Donnerjack

Rating:
Summary: Gee. Where did Zelazny stop and Lindskold start......?
Review: What a horrible disappointment! I *thoroughly* enjoyed the first third of the book, with all its interesting plots and unrelated storylines that you knew would sooner or later weave together to make an intricate Zelazny tapestry. The Virtù & Verité idea is fabulous! The writing was swift and subtle and every bit the Zelazny I have recently come to know and appreciate. However, right around that bit about the Brass Baboon (perhaps written in a foggy haze near the end of his life? Fitting, since it depicts his hero fighting Death, even if only to a "draw") things start to fall apart. A few pages later it becomes O-B-V-I-O-U-S that Ms Lindskold has taken up the fallen pen to veer off in her own direction. Didn't Zelazny leave any notes on how the story was going to wind up? Couldn't they find somebody with a less.....how shall I put it?...."feminine" style to finish up a masterpiece from this impeccably masculine author? All that dialog. All that explanation of how people were feeling and dreaming and interacting..... Uck. She immediately kills off the most interesting characters (well, they're mostly dead anyhow), introduces still more unrelated characters (she's even got the old girl-dressed-as-a-man gag... puh-leeeze!) and tries to "talk like the boys" as she bludgeons us with lurid desciptions of Sayjack's depravities. These descriptions are the most telling of all: the first time she wanders into this subplot she's a bit timid; then she's foul-mouthed and disgustingly descriptive; then the language turns into a sort of XXX-rated romance novel. *Shudder* After breezing happily through this fantastic Zelazny universe for a couple of hundred pages I am now schlogging through a muddy, trackless swamp, and I fear I won't even be able to finish the bloody thing. I no longer care how things will turn out. I am no longer interested in the suddenly shallow Virtù characters, and I never have developed any interest in "Jay". I suppose it would be fair to say the Ms Lindskold did a better job than I would have with the difficult task of finishing another man's thought, but that isn't saying much. If you liked "Children of the Jedi" you'll probably like this book. Otherwise, buy it, read the first third and then just put it down. You'll be happier that way, believe me!

Rating:
Summary: classic zelazny
Review: while i thought that i could tell where mr zelazny left off,i still enjoyed the whole story.

Rating:
Summary: Zelazny for advanced readers.
Review: Zelazny's Donnerjack is maybe one of the most complex books he wrote in his awesome carreer. Again he mixes fantasy and SF in a way only he seemed able to do. But this is a book you can read and think in many levels, enjoy only the story (a good one,as always), or the concepts and ideas behind it, too. You can think it as a cyberpunk adventure, or you can go deeper into the philosophycal and religious stuff that are present in the whole story. It's interesting to think that a book he wrote just before his death is a novel about a man and his son fighting Death himself. If you think this way, maybe Donnerjack is Zelazny's homage to himself, and a farewell legacy with his view of the world. Here he can explain the roles of technology, fantasy, religion and mythology in his own life. You can read Donnerjack and compare it with some other books such as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Huxley's Brave New World, which deals with the same questions. Donnerjack isn't a! book easy to read and understand, and I don't recommend it for beginners in Zelazny's or science fiction books. But I recommend it strongly for those who already love this kind of literature. Anyway, have a good reading. You are all welcome to tell me your opinions about the book after you have read it.