This Immortal

 

by Roger Zelazny

(originally published as ...And Call Me Conrad)

Rating: ***

It's been a long time since I read this book, which means this post will be pretty brief. I kept notes on every other Hugo winner I've read, but apparently not this one. What was in your head, Sam-of-late-2011-possibly-early-2012? What did you think of this book? The only answers I have are two lines. The first, a summary: "An immortal man leads a group of humans and aliens on a tour of a post-nuclear apocalyptic world." The second a review that I'll do my best to build on: "Good. Fell apart, tone became too mythic and grand towards the end. None of the characters seemed that well developed."

From what I recall, I thought this was a pretty good book. I read it immediately after the unarguably worst Hugo Winner, and up to that point the only winner I read that I enjoyed was <i>A Case of Conscience</i>. This one was fairly well written, nicely paced, and had a solid, if unexciting plot. The main problem I remember is that in the last half of the book, the book somehow transitions from being a character-driven travelogue to an account of epic one-on-one battles, which I frankly didn't find that exciting. The last few chapters just felt like the stripped-down versions of classic myths you might read about in middle school. And that's about all I can say on the matter. Next up is The Wanderer, about which I can say slightly more. Probably.