8th out of 51 books
—
73 voters
Doorways in the Sand
The novel is unusual in that each chapter ends with a cliffhanger, while the next chapter starts in the middle of the action preceding the previous ending, then moves back to resolve the cliffhanger & continues forward. This style of storytelling sets this work apart from many science fiction novels. An example is at the end of Chapter Six. In the last few sentences, F...more
Mass Market Paperback, 240 pages
Published
September 1st 1991
by Harpercollins
(first published March 1976)
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You know, a part of me really wishes I could have pulled off the same trick the book's protagonist did for 13 years - remain a perpetual student supported by a cryogenically frozen uncle, free to expand my horizons, create Lobachevsky-worthy mathematical odes to beauty, and not ever having to graduate to the real adult world.
"'Let there be an end to thought. Thus do I refute Descartes.' I sprawled, not a cogito or a sum to my name."However, when the real adult world comes equipped with aliens un...more
I had forgotten this gem until a question on a Zelazny recommendation sent me to my shelves to rediscover this blend of Bradbury and crime caper. Set in an Earth very similar to our own, aliens have made contact and invited us to join the galactic federation. As a token of sincerity, we're participating in an artifact exchange, lending them culturally significant objects such as the Crown Jewels and the Mona Lisa, and receiving ambiguous alien artifacts in return. Meanwhile, a perpetual universi...more
Reread Apr2011: Still a good, fun read. I was sick & needed something upbeat & relaxing. Zelazny to the rescue again. I don't know how many times I've read this, but each time his poetic prose & wry sense of humor have made it a treat.
Dec2007: One of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. It's an action packed mystery SF. Our hero, Fred, is as average as any Zelazny character - that is to say while he has no extraordinary powers, his sanity, habits & life philosophy are...more
Dec2007: One of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. It's an action packed mystery SF. Our hero, Fred, is as average as any Zelazny character - that is to say while he has no extraordinary powers, his sanity, habits & life philosophy are...more
Where do I start?
Fred Cassidy is a college student and has been for the past 17 years due to a loophole in his late uncle's will. Fred is a compulsive climber and a thorn in the side of the administration who would like nothing more than for him to graduate so they can get on with their lives. Long story short, an alien artifact goes missing and a lot of people think Fred has it. The rest of the book is the quest to find the star stone and stay alive. Thankfully, Fred has help in the form of a t...more
Fred Cassidy is a college student and has been for the past 17 years due to a loophole in his late uncle's will. Fred is a compulsive climber and a thorn in the side of the administration who would like nothing more than for him to graduate so they can get on with their lives. Long story short, an alien artifact goes missing and a lot of people think Fred has it. The rest of the book is the quest to find the star stone and stay alive. Thankfully, Fred has help in the form of a t...more
I just don’t get how he does it.
No matter how many Zelazny stories I read, he still finds a way to surprise and amaze me. I simply cannot fathom how he keeps track of so many characters and creates plot twists that are entirely unpredictable yet still believable within the frame of the story. And then, just when you think you have everything figured out, more information is unveiled and your appreciation for the masterful storytelling increases a thousand fold.
I really don’t know what else to sa...more
No matter how many Zelazny stories I read, he still finds a way to surprise and amaze me. I simply cannot fathom how he keeps track of so many characters and creates plot twists that are entirely unpredictable yet still believable within the frame of the story. And then, just when you think you have everything figured out, more information is unveiled and your appreciation for the masterful storytelling increases a thousand fold.
I really don’t know what else to sa...more
Zelanzy was one of my all time favorite fantasy authors; I think I've read pretty much everything he ever did, plus re-reading all ten Amber novels about four or five years ago. Ol' Roger passed about fifteen years ago, so there haven't been any new Zelazny novels, and, as sadly happens when a writer dies, most of his stuff is out of print, except for the "Amber Omnibus," and that is, sporadically, hard to find.
This was the first Zelazny novel I ever read, back in high school, when my mother gav...more
This was the first Zelazny novel I ever read, back in high school, when my mother gav...more
Aliens, government agents, & thugs are all after a mysterious alien McGuffin that the narrator might or might not have ever had in his possession. Put like that, it sounds like a thinly veiled Hitchcock movie with the serial numbers filed off, which it is. That's just the structure, though. In between pulp-thriller standard kidnappings, beatings, gunshots, double-crosses, and jeweled treasures, Roger Zelazny meditates variously on academia, knowledge, the joys of climbing the outside of tall...more
... or as I like to call it now that I'm finished: Romancing the Star Stone , for it reminds me of the Michael Douglas / Katleen Turner crime caper with its tongue-in-cheek approach and its lively pacing. A priceless alien artefact in the shape of a gemstone has been stolen and the last person to have seen it is Fred Cassidy - a perpetual student who has managed to avoid graduation for 13 years, and who suffers from a rare affliction called acrophilia. Meaning he likes to climb things , preferr...more
This was a quick read. Then again, I was just finishing "The great book of amber" which is about the size of a phone book and has almost as many characters, so the Torah could have seemed a quick read, too.
This is a gimicky book, and almost every review mentions it: each chapter starts with the main character in Big Trouble (tm) and then he has a flashback that explains how he got there, then he gets away into a cliffhanger, which is resolved in the following chapter's flashback.
Strangely, that...more
This is a gimicky book, and almost every review mentions it: each chapter starts with the main character in Big Trouble (tm) and then he has a flashback that explains how he got there, then he gets away into a cliffhanger, which is resolved in the following chapter's flashback.
Strangely, that...more
This is the second Zelazny book I've gone for and I've got to say that despite all of the wonderful stuff I heard about him as a writer, I'm horribly disappointed. I couldn't even finish this one. It's his language, his use of language. He's a sci fi writer, writing this book in the 1970s, but who uses 19th century language. It's beyond distracting; it's maddening!
Here's an example. On page 20, the protagonist, Fred, kicks an intruder in the groin. and then attempts to flee. Instead of saying Fr...more
Here's an example. On page 20, the protagonist, Fred, kicks an intruder in the groin. and then attempts to flee. Instead of saying Fr...more
Jul 18, 2012
Erik Graff
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Zelazny fans
Recommended to Erik by:
no one
Shelves:
sf
I read this as an academic dean at Loyola University Chicago and loved the part with Fred Cassidy, the perpetual undergraduate, and Dennis Wexworth, his academic advisor, trying to outwit one another. I rarely laugh aloud when reading and don't find much humor humorous, but this little piece of silly sf fluff was an exception.
Firstly, you have to understand that this is a comedy. It's funny. The dialogue is snappy, comical. I can very easily picture a younger Robert Downey Jr playing the main character and serving the story handsomely. It borders on screwball.
Secondly, Zelazny couched the humor in the situation, which is not really that funny, but has its funny side.
A perpetual student---who refuses to take a degree because the terms of his uncle's will only grants him a stipend as long as he's pursuing an education-...more
Secondly, Zelazny couched the humor in the situation, which is not really that funny, but has its funny side.
A perpetual student---who refuses to take a degree because the terms of his uncle's will only grants him a stipend as long as he's pursuing an education-...more
Awesome book! My second reading. I got more out of it this time. This was one of Roger's favorite books. It was somewhat experimental (like "Creatures of Light and Darkness", "Bridge of Ashes", "Roadmarks", and culiminating in "Eye of Cat".
Fred Cassidy the hero of this book is a perennial college student (13 years). His uncle left him a fortune until he gets a degree. He's not stupid he just keeps changing his major so he never finishes the courses required for a degree! He is also an acrophile...more
Fred Cassidy the hero of this book is a perennial college student (13 years). His uncle left him a fortune until he gets a degree. He's not stupid he just keeps changing his major so he never finishes the courses required for a degree! He is also an acrophile...more
FRA
Je me disais qu'il était possible d'écrire de la bonne science fiction avec des niveaux technologiques différents et convaincants, de faire de quoi de meilleur mais tout aussi exotique que ce que Schmitz avait fait avec "The Demon Breed". Je me suis souvenu de ce roman de Zelazny. C'est de l'action, avec un merveilleux rythme. C'est aussi très exotique, même si tout se passe sur la Terre.
ENG
I was thinking about action SF with believable aliens and well thought out tech levels and how it was p...more
Je me disais qu'il était possible d'écrire de la bonne science fiction avec des niveaux technologiques différents et convaincants, de faire de quoi de meilleur mais tout aussi exotique que ce que Schmitz avait fait avec "The Demon Breed". Je me suis souvenu de ce roman de Zelazny. C'est de l'action, avec un merveilleux rythme. C'est aussi très exotique, même si tout se passe sur la Terre.
ENG
I was thinking about action SF with believable aliens and well thought out tech levels and how it was p...more
Part Heinlein and part Carroll. A left-handed scifi adventure in which an eternal undergrad battles against the forces that would relegate Earth to a backwater, and worse, force him to get a diploma.
A fun romp, if rather more light than I'd prefer. The device of beginning each chapter with a flash-forward cliffhanger detracts more than it adds.
A fun romp, if rather more light than I'd prefer. The device of beginning each chapter with a flash-forward cliffhanger detracts more than it adds.
Enjoyable sci-fi comedy about what might follow first contact. The eternal undergraduate joke appealed to me greatly when I was one, and the book makes climbing around on buildings sound interesting enough that I tried it myself. Re-reading it after about 20 years, it seems light, pleasant, but not really worth keeping for another read.
As with many of the style of Zelazny, the writing is clever and yet not always entirely clear. Fragmented yet more organic for it. I was thoroughly engaged by the story though only maybe because the protagonists' life did not seem so far removed from my own that his philosophic ramblings weren't relevant.
Very strange! And yet, as I enjoyed the odd sense of humor found throughout, I relaxed and let the weirdnesses flow around until the author chose to explain them. I am also glad to have experienced a whole other way of organizing chapters and time in general.
Not sorry I read this though I don't see me reading it again.
Not sorry I read this though I don't see me reading it again.
Being a fan of Zelazny, I bought the book cheap and then upon reading it found that I remember it vaguely from when I was younger. A fun and interesting who-done-it. I do enjoy first person quite often, especially if the first person is amusing, this one is. It kind of reminded me a little of Sam Spade meets Hitchikers guide. A fun read.
After Lord of Light, this one (1976) is probably Zelazny's best-liked science fiction novel. The inventive plot involves a frozen uncle, realistic bad guys, and undercover alien cops. It has wacky inventions: dog suit so alien coppers won't be conspicuous on Earth; a Rhennius machine for reversing one's self and others; and a star stone, the function of which cannot be revealed in a review. The likeable hero Fred Cassidy is an eternal student (a wise-acre polymath, similarly to other Zelaznian p...more
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Roger Zelazny made his name with a group of novellas which demonstrated just how intense an emotional charge could be generated by the stock imagery of sf; the most famous of these is 'A Rose for Ecclesiastes' in which a poet struggles to convince dying and sterile Martians that life is worth continuing. Zelazny continued to write excellent short stories throughout his career, which share the inve...more
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“Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal—the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?”
—
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“I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing - an interstellar kula chain - affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy - tying them together, building common traditions... The notion strikes me as kind of fine.”
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