- Title:
- Donnerjack
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Avon Books, 1997
- ISBN
- 0-380-77022-9
Roger Zelazny's stories are famous for characters that are gods, or at least very much like gods. The first of his stories that I ever read, Lord of Light, acquired quite a cult following about twenty-five years ago. Maybe it was the Buddhist flavor of the story, but I suspect that not a small part of the attraction was the sense of power I got as reader, identifying with the story's hero.
Twenty-five years are a long time. Lord of Light gave its characters their power using unspecified technology, advanced enough to appear to us as magic. Since then computers and cyberspace have become the playground of the magicians and gods of science fiction. Zelazny has joined the ranks of science fiction cyber magicians with Donnerjack, leaving behind the magic of the "Princes in Amber" for the magic of computers.
The other thing Zelazny likes to do is play with our legends. He wrote several stories of light comedy, including When at Faust You Don't Succeed (which I found only mildly amusing, and almost as tedious as reading the interminable sequels to Anthony's "Xanth" stories). Donnerjack, however, is meant to be taken fairly seriously, and maybe that is why it is so much better.
In Donnerjack the usual computer network has become complex enough to change into something entirely new, a place where gods are real, and where myths come alive. This new place is not just a clever virtual reality, but real enough that its denizens are breaking into the conventional reality, while some inhabitants of conventional reality can cross the border into virtual reality and back in person.
The idea is hardly new in itself, but Zelazny infuses it with his unique flavor of mythology and personality. When I mentioned Zelazny's Lord of Light, I did so in part because Donnerjack is strongly evocative of Lord of Light. In Donnerjack modern myth walks side by side with ancient myth, and Zelazny gives us a glimpse of wonders and marvels as only he can.
Jane Lindskold, who had to finish the writing when Zelazny died, is an author in her own right. Her treatment of the book is amazingly competent. Zelazny's characters have all of Zelazny's sense of fun, his brashness and style. I wasn't able to find out how much of the writing was complete when Zelazny died, but I suspect that the book was far from complete, given the time elapsed between Zelazny's death and the book's publication. In the end, Lindskold left the book as distinctly Zelazny's as those that he wrote himself. (I don't know if she would take that as a compliment, but that is how I mean it.)