with one Fred Saberhagen in the latter half of both of their careers--I don't think that one's particularly notable, as it happens) contradicts his original premises in problematic ways, and that from there the quality declines modestly. He unfortunately died before his intended conclusion of the series in book fifteen.
DeleteOther trivia: he was an excellent student of martial arts and (impressively) quit smoking in middle-age to increase his stamina for those purposes. He was well-educated in, for example, the fencing in the first 'Amber' pentology. Also, it took all my willpower not to attribute his death to a bear attack, so I am going to bed, now. Actually, I'm going to write the beginning of a fantasy script, but I'm drunk, so it counts.
Amber is interesting. I remember discussing it with people sitting around at the MIT Science Fiction Society library. (I rather regret that I didn't spend more time hanging out there when I was in college, rather than down the hall at the newspaper.) Zelazny started writing Nine Princes in Amber without any idea where it was going; he just wrote down whatever came to mind. That's why the beginning of the first book seems to belong to a completely different genre from the rest of the plot. (It reads almost like a spy novel and definitely seems more science fiction than fantasy.) By The Guns of Avalon, he was clearly plotting farther in advance, but he still had no idea where he was going. Unfortunately, after that book, he decided more or less where he wanted Corwin's tale to go, and it wasn't very good. I have stated several times that somebody could start after chapter 2 of Sign of the Unicorn and write a new ending for the series that was truer to what he started setting up in The Guns of Avalon. There are a few things that were only hinted at in The Guns of Avalon, and not made explicit until later, that would need to be kept. Specifically, the whole tale would need to end with Corwin sitting down with his son (by Benedict's great-granddaughter Dara) to tell him how he came to arrive at the entrance to the Courts of Chaos (whatever they are).
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