This Immortal by Roger Zelazny [1966]
iBooks, Inc.
174 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.4] from
Reading Odyssey
Rating: Recommended
Story Summary
Long ago, after nuclear disaster the vast majority of Earth’s population fled and established themselves in sizeable colonies on several planets of the Vegan star system. There they co-exist with the Vegans, a technically superior race. Some view the earthlings’ position as one of exploitation and favor a return to Earth. Certain groups agitate with terrorism against the current situation, especially the Vegan’s interest in “buying” parts of the Earth essentially for sightseeing or resorts.
The protagonist and narrator, Conrad, a deeply mysterious even legendary Greek of indeterminate age, is in charge of all antiquities and cultural remnants on Earth. He is an individual with a very long history who possess unusual abilities as well far beyond normal strength.
The story begins as a very important Vegan requests that Conrad guide him on a tour of some of Earth’s remaining ancient cultural sites. So Conrad, the Vegan, Hassan (a bodyguard/hitman) and their companions begin a tour in Egypt, and continue on to Greece. But much has changed on Earth. Terrifying mutant beasts haunt the woods, river and hills. The group undergoes many dangerous adventures, and all the while there is espionage and a possible assassination in the offing. Eventually the true, momentous nature of the situation is made clearer. Great changes affecting the Earth and humanity will soon be unfurled.
Critical Reader Response
Though This Immortal is a sometimes uneasy mixture of high and low, it ultimately achieves a reader-pleasing Harmony. It’s a book with a central twist and a swift, strong ending. Mystery and twist can come at the expense of “pre-ending” enjoyment and I think there was a measure of this, but on the whole there is enough fun to carry it along and mask or even somehow beautify most of the flaws. A neat trick is that the book turns out to be more sophisticated than it seemed – packing a deft and non-obnoxious point about prejudice along with the adventure.
Near the outset the book asks you to digest information on quite a few groups, movements, planets, governments and past history. Throughout there is significant account of the politics, and secret agent stuff occurring which seemed slightly dull and indistinct. In retrospect it is actually not that complicated but on first reading it sometimes seemed like a story-flagging point. It’s a short book and the beginning has a lot to accomplish – establishing a style fitting for such a distinguished narrator, introducing characters, describing a social and political situation, and setting forth the basic adventure to be undertaken.
On the high-brow side there are heavy doses of real and perhaps partly fictionalized ancient and modern Greek myth and folklore. (It might be amusing to trace the specific mythic parallels in the story – Heracles and Odysseus are certainly starters.) There is some semi-abstract, artsy prose scene-setting, bearable and decently supportive of the narrator’s lofty perspective. There is also a definite shadow of ethno-centricity in its exaltation of Western Civilization (Egyptian/Greek roots) over the “oriental” which is expressed a few times. The fairly abrupt realization that the story is to be a solid adventure romp not a Pound canto is initially a little jarring, but quickly becomes welcome.
Character development does not need to be deep, and a few of the main cast remained a little indistinct. Aside from the protagonist, the most fleshed out is the philosophical, yellow-eyed assassin Hasan and the Blue skinned Vegan of ulterior motives. Conrad’s misunderstanding and xenophobia-tinged judgments against the aloof, dead-pan Vegan are also an important part of the story’s twist and the source of a tidy little epiphany of reversal.
Though 100% hero, Conrad has a dark side that gives him some extra dimensionality. As a living myth his story is associated with demons, devils and dark prophecies. More concretely, there is his emphatic connection with terrorism and fatal bombings (along with Hasan) in the cause of the “returnist” movement. By some this could be viewed as an inadequately explored aspect of his past actions, though the book in no way impugns him for it.
Heroic quests, mythical beasts, monsters, ghoulish semi-human mutants, mortal combat, and super-human warriors are what it’s really about. Special attention is given to combat and fight scenes, described in much detail -- who put their hand where and at what angle, driving up or down against X,Y or Z, etc. (wrestling moves?). I hardly followed all of it clearly and it hardly mattered.
There is an increasingly cartoony quality to the group and their quest as they undergo a steady stream of outlandish adventures and conflicts. Even a Sci Fi world has rules and for me the will to suspend disbelief wavered a bit at times. The was a semi-silly glibness in positing 40-foot, 12-legged “boadiles” (a cross between a croc and a boa), and numerous other supersized beasts and cannibalistic semi-human mutants. (Thank goodness for radiation!) But there is an even more conspicuous scientifically loose thread here. It nagged me… why are the effects of radiation to “bring back” creatures that never existed in the first place? Why does radiation cause Satyrs and other creatures from mythology? Fantasy is good, but injected unexpectedly into an otherwise Sci-Fi setting can give you a “hey, wait a minute!” Also, Conrad’s job and purpose presumably involved respect for the past but there is no mention at all of cleaning up the radiation. There is also apparently no problem with messing with your own kid’s embryo, “S-S” treatments to prolong life, bio-warfare with extraterrestrial species or "many-legged" sheep grazing the hills.
Without its final twist, the book would have been lesser. This again brings up the problem of “deferred enjoyment”, and the danger of losing the reader
before the ending. A re-reading would likely make those low-seeming parts pop up with the aid of the missing information, but this is a first-time review.
The bottom line though is that Conrad and Hassan are cool heroes, admirable, even fairly dimensional ass-kickers of a time-honored kind. The vivid adventure, decorated with Homeric turns of phrase, keeps the pages turning (especially the Moreau-esque cannibal sequence) and delivers you to a tidy ending that smooths out the rest in memory and explains much.
As always I am very gratified by your input and responses pro or contra!
