Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny (1967) – Reading a classic Sci-Fi novel is a pleasure and a challenge. A pleasure for obvious reasons. The challenge can be reading from the right perspective. This one doesn’t spoon feed you any information. It starts off near the end and goes back in time. You have to let it all wash over you for awhile until it starts coming together. It tells you the story of this alien world where Earthlings colonized. They have reincarnation technology, and the world is ruled by Hindu gods who are very real. The population lives fairly technology-free. Must be at least a few centuries back in it’s structure. Fascinating stuff.

It’s a good book. I really enjoyed it. It’s different than anything modern I’ve read because it’s too short. You have lots of questions at the end and you know there isn’t anymore. If it was written now it would be a series of tomes spanning the centuries on this world, mining all the possible details of it’s history and politics, and not just one small book of only 261 pages. It’s more like an exploration of an idea. No need to overthink the whole mess. Get in there, tell a good story and then move on. I find it refreshing really.