Rating: 
Summary: Ranks up in the top of Zelazny's older works.
Review: An intergalactic swap meet. An eternal student, struggling with the establishment. While not as polished as some of Roger's works, it is still quite an entertaining read. Here is the story of just another guy, who suddenly becomes the focus of intense scrutiny. I hope you give it a try. Well worth the effort
Rating: 
Summary: An all-time classic
Review: Doorways in the Sand is one of my alltime favorites in the genre. Though Zelazny's overall quality can vary from brilliant to mediocre to damn near incomprehensible (and I've read nearly everything he's written), this book is by far his best effort. Make no mistake, it's not a simple read and is nowhere near as straightforward as the (first) Amber Chronicals; Zelazny makes his readers work for their enjoyment, so he's not an author for the lazy-minded, but at his best he uses every single word to its fullest extent. People who really appreciate the beauty of well-written English (without being word snobs) will love this book! Doorways can be a little bit difficult to track--the action flips back and forth in a bewildering series of flash-backs and -forwards--but unlike many authors who play with sudden changes in perspective, Zelazny carries this off. I find new, clever, sometimes hilariously funny details each time I re-read it, and I've re-read it many, many times. In fact it's a tragedy that this book is out of print because my copy is shortly going to fall to pieces!
Rating:
Summary: A nice work of science fiction, soon after alien contact
Review: Earth has built its first starships, and encountered alien civilization, which is galaxy-wide. Earth sends off two of its treasures, the Mona Lisa and the Crown Jewels, off on cultural exchange, and receives two alien treasures, the Rhennius Machine and the Starstone, in return. Fred Cassidy, our point of view character, is the beneficiary of his (cryogenicly frozen) uncle's trust fund, which pays him a generous allowance as long as he remains a college student without a degree. He's now been in college thirteen years, when he is suddenly assaulted by his geology professor, who is seeking information on a replica of the Starstone which vanished. But it soon turns out that the professor is not the only one looking--there's the State Department, the U.N., some hoodlums (or doodlehums), and a pair of alien cops dressed as marsupials . . . A fine science fiction mystery. All the clues are there for you to solve it before Fred does, but even if you don't try, it is an extremely engaging read. A few quibbles: This is an earth which has built interstellar spacecraft, so we must be in the 21st century somewhere, but the technology (other than alien, and other than cryogenics) does not seem to have advanced from the mid-70's writing of the book. At least drop in a little technology! .... Still a fine read, which I first enjoyed as a freshman in high school almost a quarter century ago, and I still do.
Rating:
Summary: an enjoyable romp
Review: hilarious in parts and a lot of complex and not-so-complex fun as Fred the eternal student works the college system, the government, and even the bad guys to his own ends. Worth looking for.
Rating:
Summary: an enjoyable romp
Review: hilarious in parts and a lot of complex and not-so-complex fun as Fred the eternal student works the college system, the government, and even the bad guys to his own ends. Worth looking for.
Rating:
Summary: I Want To Read It Again!
Review: I think this was the first or second Zelazny novel I ever read. It is one of the ones I have read the most times. I've always enjoyed it. I like how it is written in the sort of pretentious, hip literary style of a professional college student. Fred Cassidy is an extremely well developed character with a definite personality that permeates every word in the book-- which is a first person narrative. There are many great supporting characters, including the larcenous Uncle Albert, the hedonistic Merimee, the insidious guidance counselor Wexroth, an acrophilliac advisor Professor Dobson (who gets the best lines in the book), a dog, a kangaroo, and a sentient recording device. I guessed the plot at the beginning of the story. It seems rather obvious, but no less enjoyable, as the various players realize what is going on. It is a great read from start to finish. A career college student for 13 years with a stipend from a frozen uncle, and a penchant for climbing suddenly becomes involved in intergalactic intrigue. Things get incredibly zany while staying quite serious which is a tough trick to manage. With the help of a mechanized Moebius strip things get even crazier. Zelazny does a great blend of fantasy, science fiction, and philosophy with a "classic mad Irishman" flavor. I just finished it and I want to read it again. I don't know what more I can say about it than that.
Rating: 
Summary: Only A Shadow of "Amber"
Review: Immediately upon completion of "the Chronicles of Amber", (an incredible read, incidentally) I sought out more of Zelanzy's work, hoping for something of the same calibre. I was greatly disappointed hen my search led me first to "Doorways in the Sand." This novel alternates between moments of brilliance and chapters of pure stupidity. The concept of the "perpetual student" is cute, but not enough to hold a reader's interest for the duration of the novel that deals with this idea. The hero, Fred Cassidy, is little more than a cocky college student (despite his age) and accomplishes what he does merely through accidents and luck. The story itself is rather two dimensional, focusing on the quest of several parties to obtain an artifact of nondescript importance. Some ideas, as science fiction go, however, are fantastic. The matter-reversal machine, for example, I found to be both intriguing and humerous, although entirely implausible. In short, the saving grace of this novel is Zelazny's ability to make the best of a bad lot, and the plot of this book is certainly a bad lot. Nothing spectacular, but acceptable if you have a couple of hours to spare. The lack of depth is very surprising from an authour of Zelazny's usual calibre. Try "The Cronicles of Amber" instead, it is everything that this novel should have been.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent mixture of humor and imagination
Review: In the same postmodern line like, say, Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, a book full of humor, masterly combining actual situations from campus life (and slightly ironizing them) with cliches of academic life in the US and a highly imaginative account of the aliens' interference into our daily existenc
Rating:
Summary: Grand SF on a human scale
Review: One of the best that I have ever read. It excells at so many things... neat characters, perfect plot pacing, and some very clever writing that was also accessible, too. Whew. And somehow amongst all of this, Zelazny manages to wind up Everyman and put him through an adventure that is fantastic and somehow _right_ at the same time. Adjectives fail me. Just get a copy and read it, okay?
Rating:
Summary: Mystical...
Review: Roger Zelazny delivers yet again with this book. A career student who is well liked and very clever, is accused of stealing the star-stone. He is chased by inter stellar alien agents and is never sure who is for real, or who is just a relection from a doorway in the sand...a path that leads to other dimensions. Like many of this mans books, it takes a little while to figure out what is going on, but when you do, you will be glad that you walked through the doorway into his world....
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