tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7670543499274741427.post4640746501239680195..comments2024-03-26T17:54:54.592+01:00Comments on Speculiction...: Review of Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger ZelaznyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7670543499274741427.post-41550093259978612082016-07-07T11:31:23.935+02:002016-07-07T11:31:23.935+02:00Brain burp?Brain burp?Jessehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07796098208589965362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7670543499274741427.post-34360283770457544722016-07-07T10:22:06.702+02:002016-07-07T10:22:06.702+02:00I have not read Zelazny for many years, but I read...I have not read Zelazny for many years, but I read him extensively for several years, from the 70's to the late 90's. I remember being shocked to hear of his passing. <br /><br />From my past, the feeling remains that "Creatures of Light and Darkness" is a sequel to "Lord of Light" - not in the ordinary sense, but (possibly deliberately) as a part of the development of Zelazny's oeuvre.<br /><br />I intend to re-read both books at some point to see if my impression holds. I remember both books with great pleasure and fondness - as I do all of his work. I strongly recommend readers to explore Zelazny.<br /><br />Take note of "Jack of Shadows", which has recently been joined by "The Peripheral" by William Gibson as the only books I have read that deal with 'time travel' in anything like an enjoyable and "reasonable" way. In my opinion, as a conceptual cosmologist, time travel is nonsense. Among other things it violates the basic nature of consciousness, since while Zelazny and Gibson among others speculate wildly about the nature of immortality, to me it is a simple fact, a basic characteristic of awareness. Each individual in my understanding is indeed literally immortal. That places serious constraints on the ideas of time travel and multiple dimensions. A further thought in my cosmology is that essentially, time does not exist. It is a concept like "shadow", which is useful and describes a real interaction of real energies, but has no actual existence. <br /><br />Both Zelazny and Gibson work around these difficulties with incredible skill and flair - without actually resolving the issue of awareness, they manage to produce believable concepts and weave books of powerful images and great characters that do not insult the mind of the discriminating reader.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com