Roadmarks

Roger Zelazny

A friend of mine at SciFi Sites is a devoted Roger Zelazny fan, especially the Amber series. I wanted to finally read something by Zelazny, but could not bring the first Amber book to hand. Instead this one came out of the box. Too bad, in my opinion.

This is science fantasy where travellers are on the road of time. They can go back and forth to any century in time while on this road and visit any era they would like. Some people are living forward in time, but others are living backwards. It gets very confusing, especially for the first few chapter pairs.

It does get less confusing. It even finally pulled together and made some sense for me. Yet I never shook off my confusion totally. There are places where the book shines. There is a robot assasin left behind by aliens that now makes pottery to perfection. There is a college guy in C20 (20th century) who leaves Kent, Ohio, and is directed how to get on the road. Since Kent was practically in my back yard for many years in real life, I was able to follow his route in our dimension.

Yet it is out of sequence. If you have an organized or logical mind, this can drive you crazy. If you have to have things in chronological order and build on each other (which I normally do) this book can be frustrating.

I trust Merle's judgement. I will read more Zelazny novels. But I think I'll go find the first book in the Amber series and start there, instead.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman