The Road to Amber Read online

  The Road to Amber

  Volume 6:

  The Collected Stories of

  Roger Zelazny

  Edited By

  David G. Grubbs

  Christopher S. Kovacs

  Ann Crimmins

  NESFA Press

  Post Office Box 809, Framingham, MA 01701

  www.nesfa.org/press

  2009

  © 2009 by Amber Ltd. LLC

  “Roger Zelazny” (c) 2009 by Jane Lindskold

  “Remembering Roger” © 2009 by Gerald Hausman

  “The Trickster” © 2009 by Gardner Dozois

  ”’…And Call Me Roger’: The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 6” and story notes © 2009 by Christopher S. Kovacs, MD

  “A Secret of Amber” © 2005 by Amber Ltd. LLC and Ed Greenwood

  “Isle of Regret” © 2005 by Trent Zelazny

  “In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light” © 1995 by George R. R. Martin

  “Amber Map” © 2009 by Elizabeth Danforth

  Frontispiece Portrait © 1972 by Jack Gaughan

  Dust jacket illustration, “Z-World” essay and photograph of Michael Whelan © 2009 by Michael Whelan (www.MichaelWhelan.com)

  Dust jacket design © 2009 by Alice N. S. Lewis

  Dust jacket photo of Roger Zelazny © 1994 by Beth Gwinn

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MAGICAL OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER, WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

  FIRST EDITION, December 2009

  ISBN-10: 1-886778-81-7

  ISBN-13: 978-1-886778-81-8

  A Word From

  The Editors

  This six volume collection includes all of Zelazny’s known short fiction and poetry, three excerpts of important novels, a selection of non-fiction essays, and a few curiosities.

  Many of the stories and poems are followed by “A Word from Zelazny” in which the author muses about the preceding work. Many of the works are also followed by a set of “Notes”[1] explaining names, literary allusions and less familiar words. Though you will certainly enjoy Zelazny’s work without the notes, they may provide even a knowledgeable reader with some insight into the levels of meaning In Zelazny’s writing.

  “My intent has long been to write stories that can be read in many ways from the simple to the complex. I feel that they must be enjoyable simply as stories…even for one who can’t catch any of the allusions.”

  —Roger Zelazny in Roger Zelazny by Jane M. Lindskold

  The small print under each title displays original publication information (date and source) for published pieces and (sometimes a guess at) the date it was written for unpublished pieces. The small print may also contain a co-author’s name, alternate titles for the work, and awards it received. Stories considered part of a series are noted by a § and a series or character name.

  The notes are a work in progress. PIease let us know of any overlooked references or allusions, or definitions you may disagree with, for a possible future revision.

  Contents

  Roger Zelazny by Jane Lindskold

  Remembering Roger by Gerald Hausman

  The Trickster by Gardner Dozois

  Stories

  Godson

  Godson: A Play in Three Acts

  Come Back to the Killing Ground, Alice, My Love (§ Kalifriki)

  Prince of the Powers of This World

  The Long Crawl of Hugh Glass

  Tunnel Vision

  Epithalamium

  Forever After: Preludes and Postlude

  Lady of Steel

  The Three Descents of Jeremy Baker

  The Sleeper: Character Outline (§ Wild Cards)

  Concerto for Siren and Serotonin (§ Wild Cards)

  The Long Sleep (§ Wild Cards)

  Amber(§)

  Amber Map

  Prolog to Trumps of Doom

  The Road to Amber

  The Great Amber Questionnaire

  A Secret of Amber (with Ed Greenwood)

  The Salesman’s Tale

  Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains

  The Shroudling and the Guisel

  Coming to a Cord

  Hall of Mirrors

  Articles

  On Writing Horror After Reading Clive Barker

  “When It Comes It’s Wonderful”: Art versus Craft in Writing

  Warriors and Dreams

  “…And Call Me Roger”: The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 6

  Curiosities

  Sandow’s Shadow (Outline) (§ Francis Sandow)

  Shadowland (Outline) (§ Shadowjack)

  Dysonized Biologicals (Outline)

  Donnerjack, of Virtùu: A Fable for the Machine Age (Outline)

  Celebration

  A Zelazny Timeline

  Z-World by Michael Whelan

  The Quintessential Roger Zelazny

  Isle of Regret by Trent Zelazny

  In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny by George R. R. Martin

  Publication History

  Acknowledgments

  Songs (In Godson: A Play in Three Acts)

  My Given Name Is Death

  Why Do Little Boys Lie?

  It’s Rough Being a Bike

  Be a Doctor

  Why’s Good-bye So Easy for Him?

  Remembering

  Oh, How the Dying Goes On

  Oh, Wondrous Weed

  The Man Who Went Away

  Betrayed

  Let’s Do It

  Save That Quarterback

  Poetry

  Our Own Piece of the Sky

  The Appetite and Rising Sun

  Cry of the Needy

  What Child Is This?

  Storm

  Walking, of Course

  Spinning the Day Through My Head

  Paranoid Game

  The God and Frustrate Shrine

  Ikhnaton’s Hymn to the Sun

  The Rational Gods

  Spring Morning: Missive

  Roger Zelazny

  by Jane Lindskold

  He drank his coffee black. So did I. Sometimes we’d drink out of the same cup, because it was easier than keeping two mugs filled. But that was later…

  By the time I met Roger Zelazny in 1989, he had long given up smoking cigarettes. I never even saw Roger smoke a pipe. He quit smoking after something like twenty-four years, because he thought even pipe smoking was interfering with his martial arts.

  Sometimes Roger would have a beer or a glass of wine with a meal, a nip of Scotch or brandy with friends, but I never saw him even tipsy. So “my” version of Roger Zelazny is quite different from the younger man described by old friends in many of the earlier introductions.

  There’s another way “my” Roger was different from the one described elsewhere. The Roger I knew was rarely quiet. He laughed a lot, sang small snatches of nonsense songs, hummed. He didn’t just talk, he burbled.

  But let me take a step back and write myself into the story, because our stories intertwine fairly tightly, even from our first contact.

  It’s 1988, and I’m in a bookstore in New York: Queens, I think, but I’m not sure. On the shelf I see a Choose Your Own Adventure book based on Zelazny’s Amber series. I’d been a Zelazny reader since high school, probably even before.

  Of Zelazny’s work, I’d especially enjoyed the Amber novels. In college, my good friend Kathy Curran turned me onto a bunch more of Zelazny’s other works. When, in 1985, Trumps of Doom, the first of the second series of Amber novels came out, I was in grad school at Fordham University. Kathy called and said, “He’s started them again.” She didn’t need to say who or what. I knew.

  My response was less than flattering to a writer whose works I sincerely enjoyed.

  “Oh. I probably won’t read them until he’s done. I’ve looked at the copyright dates for the first series. Did you know there were something like eight years between the first and last novels? I’ll just wait.”

  But I didn’t. A couple of years later, I was set to go camping with a bunch of friends from college. Various things, including a too large campfire (my fault) and a shortage of campsites, led to us spending the weekend at the cottage where Kathy Curran, now a graduate biology student, was then living.

  At Kathy’s house, I came across some of those “new” Amber novels. I ended up giving into temptation and reading them. I had mixed reactions to Merlin and to Zelazny’s changed conception of Amber, but overall I was intrigued.

  So, back to that bookstore in Queens where I stand, holding a copy of a Choose Your Own Adventure book set in Amber. At that time, I was finishing up my Ph.D. in English at Fordham. I’d wanted to write fiction for a long time, but I knew nothing about the business, and what I did know was completely wrong. That’s probably a good thing, because if I’d known even a little more, I never would have written to Mr. Zelazny.

  But I did, because seeing that Choose Your Own Adventure novel, I figured that Zelazny had lost interest in Amber. Surely he never would have permitted these simplistic game books to be done if he hadn’t lost interest. (Shows what I knew. Roger always loved experimenting with different forms of telling a story.)

  But if Zelazny had lost interest in Amber, I was still deeply interested. I had an idea for a novel that would not in any way violate the “canonical” material. In my ignorance, I decided to ask Mr. Zelazny for permission to write that book.
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  This was sometime in 1988, in the days before the internet made contacting an author almost too easy. I wrote Mr. Zelazny care of his publisher. I included a self-addressed stamped envelope for his reply. After a few weeks of tantalizing hope that I’d hear back, I figured it wouldn’t happen. I went back to working on my dissertation or the classes I was teaching. Then, in July of 1988, to my astonishment, a postcard depicting the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe showed up. It was from Roger Zelazny himself.

  The note was short, written in very tiny handwriting, and politely declined my offer. Nonetheless, I was tremendously excited. I decided to write a thank you for his courtesy in replying. Again, I wrote care of the publisher, again including a self-addressed stamped envelope. The second postcard came from Paris.

  So began a correspondence that now crowds several file drawers. I asked questions. Always, Mr. Zelazny, gradually becoming “Roger” in my mind, would write back. Eventually, he told me to use his home address and to please stop including a self-addressed stamped envelope, since we were now “acquainted.”

  We met for the first time in 1989, at Lunacon in Tarrytown, New York. It was also my first SF convention. I’d finished my Ph.D. by then, and, in fact, was leaving that Sunday for Lynchburg College in Virginia for a job interview.

  I almost didn’t go to Lunacon. I’d written Roger, asking if I could introduce myself. No response came. I decided I’d overstepped. By then, though, my buddies were interested in going to the con. I figured I’d go, then watch and listen to Mr. Zelazny’s presentations from a distance.

  Then, just a few days before Lunacon, a battered and tattered packet arrived from the Postal Service. Inside was a nearly shredded note from Roger Zelazny saying I absolutely should introduce myself if I did make it to Lunacon.

  There something unbelievable happened. I certainly wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there. We said hello, shook hands, and some connection beyond the logical happened. We were instant best friends.

  “Love” is probably too strong a word to use, but, yes, it was there from that moment. We fell in love.

  Of course, such things don’t happen, not between a twenty-six year-old, newly minted Ph.D. and a famous author twice her age. I didn’t know Roger, so I didn’t know he was notoriously shy. Otherwise, I probably would have wondered about his ulterior motives in inviting me to a party his agent was throwing that night—and, yes, he included my then-husband in the invitation.

  But I was awed and excited, and I went (with my now-ex). And Roger and I talked a considerable amount, especially given that he was not only Guest of Honor of the convention but also of this party. The next day I came back to Lunacon and went to Roger’s Q&A. I was still very shy of him, but I wanted to get a book signed for Kathy Curran, so I steeled myself and joined the line.

  To my surprise, Roger not only signed the book (a used paperback; I was very broke) but asked if I wanted to chat. We found a place in a hallway where there were two tall-backed chairs. I think because no one expected to find Roger there, we actually talked for quite a while without interruption. But, eventually, other members of the convention noticed the anomaly. I finally excused myself and found my friends.

  The next day I didn’t come back. But from that point something changed in our correspondence. For one, Roger’s next letter ran just over three single-spaced typewritten pages. Up until then, the longest letter had been one page. He was more personal, more chatty. The letter itself was written over the course of two days, as if he hadn’t wanted to stop the conversation.

  After that, the frequency of letters increased: sometimes short notes, sometimes longer, chattier missives. Often they were written serial fashion, covering several days. At Lunacon, I’d admitted my own interest in writing fiction. Roger already knew about my academic writing. Now we began to discuss the craft more often and in more detail.

  Roger didn’t so much try to tutor me as to show me what the life of a working writer was like—what he was writing, when invitations to participate in projects came in, what he was reading, about judging a contest, about a review that had just come in of Blood of Amber.

  He liked to mention the weather, part of a lively connection with his surroundings, the same that had shaped his novella “24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai.” He loved lilacs, jazz music, sweets.

  When Knight of Shadows (the fourth book in the new Amber series I wasn’t going to read until it was done) was near release in 1989, Roger sent me an advance review copy. By the time Prince of Chaos was released in 1991, it was dedicated to me.

  Yet, despite the fabric of words that connected us on a daily basis, Roger and I met only rarely. I was teaching college in Virginia. He was writing books and stories in New Mexico. I was married. He was married and had three kids he loved dearly. We never said anything to do with an “us.” Or at least not for a long time as such things go. That wasn’t the point. We had each found a soul-mate, someone to talk to.

  What did we talk about? Everything. One thing the introductions I’ve read so far don’t touch on is how much Roger was fascinated by just about every aspect of the world. He never worked on a computer, but he read about computer science as well as other sciences, hard and soft. He read poetry daily, even though he didn’t write as much of it as he once had. He loved history and biography. He read mythology, theology, psychology, and philosophy—and didn’t draw tight lines between them. He loved writing as a craft and would read occasional “how to” books to keep up on the jargon. He also was fascinated by the business side of the field.

  Unlike far too many professionals of high reputation, Roger never stopped reading the newer writers. He didn’t just read the hotshots being nominated for awards. He read novels because a splashy cover caught his eye or because a title amused him.

  As our correspondence progressed, Roger sent me books—often by the box-load. We were generations apart, so some of what had formed him was out of print or unavailable to me. He’d hunt out a copy of an old favorite and send it along. Or he’d finish a book of essays on some subject, then send it so we could “talk” about it. Or sometimes, as with Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt or Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters, a book would make him laugh, and he’d send a copy of that, too.

  This exchange wasn’t one-sided. I didn’t send as many books, but, if I mentioned liking something, he’d read it. He sent me jazz and copies of the tapes his sons made for him. I sent him David Bowie albums. We had a great time.

  In 1990, I saw a short notice in Locus that Twayne’s American Author series was looking for writers to do books on various SF/F authors. Roger’s name was on the list. After a lot of consideration, because I was really worried the casual nature of our correspondence would change, I asked Roger if I could do the book and quote from some of our letters. He agreed. Far from the biography changing our relationship for the worse, it intensified it.

  Let me shift back to the general here. Having known the man in his diversity, far too much of what is written about Roger stresses his intellectual side, his place in the SF/F field as one of the New Wave writers who improved the form, as a distant, even god-like figure.

  Roger never thought he’d introduced anything remarkable, knowing full-well that literary tricks which were new to SF/F were old hat in the larger writing world. Yes, he loved writing and tried to be innovative and interesting, but that was where it stopped. He knew where he was special and knew also that many of the things for which he was praised were not the reason.

  There’s another side to this poetry-reading intellectual, a side that Roger never attempted to hide, but many chose to ignore because it did not fit the image. His reading could be distinctly low-brow. He liked the Destroyer novels—and read each as it came out with enthusiasm. He read action adventure novels by authors such as John D. MacDonald and Donald Hamilton. He read a fair amount of what might be termed “modern noir” detective fiction.

  Roger also liked comics and sent me copies of some of his favorites. We heatedly discussed how Grimjack might work out. As Sandman became more popular, sometimes one or the other of us would have trouble finding copies of the latest issue, so we fell into the habit of buying each other copies and mailing them back and forth. But he also liked Donald Duck, especially Uncle Scrooge. He liked broad, bad humor and limericks.