F/SF

This book had 4 stories that I read over a bunch of years probably starting sometime after 2010, definitely 1 in 2018 and one just last week. I loved "Doors of His Face Lamps of his Eyes" (Amazing writing. Super witty, cool original plot.), couldn't make it through more than the first 4 pages of "Graveyard Heart", and liked the other 2 stories a lot (A Rose for Ecclesiastes AND The Furies).

So now I can finally say I've finished this one. I'd eventually like to read everything Zelazny wrote, but I may have to wait until I retire, since I've only read 8 of his novels and two of his collections. I did get to meet him once a convention in Michigan, seemed like a really nice guy. ( )

It is the hubris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us.--All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak.

The titular story was rather moving, akin to Babel-17. A polyglot poet goes to Mars, where the natives are gracefully dying out. He translated their epics and in return affords them the bible. The conclusion (and solution to their fate) was less-than-satisfying. I thought this morning about the title and Faulkner. There's something to bed said for dying empires and the Gothic. The other three pieces offered promise but appeared stilted. Couldn't help but think about Francis Parkman during the first novella Furies. This detour into the speculative allows the grafting of enormous systems , technologies and philosophies. Unfortunately they appear to be but clay and wire models upon examination. ( )

I enjoyed Zelazny's work more in the Chronicles of Amber, but this selection of short stories was still worthwhile. Some of the main characters sounded a bit like Carl Corey, and as seems to be typical of this generation of science fiction writing, the male characters are more completely constructed than the female characters. I didn't enjoy the story about hunting the great beast in the waters of Venus, but found the other stories worthwhile. Zelazny accomplishes a certain amount of horror with these stories and I was able to imagine the world as if it were actually set up as he described in three of these settings. In one story, a select group of humans are regularly frozen, thawed, and refrozen, and Zelazny explores the consequences of such a lifestyle. In another, three unlikely allies hunt for a criminal who was also a witness of horrific crimes. In the final story, a poet/Martian translator fulfills a prophecy but feels cheated out of something that has become important to him.

There is something about this acidy-papered book that remains appealing. Zelazny has unique ideas, though his delivery makes his work dated. His work carries with it a sort of nostalgia and I don't want to forget what I have enjoyed in it. I am not well read in the science fiction genre, but did value reading this book and would recommend it to those who are willing to read it in its older sci-fi context. ( )

This book was titled "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" in the U.K. & both editions contain the same 4 stories.The title story (in the U.K.) is one of his most famous stories & rightfully so. It's another story set on a fictional Mars, with a dying Martian race & Earthmen to study them. It doesn't sound too appealing - more hackneyed than anything. It is nothing of the kind. It's touching - a romance mystery. 'Rose' also appears in his collection "The Lamps of His Mouth, The Doors of His Face" as well as in a couple of other anthologies.My favorite story in the collection is "The Furies". Imagine the Greek Furies in the far future when man is on many planets.Well worth reading. ( )