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Roger Zelazny (1937 - 1995) was a science fiction and fantasy writer whose widely-loved and multi-award-winning (including six [[Hugo Award|Hugo awards]] and three [[Nebula Award|Nebula awards]]) works include the [[Chronicles of Amber]] series, ''[[A Night in
Zelazny started writing during a fashion in sci-fi/fantasy for psychological focus and experimentalism known as the "New Wave" <ref>simplifying the movement greatly.</ref>. His early short story ''He Who Shapes'' describes a doctor able to enter the dreams of his patients by technological means to confront and ease their neuroses. The story moves right out of conventional territory, the very narrative voice itself being progressively overwhelmed by the deep tides of myth and symbology that the overreaching doctor founders in.
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His early work attracted the bulk of the critical attention, particularly by the literary community. His greatest commercial success and best known work is the (later) [[Chronicles of Amber|Amber series.]] It is a tale of princes locked in rivalry around the claim for a throne. The princes are gods, but Zelazny loved to mix genres: these immortals, these primal forces in human form initially have the morals and at times the style and speech of gangsters out of a hard-boiled detective novel.
While the bulk of the Amber series marks Zelazny settling down to a more straightforward prose style, there are stream-of-consciousness sequences and touches of poetry. The best dialogue is eloquent yet unornamented.
The influence of Zelazny forms a baseline to modern sci-fi and fantasy: he is one of those writers other writers read and love. [[Neil Gaiman]] dedicated ''The Wake'' to Roger, who died of cancer during its production, aged only 58.
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Unusually for a writer interested in deep psychology, Zelazny tended to steer away from the "destructive testing" of characters. Rather than habitually showing us how characters come apart under pressure, his characters have integrity. This maturity is perhaps also part of their willingness to engage with their enemies in extended and meaty conversation where other writers would give up and put in a fight scene.
Roger engaged in several collaborations, including works created with [[Philip K. Dick]], [[Robert Sheckley]] and Alfred Bester.
His novel ''[[Damnation Alley]]'' lent its title (but little else) to a 1977 film. His short story "The Last Defender of Camelot" was adapted (by [[George
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=== Roger Zelazny's works with their own trope pages include: ===
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* ''[[Damnation Alley]]''
* ''[[Lord of Light]]''
* ''[[A Night in
* ''[[Doorways in The Sand]]''
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* [[After the End]]: Several of his short stories, including ''For a Breath I Tarry,'' and ''The Stainless Steel Leech,'' among others, are set in various post-human world, amongst the robotic servants who have inherited the Earth.
* [[
* [[All the Myriad Ways]]
* [[And I Must Scream]]
* [[Animated Armor]]: Merlin's servitor in "The Last Defender of Camelot"
* [[Author Appeal]]: In quite a few books (''[[Chronicles of Amber]]'' and ''[[Lord of Light]]'' among them) people smoke a lot-- usually cigarettes, sometimes a pipe. Zelazny was himself a heavy smoker until middle-age when he gave it up for health reasons. Whenever he got stuck as to where to go next, he would have a cigarette to think about things, and would put this activity into the text. When he stopped smoking during the second set of ''Amber'' books, he also stopped writing about his characters smoking.
* [[Author Existence Failure]]: ''Donnerjack'' and several other works were incomplete at his death. It is moving that Zelazny himself finished off several books of other authors who had died.
* [[Automated Automobiles]]: ''Devil Car'', and other stories.
* [[Balance Between Good and Evil]]: The pantheon Zelazny created for ''Isle of the Dead'' <ref> and ''To Die in Italbar''</ref> balances creative against destructive gods.
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* [[Disappeared Dad]]: Sandow to his son; Randy's father in ''Roadmarks''. Zelazny's own father died early.
* [[Doomed Moral Victor]]
* [[Excited Show Title!]]: "Horseman!"
* [[Gentle Giant]]: Mondamay in ''Roadmarks''.
* [[Flowery Elizabethan English]]: in ''Creatures of Light and Darkness'', the immortal Prince Who Was A Thousand tends towards this style of speech, especially when conversing with his bodiless love, Nephytha. Other immortals and gods speak normal modern English, for the most part.
* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Justified for Francis Sandow, on the planets whose ecosystems he designed. It's a plot point in one novel when an animal is frightened of him, since it means he's entering enemy territory, and identifies him in a short story.
* [[Have We Met Yet?]]: Played with in ''Roadmarks'' -- on several occasions, people reminisce about a previous meeting with the time-travelling protagonist then add that they're not sure if it's happened to him yet, because he looked older then. It turns out that he's growing younger instead of older as time goes on.
* [[Historical Domain Character]]: The time-travel novel ''Roadmarks'' has significant cameos by several, including the Marquis de Sade and a small German man named Adolph.
* [[Human Popsicle]]: {{spoiler|In ''Permafrost'' characters are frozen solid and remain... alive.}}
* [[
* [[I Have Many Names]]: A series of short stories, collected in ''My Name Is Legion'', about a secret agent whose real name even his employer didn't know, whose aliases were always the names of obscure-but-notable historical figures. (In a break from the usual procedure, the historical figure always had nothing whatever to do with the job at hand; for instance, on his first appearance he was undercover as an engineer, but using a name whose original owner was a doctor.)
* [[Journey to
* [[Like a Badass Out of Hell]]
* [[The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday]]: ''Psychoshop'', a remarkably mobile shop {{spoiler|where you pawn elements of your mind!}}
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* [[Virgin Sacrifice]]
* [[We Can Rule Together]]: Subverted in "The Last Defender of Camelot"
* [[What Is This Thing You Call Love?]]: The demons in ''Lord Demon'' can't truly feel it, nor can they truly hate. {{spoiler|Except main character Kai Wren.}}
* [[You Didn't Ask]]: Used against one of the villains in ''Roadmarks''. A character is placed under a compulsion to obey the villain's orders; the villain's plan fails due to a fact the character knew all along but chose not to volunteer; the villain asks why he didn't warn him, and the character replies, with exact truth, "You never asked me."
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[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Roger Zelazny]]
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