--- In [email protected], turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote: > > > > Didn't know he wrote fiction though, but I never liked fantasy > > novels anyway, if I even get a sniff of a wizard I'm off - It's > > sci-fi for me if I'm feeling speculative. > > Just as a question, did you ever read any of > Roger Zelazny's Chronicles Of Amber series? > > That's got Woo, and the existence of wizards > of a sort, but it's also got a lot of phwam! > in my opinion. > > The series started as an act of will. Roger > had caught a bad case of writer's block, and > couldn't get a damned thing to come out. So, > being a martial artists and a warrior type > himself, he set himself a task to help him > snap out of it. > > He would write a whole novel in one month. > (It usually took him six months to a year.) > The novel was to be a throw-away. He didn't > plan to do anything with it. He was using > it to inspire him to write more serious > books. > > The result was "Nine Princes In Amber," a > novel that went on to be the first of a > series of ten novels that, collectively, > are Zelazny's biggest sellers. Go figure.
Something to be said for spontaneity perhaps? I have got one book of his but it has yet to be read. It came out as part of a Masters of Sci-Fi selection. Chosen by contemporary writers, it has everyone from HG Wells and John Wyndham through what I consider the golden age, people like Bob Silverberg and Brian Aldiss, to Iain Banks and KW Jetter. They released a book a month for ages and I discovered some real gems, people I never would have heard of. I don't know why but new sci-fi does nothing for me - or the local library have a very poor buyer - but it seems like I pick up and put down an awful lot of books after one chapter. But something like 'Flowers for Algernon' 'The Earth Abides' or 'Ringworld' and I'm hooked to the last page. 'Lords of Light' will get a look in sometime and I shall take a look at the Amber series just in case I'm missing something. Here's a list of them so far: http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2013/02/the-sf-masterworks/
