Summers should be filled with magic and adventure, art and beauty, and, most important, events so memorable that they will last you for the rest of your life. All of these requisites are satisfied in Roger Zelazny’s opulent, gorgeous novel Lord of Light. This book gives us a very human experience in a distant future on a far-flung planet. It contains science so advanced that it seems like magic and is peopled by brilliant and imperfect characters that vie for immortality but cannot escape their frail humanity.
This is a book about very flawed women and men who become gods that squabble among themselves and oppress those that would have them share their bounty, beauty, knowledge and the ability to create one’s own destiny.
The hero Mahasamatman, who calls himself Sam, lives and dies and lives again to fight the good fight for the masses. He encounters, along the way, Death, living beings that have shed their corporeal form and gender swappers — among others. And, of course, he finds love; not the petty love of the one above all others but a transcendent passion that places all others above the self.
This is a beautifully written book that will love you.
Mosley’s latest novel is Little Green, the 12th in his Easy Rawlins series