/fantasy
novel
by American author Roger Zelazny
. It was awarded the 1968 Hugo Award
for Best Novel
, and nominated for a Nebula Award
in the same category
. Two chapters from the novel were published as novelettes in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1967. Zelazny's close friend (and fellow science fiction/fantasy author) George R. R. Martin
describes in his afterword to Lord of Light how Zelazny once told him that the whole novel came from a single pun.
The context of the novel – modern western characters in a Hindu-Buddhist-infused world – is reflected in the book's opening lines:
The novel is structured as a series of long semi-independent chapters; each a distinct story within a long campaign by the protagonist Sam – a classic trickster
character – against the established gods of the world.
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could.
It was in the days of the rains that their prayers went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri|Ratri, goddess of the Night.
"Your prayers and your curses come to the same. Lord Yama," commented the ape. "That is to say, nothing." "It has taken you seventeen incarnations to arrive at this truth?" said Yama. "I can see then why you are still doing time as an ape."
Not by the normal course of events shall we be restored or matters settled, Tak of the Bright Spear. We must beat our own path.
Sam was the greatest charlatan in the memory of god or man. He was also the worthiest opponent Trimurti|Trimurti ever faced.
I have many names, and none of them matter.