In the same year, The Dream Master, adapted from the novella that won the Xingyun Award, also achieved good results. In this book, the protagonist Rand is a psychiatrist named Shaper. This kind of professional doctor can enter the patient's mind and dreams and directly explore and treat. Irene, the heroine, wanted to be a "shaper" very much, but her natural blindness prevented her from processing images, so she turned to Yilan for help. In the process of helping her, Rand found that her mental stability was far less difficult to shake than she thought.
The following year, Serazny's most classic novel, The King of Light, came out. This work blurs the line between fantasy and science fiction. At first, philosophical and poetic language, like Ramayana, brought readers into the gorgeous and solemn world of Indian mythology. Indian gods such as Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu dominate the heaven, and all kinds of ghosts and gods are readily available. But as the story goes on, readers will find that the story actually happened in the distant future when the earth has already been destroyed! A human colonial spaceship came to a planet, conquered the local aborigines called demons with superb technical means, consolidated its rule with Hindu hierarchical religious means, and firmly grasped the power of science and technology. Sam, the hero, saw the atrocities of the gods and repented. He founded Buddhism to compete with it and wanted to bring science and technology back to the world. In this novel, Serazni reinterprets religious concepts such as complex and gorgeous Hinduism, capricious gods, and the cycle of karma with high-tech means such as computer, spaceship, radio, thinking snooping and consciousness transfer. With its grand layout, magnificent writing style and extraordinary imagination, King of Light won another Hugo Award for zelazny, created a brand-new sub-category of "scientific fantasy novels" in the fantasy kingdom, and pushed his career to a new peak.
Three novels in two years suddenly established Serazny's status as a master. In the last years of 1960s, he wrote many popular science fiction novels, such as Island of Death and Creatures of Light and Dark. After entering the 1970s, Serazny began to work hard to create his fantastic masterpieces. From The Prince of Amber in 70 years to Chaos Hall in 78 years, five novels constitute the first part of The Legend of Amber. This novel is of milestone significance to zelazny personally and in the history of fantasy literature. Not only did the novels sell well, but they also developed comics, board games and even computer games, which can be said to be a model of applauding and selling.
How to skillfully integrate his own world into the plot and show it to readers is a headache for fantasy writers. In The Annals of Amber, zelazny solved this problem through exquisite layout. The hero woke up in the hospital and found himself suffering from amnesia. He remembers nothing except a strange car accident. In the process of his self-pursuit, an extraordinary mysterious world gradually emerged. In this world, amber is the only reality, and other worlds are just its reflection-including the earth. The descendants of Amber, including Cowen, the hero, can freely walk in the shadows and choose or shape the ideal destination with their thoughts. The main card drawn by crazy artist Duo Jin can make family members contact in real time and even serve as a portal.
However, the recovery of memory did not extricate Ke Wen from the predicament, but put him in a fierce and turbulent regime dispute and conspiracy. Oberon, the Lord of Amber, has disappeared, and nine princes, including Corwin, have different designs. The drama of alliance and rebellion is constantly being staged. Even his car accident and even his amnesia were the result of assassination by his brothers. Not only that, but as the story goes on, he faces more and more mysteries and his enemies become stronger and stronger. What about attacking Amber's Hall of Chaos? Who is the mole who colludes with foreign enemies? Is amber really the only reality? Where is oberon? Who is Crazy Duojin? How can he have the ability to create a trial array and a main card?
The fast-moving plot and the suspense of arresting people make it difficult for readers to let go. On the other hand, Serazny's compact and playful writing style also played a role in making the finishing touch. The whole five-part series, only about 600 pages, is not as thick as an epic fantasy. Refined words are almost like poetry. Adding one point is fat, and subtracting one point is thin. Humor is everywhere. In the House of Chaos, Cowen killed an opponent with a trick and was dismissed as a "cheap trick". His answer is "this is not the Olympic Games". Even the author himself jokingly played a role in oberon's hands: an amber guard named Roger, who stayed in the dungeon all the year round and took pleasure in "writing a legendary novel full of horror and morbid elements".
Just like Harry Potter, the first part of The Story of Amber was a great success. With its beautiful language and wonderful stories, it not only attracted the praise of fantasy readers, but also was highly praised by many foreign readers. Later, from 1985 to 199 1, zelazny wrote the second volume of The Story of Amber, including five novels: Doomsday, Blood of Amber, Seal of Chaos, Shadow Knight and Prince of Chaos. This time, the protagonist was replaced by Merlin, Corwin's son. He is both the blood of amber and the temple of chaos. He has the magic of both, smart, insightful and fearless. But he is not as ambitious as his father, and he has some carefree temperament.
"Rogles," she said, "will make you brilliant."
"What kind of glory?" I asked.
"What do you want?"
"I don't know if I want glory itself. It's like being an engineer instead of trying to design something. Or I want to be a writer, not a novel. Brilliance is only a by-product, which has no meaning in itself. What's more, this is just a process of self-expansion. "
Prince of chaos
The second story also starts from the earth. Merlin has been following in his father's footsteps in the shadows and has lived on the earth for several years. As soon as the novel came up, it threw a suspense and aroused people's appetite. Who tries to assassinate Merlin on April 30th every year? Among these five books, Amber's story is wilder and weirder. When the sword dances with magic, modern technologies such as computers add fuel to the fire. The world in which Mei Lin traveled became more and more strange, and even the role of Alice in Wonderland was performed on the stage. Some readers think that the second story seems too confusing, but this does not prevent amber lovers from loving it. After all, it is a great satisfaction to relive the old dreams and see the stories of the second generation heroes.
In addition to 55 novels, zelazny wrote more than 150 short stories in his life. Among them, The Unicorn Begins and Stay with the Breath of Life are rare works in the history of fantasy literature.
Throughout Serazny's works, we can find a lot of inner * * *. As one of the standard-bearers of the "new wave", he pays great attention to the story and literariness of his works, and his plot is tortuous and bizarre; Poetry-free, poetic and humorous sentences can be seen everywhere. All kinds of myths and legends are handy and used by me. There are Hinduism and Buddhism in King of Light, Egyptian gods in Creatures of Light and Darkness, ancient Indian myths in Cat's Eye, and the reinterpretation of the legend of King Arthur in Amber Chronicle, which are also amazing.
The most interesting thing is his protagonist setting. Many of Serazni's works are full of heroic atmosphere, but they are quite different from traditional heroic novels. His protagonist is indeed born with superhuman physique, even immortality, but he has various defects. Their spiritual world, like ordinary people, is not perfect. They like to laugh at themselves and often ridicule others. They are good at joking, but their conscience is still alive. Their early life is often not enough for outsiders. Sam in The King of Light was originally one of the tyrants of the ruling class. Cowen in Zhi Bo is also an ambitious and ruthless character. Conrad in Eternal Life is a terrorist, nicknamed Sadie by his lover. This lewd god of the forest, who looks like Satan in Greek mythology, always brings endless troubles to people around him. But with the development of novels, they can become real heroes with their own conscience and sense of responsibility. That's just another image that often appears in zelazny's novels-Prometheus: Sam wants to bring science and technology to the world, Conrad aims to defend human survival on the earth, and Cowen sacrificed his life for Amber and his people.
Many writers of the "New Wave" are very concerned about the psychological state of the characters. However, unlike Philip K Tick, zelazny did not play a morbid psychology in his novels, but showed the anxiety of the characters to the extreme. He is more concerned about the gradual maturity and perfection of the spiritual world of the characters, which is, in his own words, "spiritual growth caused by personal experience." The sublimation from Sadie to Prometheus embodies the motif of "growth" that Serazny never forgets.
Other novels include Dream Master (1966), Damn Hutong (1969), dead island (1969) and People in the Desert (1967).