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The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny #5
Nine Black Doves
The fifth in a six-volume series, Volume 5: Nine Black Doves contains Zelazny's short works from the 1980s, when Zelazny's mature craft produced the Hugo-winning and Nebula-nominated stories, "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" and "Permafrost," and other entertaining stories such as "Kalifriki of the Thread," "Dilvish, the Damned," and his first two Wild Cards stories about Croyd Crenson, "The Sleeper" and "Ashes to Ashes."
576 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
223 people want to read
About the author
Roger Zelazny
749 books3,919 followersRoger Joseph Zelazny was an American fantasy and science fiction writer known for his short stories and novels, best known for The Chronicles of Amber. He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo Award six times (also out of 14 nominations), including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel ...And Call Me Conrad (1965), subsequently published under the title This Immortal (1966), and the novel Lord of Light (1967).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 7, 2022
Chugging through these volumes of Zelazny's short fiction, I had wanted to call the penultimate book here "The Commercial One", not only because he was fully Ambering it up with the series that was really paying the bills and then some, but also because this volume features no less than four stories where he's toying around in someone else's universe. It seems like a weird side avenue for someone who had been so creative his entire working life but yet here's multiple award winner and SF legend Roger Zelazny hanging out in George R. R. Martin's "Wild Cards" setting (twice!), the "Berserker" universe of Fred Saberhagen (which I'd never heard of) and Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" setting.
All of them seem like old choices for Zelazny and even if it doesn't seem like he's phoning it in you have to wonder if he was really pushing himself with these. And maybe he was just having some fun, which I can understand . . . sometimes you set out to craft a masterpiece, and sometimes you just want to goof around.
These four stand out because of all the volumes so far this one seems like it has the least amount of stories contained inside (the listing in the table of contents is only part of one page) . . . he may have been more novel focused around this period (not just with Amber stuff) and it also seems like the stories themselves are longer, with the plethora of really short tales having been cut down quite a bit this time out. Its filled out by some extra articles (even the poetry is scarcer).
Which means, pound for pound, this one isn't going to overwhelm with sheer volume, simply because the volume isn't there this time and any duffers are going to stand out.
Yet this one also contains his last two award winning stories, which appropriately bookend the collection, so you can't just dismiss this group totally of hand. In fact, one of them, "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai", often makes the shortlist of Zelazny's Greatest Hits.
The other, "Permafrost", was actually his last award winner (1987 Hugo for Best Novelette) but I don't know if its remembered as strongly. One of those stories where you feel like you're walking in on the final act of a tale that started quite a long time ago it features a prospector bringing his girlfriend/expedition financier to an ice planet that he was first at years before. Along the way they encounter the computer system that monitors the world (that used to be a man) and the reason the first expedition didn't go so hot.
This one works for me mostly through the dialogue and the tension that results from everyone in the story knowing something someone else doesn't and the constant push-pull of what to say when. The climax feels like a variation on "This Mortal Mountain" but taken about three steps further into the realm of horror before ending into a planetwide "War of the Roses". Its clever, its kind of nuts, its got a little bit of an ornate structure . . . I don't thing any one aspect of it stands out but it just feels . . . confidently put together, the sense of a writer who has done this long enough that he can make some leaps and feel fairly okay about landing on his feet. I don't know if it would make my Top Ten but it definitely feels like a bit of a late period triumph. And heck, it beat out stories by William Gibson ("The Winter Market"!), David Brin, Vernor Vinge and Orson Scott Card so it seems like he was doing something right.
And then there's "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai", which is probably the closest he comes to combining the lyrical style of the early years with the more elliptical path his stories took later in his career. For once not based around Zelazny absorbing every book on mythology he could get his hands on, instead he centers the story around a version of "Hokusai's View of Mt Fuji" . . . anyone with even a passing interest in art, especially Japanese art, will probably immediately recognize Hokusai's work. If you've ever seen a color woodcut piece of a big, big wave (or a parody of such), then you know what I'm talking about. He did quite a few pieces centered around Mt Fuji (a mountain that has immense significance in Japanese culture), the most famous are the thirty-six collected in a book (I have a version published by Taschen and they're really beautiful images) . . . for the purposes of this story Zelazny goes with twenty-four as the main character, Mari, goes on a pilgrimage that may involve an ex-husband and ulterior motives.
Written partially as a response to critics who repeatedly asked him over the years why he never wrote strong women characters (not an unfair criticism, they're certainly rare in his short stories), Mari for the most part is the only character we encounter until nearly the end and so she commands the tale. Its got the structural inevitability of his best work, with the images acting as both guide and countdown to an ending that we gradually sense is going to be a very final ending. Its one of those stories where the action isn't necessarily in what anyone does, but how what they tell themselves while they're on this journey. Mari's past slowly unfurls during her pilgrimage in bits and pieces and part of the wonder of the story is how it echoes the landscape she's traveling through, how the path she takes goes right through her own life. Slow paced as it is, it almost demands that you read it at a slower speed to absorb it better and savor it, let each section rest in your mind a bit, like seeing a row of Hokusai's drawings on the wall at a museum. Of all his stories after his so-called peak period it’s the one that probably comes the closest emotionally to his earlier work, with a shot of patient melancholy throughout. In terms of writers whipping out one last all-timer, the closest comparison I can think of is Theodore Sturgeon's "Slow Sculpture" (that one edges this out just slightly only because it hit a little harder for me), one of those moments where you don't realize you've been asking "Does he still got it?" only to discover to your delight that he still does.
Its not all downhill from here, though and I probably should touch on the stories where he goofs around in someone else's sandbox. "Itself Surprised" is probably the least impressive, mostly because I have no emotional attachment to the Berserker universe (in a nutshell: humanity is fighting against self-replicating war machines called Berserkers, which strike me as a combination between Iain M Banks snotty Culture ships and Daleks) . . . its still kind of fun in its own way, with a trio of salvagers all too quickly finding themselves up against a berserker who wants what they have, leading to a series of playing-with-fire conversations against something that only has to proverbially sneeze before disintegrating them entirely. If you're expecting it to break any new ground, you're going to be disappointed and while its fun, its also very professional. Its good but I doubt its even the best Berserker story out there.
"Mana From Heaven" from Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" setting is better, perhaps because the overall premise is more interesting and it has lots of characters for Zelazny to play with, coupled with a fantasy vibe that feels like a more low-stakes "Lord of Light". In Niven's universe magic is a finite resource that has been steadily dwindling over the centuries, leading the few people (descendants of people from Atlantis) who can utilize it to ration it carefully, sometimes bringing them in conflict with each other. Zelazny slides into this world fairly easily and you wonder how the other stories would have gone if Niven had let Zelazny write them instead of doing them himself . . . not only is Zelazny's prose more entertaining than Niven but he's got a better grasp of characterizations, sketching out people that you might only see for a few pages into ones with an actual history that extends off the page.
But it’s the two "Wild Cards" stories that probably get most of the attention, simply because its one of the more well known SF anthology series. Associated with George R R Martin and at this point running a ridiculous number of volumes (its been going since the late 80s) it’s a setting where a "Wild Card" virus infects people and tends to give the survivors weird powers. Some people, the Aces, get nifty powers, some people get the short end of the virus stick and become Jokers and some people don't get much in the way of powers at all, some both groups get to make fun of them. Over the years its attracted a number of famous SF writers (including apparently an early version of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman", which Martin declined to run) and as Zelazny and Martin were close friends he got recruited for some contributions.
His two stories focus on his main creation for the series, a weird Aces/Joker mutation called The Sleeper. Basically a version of "Dial H for Hero" with more randomness and on a major time delay, Croyd Crenson gets new powers every time he sleeps. The problem is the powers he ends up with are completely unpredictable, sometimes very useful and sometimes very grotesque. His sleep/wake cycle is also totally skewed, meaning he can stay awake for days before he has to finally flop down for a nap . . . eventually he gets so paranoid about it that he takes on an amphetamine addiction, which is debatable as to whether it helps more than it harms . . . it keeps him awake for days and days but makes him psychotic and paranoid in the process. Not really a bad person but not really fitting strictly into the hero or villain mold, he tends to commit crimes because its easier than having a day job.
He's definitely off beat and weird, enough so that you wonder what Zelazny would have done had he decided to write a comic book series of his own (he loved comics, writing introductions to both the Grimjack graphic novel "Demon Knight" and the collected edition of Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic" miniseries). The problem most people are going to have is that I think to really enjoy these stories you have to be keyed into the vibe of the "Wild Cards" series in general, which feels like its trying to do "serious" (read: "gritty") comics but in prose format, which rarely works that well. There's a certain garish unreality that superhero comics have, where everything feels bizarrely hyperdramatic but also kind of weightless, but after "Watchmen" blew everyone's minds, everyone wanted to do grim and serious takes on superheroes (which is tough when, you know, the Miracleman "Olympus" storyline exists . . . it’s a high bar!). But "realistic" superhero stories, even ones that feature folks with ugly powers, can feel like kids trying to wear adult clothes and there are moments when it seems like the mandate is to just push things on the grim-o-meter as far as one can so the stories rarely seem . . . fun? in a way that Zelazny stories often can be, but nor are they reflective enough to qualify among his thoughtful stories. Instead at times they feel episodic and grey, which is probably understandable since they're removed from the parent series and whatever overarching storyline was probably going on around them. I'm sure they were fun for Zelazny to write and people have enjoyed using the Sleeper over the years since the inaugural stories but the stories don't have much beyond the novelty of the premise. Which, granted, is a pretty good one, and the stories coast on that for a fair distance, but if anyone tells you these are their favorite Zelazny stories there's a decent chance that either those are the only stories of his read they've read or they're lying to you.
We also get one last ride with everyone's favorite Hellknight of Vengeance and his weirdly comic relief Hellhorse, with three more stories in the saga before he wrapped it all up in the novel "The Changing Land" (which I now feel somewhat obligated to track down since I've read all these short stories and I'm curious to see how it ends). I enjoyed the ones in the last volume and these continue the trend, with Zelazny giving himself more room to stretch out and seemingly realizing that the most interesting thing about Dilvish is throwing him into already dysfunctional but ongoing situations and watching him completely disrupt them. The first one, "Devil and the Dancer" has a larger cast than usual, retaining Reena from the last story and adding in a captive god, a roguish sailor, an evil semi-sorceress and some sweet moves. "Garden of Blood" feels more of a mood piece, where a man and his horse got high in a poppy field and have weird dreams. But it’s the last that's the most fun, with "Dilvish the Damned" taking on a more lighthearted tone and featuring some delightfully witty banter between Dilvish and Black as they get caught between two factions that are sparring over a magic belt of the gods. It feels more swashbuckling than serious and probably showcases what kinds of stories he could have written with the character if he had decided to continue once the main motivation had been wrapped up.
Then there's The Rest. For me the one that stood out was "Kalifriki of the Thread", featuring a weird assassin with a thread that goes around the universe (or something) . . . its got a different flavor than than his other stories, although I think the sequel tale in the next volume is stronger. The remainder are short bits with quite a bit of variety, one of which features people who hunt people who hunt vampires ("Dayblood"), another with space racers, one centered around Saturn, a couple involve computers and some other odds and ends. Nothing essential but there are worse ways to round things out.
Overall, an interesting collection . . . not the strongest of the series (it would be hard for anyone to top those first couple volumes) but I think its wise to remember that even though his whole short fiction career can be contained in these volumes, Zelazny had no intention of limiting himself to just these. If he'd been able to have his way we might have had twice as many of these . . . writer's block certainly didn't seem to be an issue with him the way it eventually was for Theodore Sturgeon. So we're getting the output of someone who had this point in his life had no idea he'd be dead in five years. Would he have shifted his writing priorities if he'd known? Its hard to say. If nothing else it’s a somber reminder that no matter how much time you might think you have, its not as much as you think.
All of them seem like old choices for Zelazny and even if it doesn't seem like he's phoning it in you have to wonder if he was really pushing himself with these. And maybe he was just having some fun, which I can understand . . . sometimes you set out to craft a masterpiece, and sometimes you just want to goof around.
These four stand out because of all the volumes so far this one seems like it has the least amount of stories contained inside (the listing in the table of contents is only part of one page) . . . he may have been more novel focused around this period (not just with Amber stuff) and it also seems like the stories themselves are longer, with the plethora of really short tales having been cut down quite a bit this time out. Its filled out by some extra articles (even the poetry is scarcer).
Which means, pound for pound, this one isn't going to overwhelm with sheer volume, simply because the volume isn't there this time and any duffers are going to stand out.
Yet this one also contains his last two award winning stories, which appropriately bookend the collection, so you can't just dismiss this group totally of hand. In fact, one of them, "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai", often makes the shortlist of Zelazny's Greatest Hits.
The other, "Permafrost", was actually his last award winner (1987 Hugo for Best Novelette) but I don't know if its remembered as strongly. One of those stories where you feel like you're walking in on the final act of a tale that started quite a long time ago it features a prospector bringing his girlfriend/expedition financier to an ice planet that he was first at years before. Along the way they encounter the computer system that monitors the world (that used to be a man) and the reason the first expedition didn't go so hot.
This one works for me mostly through the dialogue and the tension that results from everyone in the story knowing something someone else doesn't and the constant push-pull of what to say when. The climax feels like a variation on "This Mortal Mountain" but taken about three steps further into the realm of horror before ending into a planetwide "War of the Roses". Its clever, its kind of nuts, its got a little bit of an ornate structure . . . I don't thing any one aspect of it stands out but it just feels . . . confidently put together, the sense of a writer who has done this long enough that he can make some leaps and feel fairly okay about landing on his feet. I don't know if it would make my Top Ten but it definitely feels like a bit of a late period triumph. And heck, it beat out stories by William Gibson ("The Winter Market"!), David Brin, Vernor Vinge and Orson Scott Card so it seems like he was doing something right.
And then there's "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai", which is probably the closest he comes to combining the lyrical style of the early years with the more elliptical path his stories took later in his career. For once not based around Zelazny absorbing every book on mythology he could get his hands on, instead he centers the story around a version of "Hokusai's View of Mt Fuji" . . . anyone with even a passing interest in art, especially Japanese art, will probably immediately recognize Hokusai's work. If you've ever seen a color woodcut piece of a big, big wave (or a parody of such), then you know what I'm talking about. He did quite a few pieces centered around Mt Fuji (a mountain that has immense significance in Japanese culture), the most famous are the thirty-six collected in a book (I have a version published by Taschen and they're really beautiful images) . . . for the purposes of this story Zelazny goes with twenty-four as the main character, Mari, goes on a pilgrimage that may involve an ex-husband and ulterior motives.
Written partially as a response to critics who repeatedly asked him over the years why he never wrote strong women characters (not an unfair criticism, they're certainly rare in his short stories), Mari for the most part is the only character we encounter until nearly the end and so she commands the tale. Its got the structural inevitability of his best work, with the images acting as both guide and countdown to an ending that we gradually sense is going to be a very final ending. Its one of those stories where the action isn't necessarily in what anyone does, but how what they tell themselves while they're on this journey. Mari's past slowly unfurls during her pilgrimage in bits and pieces and part of the wonder of the story is how it echoes the landscape she's traveling through, how the path she takes goes right through her own life. Slow paced as it is, it almost demands that you read it at a slower speed to absorb it better and savor it, let each section rest in your mind a bit, like seeing a row of Hokusai's drawings on the wall at a museum. Of all his stories after his so-called peak period it’s the one that probably comes the closest emotionally to his earlier work, with a shot of patient melancholy throughout. In terms of writers whipping out one last all-timer, the closest comparison I can think of is Theodore Sturgeon's "Slow Sculpture" (that one edges this out just slightly only because it hit a little harder for me), one of those moments where you don't realize you've been asking "Does he still got it?" only to discover to your delight that he still does.
Its not all downhill from here, though and I probably should touch on the stories where he goofs around in someone else's sandbox. "Itself Surprised" is probably the least impressive, mostly because I have no emotional attachment to the Berserker universe (in a nutshell: humanity is fighting against self-replicating war machines called Berserkers, which strike me as a combination between Iain M Banks snotty Culture ships and Daleks) . . . its still kind of fun in its own way, with a trio of salvagers all too quickly finding themselves up against a berserker who wants what they have, leading to a series of playing-with-fire conversations against something that only has to proverbially sneeze before disintegrating them entirely. If you're expecting it to break any new ground, you're going to be disappointed and while its fun, its also very professional. Its good but I doubt its even the best Berserker story out there.
"Mana From Heaven" from Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" setting is better, perhaps because the overall premise is more interesting and it has lots of characters for Zelazny to play with, coupled with a fantasy vibe that feels like a more low-stakes "Lord of Light". In Niven's universe magic is a finite resource that has been steadily dwindling over the centuries, leading the few people (descendants of people from Atlantis) who can utilize it to ration it carefully, sometimes bringing them in conflict with each other. Zelazny slides into this world fairly easily and you wonder how the other stories would have gone if Niven had let Zelazny write them instead of doing them himself . . . not only is Zelazny's prose more entertaining than Niven but he's got a better grasp of characterizations, sketching out people that you might only see for a few pages into ones with an actual history that extends off the page.
But it’s the two "Wild Cards" stories that probably get most of the attention, simply because its one of the more well known SF anthology series. Associated with George R R Martin and at this point running a ridiculous number of volumes (its been going since the late 80s) it’s a setting where a "Wild Card" virus infects people and tends to give the survivors weird powers. Some people, the Aces, get nifty powers, some people get the short end of the virus stick and become Jokers and some people don't get much in the way of powers at all, some both groups get to make fun of them. Over the years its attracted a number of famous SF writers (including apparently an early version of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman", which Martin declined to run) and as Zelazny and Martin were close friends he got recruited for some contributions.
His two stories focus on his main creation for the series, a weird Aces/Joker mutation called The Sleeper. Basically a version of "Dial H for Hero" with more randomness and on a major time delay, Croyd Crenson gets new powers every time he sleeps. The problem is the powers he ends up with are completely unpredictable, sometimes very useful and sometimes very grotesque. His sleep/wake cycle is also totally skewed, meaning he can stay awake for days before he has to finally flop down for a nap . . . eventually he gets so paranoid about it that he takes on an amphetamine addiction, which is debatable as to whether it helps more than it harms . . . it keeps him awake for days and days but makes him psychotic and paranoid in the process. Not really a bad person but not really fitting strictly into the hero or villain mold, he tends to commit crimes because its easier than having a day job.
He's definitely off beat and weird, enough so that you wonder what Zelazny would have done had he decided to write a comic book series of his own (he loved comics, writing introductions to both the Grimjack graphic novel "Demon Knight" and the collected edition of Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic" miniseries). The problem most people are going to have is that I think to really enjoy these stories you have to be keyed into the vibe of the "Wild Cards" series in general, which feels like its trying to do "serious" (read: "gritty") comics but in prose format, which rarely works that well. There's a certain garish unreality that superhero comics have, where everything feels bizarrely hyperdramatic but also kind of weightless, but after "Watchmen" blew everyone's minds, everyone wanted to do grim and serious takes on superheroes (which is tough when, you know, the Miracleman "Olympus" storyline exists . . . it’s a high bar!). But "realistic" superhero stories, even ones that feature folks with ugly powers, can feel like kids trying to wear adult clothes and there are moments when it seems like the mandate is to just push things on the grim-o-meter as far as one can so the stories rarely seem . . . fun? in a way that Zelazny stories often can be, but nor are they reflective enough to qualify among his thoughtful stories. Instead at times they feel episodic and grey, which is probably understandable since they're removed from the parent series and whatever overarching storyline was probably going on around them. I'm sure they were fun for Zelazny to write and people have enjoyed using the Sleeper over the years since the inaugural stories but the stories don't have much beyond the novelty of the premise. Which, granted, is a pretty good one, and the stories coast on that for a fair distance, but if anyone tells you these are their favorite Zelazny stories there's a decent chance that either those are the only stories of his read they've read or they're lying to you.
We also get one last ride with everyone's favorite Hellknight of Vengeance and his weirdly comic relief Hellhorse, with three more stories in the saga before he wrapped it all up in the novel "The Changing Land" (which I now feel somewhat obligated to track down since I've read all these short stories and I'm curious to see how it ends). I enjoyed the ones in the last volume and these continue the trend, with Zelazny giving himself more room to stretch out and seemingly realizing that the most interesting thing about Dilvish is throwing him into already dysfunctional but ongoing situations and watching him completely disrupt them. The first one, "Devil and the Dancer" has a larger cast than usual, retaining Reena from the last story and adding in a captive god, a roguish sailor, an evil semi-sorceress and some sweet moves. "Garden of Blood" feels more of a mood piece, where a man and his horse got high in a poppy field and have weird dreams. But it’s the last that's the most fun, with "Dilvish the Damned" taking on a more lighthearted tone and featuring some delightfully witty banter between Dilvish and Black as they get caught between two factions that are sparring over a magic belt of the gods. It feels more swashbuckling than serious and probably showcases what kinds of stories he could have written with the character if he had decided to continue once the main motivation had been wrapped up.
Then there's The Rest. For me the one that stood out was "Kalifriki of the Thread", featuring a weird assassin with a thread that goes around the universe (or something) . . . its got a different flavor than than his other stories, although I think the sequel tale in the next volume is stronger. The remainder are short bits with quite a bit of variety, one of which features people who hunt people who hunt vampires ("Dayblood"), another with space racers, one centered around Saturn, a couple involve computers and some other odds and ends. Nothing essential but there are worse ways to round things out.
Overall, an interesting collection . . . not the strongest of the series (it would be hard for anyone to top those first couple volumes) but I think its wise to remember that even though his whole short fiction career can be contained in these volumes, Zelazny had no intention of limiting himself to just these. If he'd been able to have his way we might have had twice as many of these . . . writer's block certainly didn't seem to be an issue with him the way it eventually was for Theodore Sturgeon. So we're getting the output of someone who had this point in his life had no idea he'd be dead in five years. Would he have shifted his writing priorities if he'd known? Its hard to say. If nothing else it’s a somber reminder that no matter how much time you might think you have, its not as much as you think.
July 25, 2025
Permafrost and Fuji
Nine Black Doves is volume five of the masterful Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny. (For an overview of the series, see my review of the first volume, Threshold.) This volume, covering the years 1981-1990 maintains the high standards of scholarship of the series. By this time Zelazny's output was mostly in the form of novels, which pay better, word for word, than short stories. However, he never stopped writing stories until his death, thus this six-volume collection. During these years Zelazny and his wife June grew apart and he and Jane Lindskold fell in love.
This one is a mixed bag -- that's par for the course with Zelazny, who never stopped experimenting, especially with his short stories. Many of these stories are collaborations with other authors, if only in the sense of using ideas from others at their request, and these, in my opinion, are not quite so good. Undiluted Zelazny is the best Zelazny! Still it contains some excellent stories, "Permafrost", which won multiple awards, and my personal favorite, the novella 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai. When I wrote in my review of Volume 4, Last Exit to Babylon, "The best of the stories in Last Exit to Babylon are very good. Not Zelazny's best, in my opinion -- there are better stories in his past and his future," 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai was one I had in mind.
It surprises me a little that I like this novella so much. I ought to hate it. It's slow and contemplative. While it has a rather nice plot, the essence of the plot could be summarized in two paragraphs. Instead of that we get 70 pages of the protagonist, Mari, wandering around Japan and thinking about stuff. It's a slow, contemplative story that rewards patience. Patience is a thing I never have enough of. But still, I love this story. I think it's that I love Mari. She feels to me as if Zelazny put a bit of himself into her -- something he rarely did. She's skilled in martial arts (as was Zelazny), and she's widely read and imaginative -- connecting the Buddhist deity Kokuzo who is supposed to protect people born in the Year of the Tiger (as she was) with Shere Khan from Kipling's The Jungle Books. This reprint of the novella includes black and white copies of Hokusai's prints -- I don't think the version I read before had those.
The dust covers of this series bear a gorgeous painting by famed F&SF artist Michael Whelan. In the installment of "...And Call Me Roger" (as Christopher Kovacs' multipart biography of Zelazny is called), he explains how that came about. Zelazny's publisher, Arbor House, commissioned cover art for the new Amber novel Trumps of Doom from an artist just out of art school. This guy, being pressed for time, lightly modified a cover Whelan had created for a Fred Saberhagen novel. Unfortunately for him, Zelazny and his son both recognized it. They contacted the publishers, who settled with Whelan. Then realizing they already had a lot of copies printed with the plagiarized cover, they asked Whelan what it would take to allow them to continue to use it as the cover of Trumps of Doom. And this thing was done.
On the occasion of presenting an award to Whelan at San Diego ComicCon, Zelazny said, "So that was my only Michael Whelan cover... I wish I could get a real Michael Whelan cover for the proper story. That would be something and a half." Kovacs continues the story
Blog review.
Nine Black Doves is volume five of the masterful Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny. (For an overview of the series, see my review of the first volume, Threshold.) This volume, covering the years 1981-1990 maintains the high standards of scholarship of the series. By this time Zelazny's output was mostly in the form of novels, which pay better, word for word, than short stories. However, he never stopped writing stories until his death, thus this six-volume collection. During these years Zelazny and his wife June grew apart and he and Jane Lindskold fell in love.
This one is a mixed bag -- that's par for the course with Zelazny, who never stopped experimenting, especially with his short stories. Many of these stories are collaborations with other authors, if only in the sense of using ideas from others at their request, and these, in my opinion, are not quite so good. Undiluted Zelazny is the best Zelazny! Still it contains some excellent stories, "Permafrost", which won multiple awards, and my personal favorite, the novella 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai. When I wrote in my review of Volume 4, Last Exit to Babylon, "The best of the stories in Last Exit to Babylon are very good. Not Zelazny's best, in my opinion -- there are better stories in his past and his future," 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai was one I had in mind.
It surprises me a little that I like this novella so much. I ought to hate it. It's slow and contemplative. While it has a rather nice plot, the essence of the plot could be summarized in two paragraphs. Instead of that we get 70 pages of the protagonist, Mari, wandering around Japan and thinking about stuff. It's a slow, contemplative story that rewards patience. Patience is a thing I never have enough of. But still, I love this story. I think it's that I love Mari. She feels to me as if Zelazny put a bit of himself into her -- something he rarely did. She's skilled in martial arts (as was Zelazny), and she's widely read and imaginative -- connecting the Buddhist deity Kokuzo who is supposed to protect people born in the Year of the Tiger (as she was) with Shere Khan from Kipling's The Jungle Books. This reprint of the novella includes black and white copies of Hokusai's prints -- I don't think the version I read before had those.
The dust covers of this series bear a gorgeous painting by famed F&SF artist Michael Whelan. In the installment of "...And Call Me Roger" (as Christopher Kovacs' multipart biography of Zelazny is called), he explains how that came about. Zelazny's publisher, Arbor House, commissioned cover art for the new Amber novel Trumps of Doom from an artist just out of art school. This guy, being pressed for time, lightly modified a cover Whelan had created for a Fred Saberhagen novel. Unfortunately for him, Zelazny and his son both recognized it. They contacted the publishers, who settled with Whelan. Then realizing they already had a lot of copies printed with the plagiarized cover, they asked Whelan what it would take to allow them to continue to use it as the cover of Trumps of Doom. And this thing was done.
On the occasion of presenting an award to Whelan at San Diego ComicCon, Zelazny said, "So that was my only Michael Whelan cover... I wish I could get a real Michael Whelan cover for the proper story. That would be something and a half." Kovacs continues the story
The editors of this collection shared Zelazny's remarks with Michael Whelan, and to their delight, he agreed to paint the dust jacket for this six-volume collection. Thus Zelazny's "something and a half" wish for a genuine Michael Whelan cover has come true at last.The book ends with a section called "curiosities", which consists mainly of outlines, e.g. three outlines for films that were never made. I did not read these, so I guess you could say that, strictly speaking I did not finish the book. But I read 94% of it.
Blog review.
October 23, 2014
Another excellent collection of Zelazny's work. Great pick of short stories & some really excellent factual stuff by him about writing. It made me want to re-read his stories yet again with his comments in mind - many of which I did. Then I never got around to doing a review, for some reason. I should have. The quality of this series has been fantastic.
November 28, 2023
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/nine-black-doves-volume-5-the-collected-stories-of-roger-zelazny/
The penultimate in the complete collection of Zelazny’s short fiction, bringing together stories published between 1979 and 1990. Huge Zelazny fan that I am, I must record that I had read all of the stories before – more than half of them are in the 1989 collection Frost and Fire, though I have mislaid my copy of Author’s Choice #27 which had two of the more obscure ones. The books also includes Zelazny’s poetry, which to be honest is not all that special, and several treatments and sketches for unmade films and unwritten books.
But there are a couple of points that made me glad to have bought this. The first is that the text of the Hugo-winning “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai” is in fact illustrated by the relevant 24 woodcuts from Hokusai’s famous series. It’s only monochrome but it makes a big difference to your appreciation of the story. Also, Christopher Kovacs’ detailed chronology of what was going on in Zelazny’s life in the years from 1982 to 1990 is illuminating. Amusingly, Michael Whelan agreed to do the stunning cover art for the collection after discovering that one of his other pieces had been ripped off without credit or payment for an earlier Zelazny book.
The penultimate in the complete collection of Zelazny’s short fiction, bringing together stories published between 1979 and 1990. Huge Zelazny fan that I am, I must record that I had read all of the stories before – more than half of them are in the 1989 collection Frost and Fire, though I have mislaid my copy of Author’s Choice #27 which had two of the more obscure ones. The books also includes Zelazny’s poetry, which to be honest is not all that special, and several treatments and sketches for unmade films and unwritten books.
But there are a couple of points that made me glad to have bought this. The first is that the text of the Hugo-winning “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai” is in fact illustrated by the relevant 24 woodcuts from Hokusai’s famous series. It’s only monochrome but it makes a big difference to your appreciation of the story. Also, Christopher Kovacs’ detailed chronology of what was going on in Zelazny’s life in the years from 1982 to 1990 is illuminating. Amusingly, Michael Whelan agreed to do the stunning cover art for the collection after discovering that one of his other pieces had been ripped off without credit or payment for an earlier Zelazny book.
August 18, 2024
A mixed bag. The stories all worked. The poetry not so much.
January 1, 2015
reviews.metaphorosis.com
4 stars
Roger Zelazny deserves every bit of his status as a legendary SFF author. At his best (which he often was - see Lord of Light), his prose verged on poetry without ever losing its readability. His short fiction (gathered in several partial collections over the years) was as good, if not better. So, running across a complete collection of his short works is as exciting to an SF fan as finding that a (more) affordable version of the [Jack] Vance Integral Edition is being published. Zelazny and Vance were not only among the top SF writers, but were two of the absolute best for those who love good writing for its own sake.
Which is why the editorial policy behind this collection (published by NESFA) is so puzzling. Curious decisions include: - stories are not in chronological order, nor in series groups, nor in topical order. Yes, there's a general chronological sequence here, but stories are often presented out of order, for no evident reason. - Zelazny aspired to be a poet, and there's a lot of his poetry here. Ironically, for a writer whose prose was so beautifully poetic, his actual poetry is pretty poor. The poems are scattered throughout the volumes of the collection - often topically linked with the following story. It's a little hard to argue with the editors on this - several hundred pages of poetry in one place would have seriously weakened one of the volumes in the set. And if the poetry had just been left out entirely, you'd wonder about it, and how good it must have been. - Several excerpts from novels. Frankly, I just resent this. I have the novels - they're mostly available for purchase. I bought this set for the short stories. - One little quibble. One the inside back jacket, Michael Whelan gets as much space as Zelazny himself. Yes, he's a famous (if overrated) artist, but hey, he just did the one cover, not the six volumes of content.
Strange sequencing, etc. aside, the collection is well done. There is excellent information on publication dates and how the stories fit the various series. There are many previously unpublished (or underpublished) pieces. There are carefully collated comments from Zelazny about each story, and there are (over-) copious interpretive notes about the allusions in each story. Also, there's a nicely written biographical piece included in each volume. While they're all respectful of Zelazny's talent, they're not sycophantic in tone. There are also introductions by guest notables for each volume - some good, some that lead you to question why the editors selected people who clearly did not know Zelazny well.
Finally - the stories themselves. If you're a Zelazny fan, this collection is well worth your time. Otherwise, it's not your best introduction. Some of the underpublished (e.g. in a fanzine) stuff just isn't that good. And the strange sequencing ends up undercutting the effect of the really great stories that are also here. I'm a long time, committed Zelazny enthusiast, and I'm confident that this is not the collection I'd give my spouse in order to share my burning enthusiasm for Zelazny's work. If you're already a fan, though, this will satisfy your completist desires, and give you access to a lot of new work, uneven though it may be.
March 6, 2011
As I said in my recap of the first four volumes of this series, everything is awesome, especially the notes after each story that give some insight into Zelazny’s writing. Also, the biographical stuff and the speeches and essays at the end are great.
With that out of the way, here’s a list of all the stories in the book (not including poetry/articles/whatever). I’ve bolded the ones I felt stood out.
Permafrost
Itself Surprised (series: Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe)
Mana from Heaven (series: Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away universe)
Devil and the Dancer (series: Dilvish 9 of 11)
Garden of Blood (series: Dilvish 10 of 11)
Dilvish, the Damned (series: Dilvish 11 of 11)
LOKI 7281
Dreadsong
Dayblood
The Bands of Titan
Night Kings
Quest's End
The Sleeper (series: Wild Cards)
Ashes to Ashes (series: Wild Cards)
Deadboy Donner and the Filstone Cup
Kalifriki of the Thread (series: Kalifriki)
The Deadliest Game
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai
And now, a few individual notes.
So far, this is my favorite book in the series. It’s full of GREAT stories. Even the ones that didn’t get my bold “seal of awesome” were very good (the exceptions being “Dreadsong” and “The Bands of Titan,” which I didn’t much care for).
I didn’t bold any of the Dilvish stories, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good. I like Dilvish, but none of those stories really stood out for me. I still most enjoyed “The Places of Aache” and “A City Divided” from Volume 4, and “A Knight for Merytha” from Volume 2, as far as Dilvish tales go.
You might notice that I didn’t bold the entire title of “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai.” That’s because I really was not liking the story when I first started it. Like, for the first 14 views or so. It felt like it was taking way too long to get off the ground. By the end, I loved it. I really think that if I read it a second time I’d enjoy it a lot more. So it gets the semi-bold, despite the first part being really difficult for me to get through.
One reason I know this is my favorite volume so far is because it’s incredibly difficult for me to pick a favorite story. There are just so many contenders. “Mana From Heaven.” “Permafrost.” Either of the Wild Cards stories. Hell, even “Dayblood,” if I’m looking for something a bit shorter than the rest.
And that’s not even the end of the quality in this book. The stories in this volume were exceptional, yes, but so were the articles. I don’t know what to say about them other than I felt these articles were even better than the ones in previous volumes (which were also quite good). And this installment of “. . . And Call Me Roger” is probably my favorite so far, ‘cause we’re getting to the point where the Amber series is being discussed a lot, and that’s what introduced me to Zelazny in the first place.
All in all, an excellent book. I can’t see how Volume 6 could possibly top it, but if anyone can prove me wrong, it’s Mr. Z.
With that out of the way, here’s a list of all the stories in the book (not including poetry/articles/whatever). I’ve bolded the ones I felt stood out.
Permafrost
Itself Surprised (series: Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe)
Mana from Heaven (series: Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away universe)
Devil and the Dancer (series: Dilvish 9 of 11)
Garden of Blood (series: Dilvish 10 of 11)
Dilvish, the Damned (series: Dilvish 11 of 11)
LOKI 7281
Dreadsong
Dayblood
The Bands of Titan
Night Kings
Quest's End
The Sleeper (series: Wild Cards)
Ashes to Ashes (series: Wild Cards)
Deadboy Donner and the Filstone Cup
Kalifriki of the Thread (series: Kalifriki)
The Deadliest Game
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai
And now, a few individual notes.
So far, this is my favorite book in the series. It’s full of GREAT stories. Even the ones that didn’t get my bold “seal of awesome” were very good (the exceptions being “Dreadsong” and “The Bands of Titan,” which I didn’t much care for).
I didn’t bold any of the Dilvish stories, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good. I like Dilvish, but none of those stories really stood out for me. I still most enjoyed “The Places of Aache” and “A City Divided” from Volume 4, and “A Knight for Merytha” from Volume 2, as far as Dilvish tales go.
You might notice that I didn’t bold the entire title of “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai.” That’s because I really was not liking the story when I first started it. Like, for the first 14 views or so. It felt like it was taking way too long to get off the ground. By the end, I loved it. I really think that if I read it a second time I’d enjoy it a lot more. So it gets the semi-bold, despite the first part being really difficult for me to get through.
One reason I know this is my favorite volume so far is because it’s incredibly difficult for me to pick a favorite story. There are just so many contenders. “Mana From Heaven.” “Permafrost.” Either of the Wild Cards stories. Hell, even “Dayblood,” if I’m looking for something a bit shorter than the rest.
And that’s not even the end of the quality in this book. The stories in this volume were exceptional, yes, but so were the articles. I don’t know what to say about them other than I felt these articles were even better than the ones in previous volumes (which were also quite good). And this installment of “. . . And Call Me Roger” is probably my favorite so far, ‘cause we’re getting to the point where the Amber series is being discussed a lot, and that’s what introduced me to Zelazny in the first place.
All in all, an excellent book. I can’t see how Volume 6 could possibly top it, but if anyone can prove me wrong, it’s Mr. Z.
August 16, 2018
24 Views of Mount Fuji:
Cette courte nouvelle m'a permis de découvrir Zelazny sous un autre jour que les Princes d'Ambre (que j'avais par ailleurs beaucoup aimé également mais pour d'autres raisons). J'ai été marquée par la diégèse originale qui nous entraine dans le Japon d'Hokusai et évolue au fils de l'avancée de l'héroïne dans son pèlerinage vers les 24 vues du Mont Fuji. Ce pèlerinage est autant un déplacement géographique qu'une quête spirituelle et métaphysique. A chacune des estampes nous en apprenons un peu plus sur Mari et le but de sa démarche. Chaque partie est courte et la force de Zelazny réside dans sa capacité à nous faire avancer dans le récit tout en subtilité et par insinuations. Le rythme lent ainsi créé reproduit à la fois l'aspect méditatif de ce voyage introspectif mais lui confère une dimension mystérieuse. Chacune de ces vignettes est l'occasion de réfléchir à l'évolution du paysage et aux mystères du monde et des hommes, de leurs liens et leurs empreinte sur la nature. C'est aussi un pèlerinage littéraire dans un récit qui foisonne de références littéraires et nous invite à cheminer à notre tour vers d'autres univers. De nombreuses allusions restent en suspend mais n'est ce pas là peut-être une des clefs du livre que de nous inciter à accepter l'inattendu, l’inexplicable et à nous laisser porter par les mystères du monde ?
Cette courte nouvelle m'a permis de découvrir Zelazny sous un autre jour que les Princes d'Ambre (que j'avais par ailleurs beaucoup aimé également mais pour d'autres raisons). J'ai été marquée par la diégèse originale qui nous entraine dans le Japon d'Hokusai et évolue au fils de l'avancée de l'héroïne dans son pèlerinage vers les 24 vues du Mont Fuji. Ce pèlerinage est autant un déplacement géographique qu'une quête spirituelle et métaphysique. A chacune des estampes nous en apprenons un peu plus sur Mari et le but de sa démarche. Chaque partie est courte et la force de Zelazny réside dans sa capacité à nous faire avancer dans le récit tout en subtilité et par insinuations. Le rythme lent ainsi créé reproduit à la fois l'aspect méditatif de ce voyage introspectif mais lui confère une dimension mystérieuse. Chacune de ces vignettes est l'occasion de réfléchir à l'évolution du paysage et aux mystères du monde et des hommes, de leurs liens et leurs empreinte sur la nature. C'est aussi un pèlerinage littéraire dans un récit qui foisonne de références littéraires et nous invite à cheminer à notre tour vers d'autres univers. De nombreuses allusions restent en suspend mais n'est ce pas là peut-être une des clefs du livre que de nous inciter à accepter l'inattendu, l’inexplicable et à nous laisser porter par les mystères du monde ?
July 19, 2010
The science fiction mythologist strikes again! Definitely enjoyed the creativity of this collection by Roger Zelazny. Always some philosophical message - Loved the piece on Vampires and population control.
Also enjoyed the Dilvish stories. A talking ape that Dilvish rides around, who kills people, and gets into all sots of mythical conflicts, in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world that eerily resembles medieval-feudalism... creative!
I liked Permafrost, and the piece on Mount Fuji - the Prize Winning shorts, well worth reading. Some real philosophical one-liner gems in these stories. Zelazny was a master-story teller. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, will have to check out some of his novels.
Also enjoyed the Dilvish stories. A talking ape that Dilvish rides around, who kills people, and gets into all sots of mythical conflicts, in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world that eerily resembles medieval-feudalism... creative!
I liked Permafrost, and the piece on Mount Fuji - the Prize Winning shorts, well worth reading. Some real philosophical one-liner gems in these stories. Zelazny was a master-story teller. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, will have to check out some of his novels.
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