(Originally published by RevolutionSF.com)
Jack of Shadows
Reviewed by Van Allen Plexico, @VanAllenPlexico, © 2016
By: Roger Zelazny
Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction
Review Date: May 18, 2016
RevSF Rating: 10/10
JACK OF SHADOWS, reissued by the Chicago Review Press after
years out of print, is vintage Roger Zelazny. For many who just read those
words, that will be enough. They can stop reading now and go and buy a copy and
enjoy--even if, like me, they read it before, quite a while ago, in an earlier
release from a different publisher. You guys, go have fun. We’ll chat later.
The rest of you, continue on with me to the next paragraph, if you would.
If you're still with me here, then two things must be true:
One, you are intrigued enough to want to know more—and I applaud you for it!—but
two, simply saying "classic Zelazny book back in print" is not enough
to send you racing to the bookstore. You demand more. Very well; I will tell
you more about the book, and about how it came to be back before the public.
JACK OF SHADOWS was a Hugo and Locus Awards finalist that originally
saw publication in 1971, right about the time Zelazny was also beginning what
would become the series he is best known for: the Amber Chronicles. This is
important; before we get into why, though, let’s talk a bit about the book, and
about our eponymous protagonist.
Jack himself is never fully defined or explained. We learn
over time that he is a renowned thief, amoral and immortal; a supernatural
creature more at home in darkness than in the light. Oddly enough, his story
largely begins with his death, as he is captured and executed while preparing
to steal an object of great value. Upon resurrection, Jack vows revenge upon
all of those even peripherally involved in his demise. This sets events in motion
that ultimately change the very world around him and lead to his moment of
hubris. It is then that he confronts himself (quite literally) and faces hard realities
about what sort of being he is, and hard choices about what sort he truly
wishes to be.
As Jack proceeds on his journey of vengeance (and
unintentional self-discovery), we learn about him on the fly, largely through
his snappy conversations with those he encounters. We also learn a little—just
enough, really—of the strange half-fantasy, half-science fiction world through
which he moves. Along with Jack, we encounter strange creatures, arrogant lords,
wronged women and bizarre settings, all lushly described in Zelazny’s
inimitable style that combines poetic influences and irreverent humor. (No one
has ever carried this sort of thing off quite the way he did.)
In this way, the book takes the form of a travelogue, a form
at which Zelazny excelled. He was also first and foremost a short story writer,
and as such he was a master at including just enough of the information the
reader needs to understand a story and be intrigued by it, but not so much as
to become distracting or burdensome.
Jack’s amoral, selfish nature is revealed through his
dialogue, which is often at odds with his actions. In other words, he talks
grandly of the wrongs done to him and of his own altruistic motives, even as he
behaves in a consistently and entirely selfish manner. This construction—a main
character we are meant to be both sympathetic to and repulsed by, who feels deeply
wronged by the actions of people around him who are merely fending off his
unwelcome advances of various sorts—represents a clear tie to Jack Vance’s
Dying Earth cycle. This connection to Vance is something the author himself
acknowledged in his introduction to the earlier editions of the book. Even the
protagonist himself is named for that legendary writer.
Also in that original introduction, Zelazny goes to great
lengths to argue that JACK OF SHADOWS has little if any connection to the Amber
series, either on the surface or in its production. But this is clearly untrue.
While many (most?) of Zelazny’s works feature similar themes of immortal beings
coping with challenges posed by their contemporaries, the parallels between
this book and the early Amber novels run much deeper and broader, and are
clearly visible. There are the larger themes, such as the plot turning on just
how much the immortal main character changes over the course of his adventures;
how the pursuit of power changes a person; the eventual discovery by said
character that he doesn’t really desire the thing he began the story thinking
he desired most. There are also the more specific echoes of Amber, such as the
use of “shadow” as a means of travel; the hero masquerading as a normal
contemporary man on Earth (or a version of it); the hero being imprisoned by
his arch-foe (in crystal, no less—something that happens to Merlin in the
second Amber series), then cleverly escaping and being driven by desire for
revenge. If Jack is not a prince of Amber, he certainly would not seem out of
place at the family reunion.
That said, Jack himself is fundamentally different from Prince
Corwin and his siblings in key ways, and his journey takes a different route
and reaches a different destination. Those facts are more than enough to let
this book stand on its own, echoes of Amber be damned. (Meanwhile, fans of
Corwin and Merlin can be grateful that Zelazny worked out these darker impulses
here, upon poor Jack, allowing our two princes to follow somewhat brighter
paths.)
Speaking of the book’s introduction, Chicago Review Press
has opted to remove Zelazny’s old one—a justifiable move, given that much of
what he discusses in it will be of little interest to a reader coming to his
work for the first time—and instead procured a new and more retrospective one from
SF legend Joe Haldeman. This was an appropriate choice for more than one
reason. Haldeman and Zelazny were friends, so the one is ably suited to tell us
about the work of the other. Also, Haldeman, like Zelazny, excels at shorter
works. He never pads out his books with needless fluff, but instead hones in on
the core of the story. (I once asked him on a panel we shared at a convention
if his publishers, in this day and age of the giant doorstop novels, ever
pressured him to write longer books, and he answered in the affirmative—but he
resists.) His introduction is as relatively brief as one of his books, but it
has warmth and charm and evokes happy memories of the Roger we all lost.
This is a good time to be republishing Zelazny’s old work,
as the twentieth anniversary of his death passed by only last summer, complete
with a memorial ceremony in Santa Fe and panels about his work at various
conventions (more than one of them proposed by and moderated by myself).
Additionally, NESFA recently unleashed upon us a massive, six-volume collection
containing virtually all of his short work, among quite a bit of other material.
In addition, his younger son, Trent, is now coming into his own as a talented
professional writer, bringing more attention onto the family name and business.
Zelazny’s short stories and novels were brought into print
by quite a variety of publishers over the years, and the legal rights to them
seem on the surface quite complex. Chicago Review Press—an independent
publisher in operation since 1973—stepped in earlier and acquired A NIGHT IN
THE LONESOME OCTOBER, which they previously released and which has done well.
They have now chosen to bring us JACK OF SHADOWS because they perceived greater
demand for it than others they might have sought, and because it had been out
of print for so long. At present they do not plan to bring us more of his work,
but they admit “that could soon change.”
We hope they are right, and that it does. As they publish
some sixty titles a year, we’d like to think they might fit a little more
Zelazny into their upcoming portfolio. In particular, TODAY WE CHOOSE FACES and
BRIDGE OF ASHES have been out of print for about as long, if not longer, and
were both published by the same company (Signet) that last brought us JACK OF
SHADOWS. The thought that whole generations of science fiction and fantasy
readers could come of age never experiencing Zelazny’s work is a fate worse
than anything that befalls even poor ShadowJack himself.
Van Allen Plexico is the multi-award-winning author of more
than a dozen novels, including the heavily-Zelazny-inspired LUCIAN: DARK GOD’S
HOMECOMING and BARANAK: STORMING THE GATES, both of which straddle the same
line between SF and Fantasy that Zelazny loved to blur. His Military Space
Opera, LEGION III: KINGS OF OBLIVION, won the 2015 Pulp Factory Award for Novel
of the Year. He hosts the White Rocket Podcast and serves as Associate Professor
of History and Political Science at Southwestern Illinois College. He owns an
entire bookcase of various editions of nearly all of Zelazny’s work.
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