Jack of shadows Book

Roger Zelazny…One of the Grandest Masters of Science Fantasy has yet to disappoint me and Jack of Shadows is no exception. Along with Jack Vance (to whom this book was an homage), there is no author better at stuffing story into less than 200 pages. This GEMtastic example weighs in a svelte 142 pages and contains a full serving of juicy plot with zero filler fat.

Jack of Shadows takes place on a world that does not rotate and so half of the planet is always sun side and the other half of the planet is perpetual night. The sun side is similar to our world and is governed by science and natural law. The night side is a place of magic where supernatural entities reign supreme. In addition, and important to the story, daysiders have souls and only one life, whereas nightsiders are soulless and can be resurrected numerous times (though a finite number).

Our title character is a thief, powerful wizard and a lord of the nightside though, even among his brethren, Jack is unusual. Most of the nightside lords have places of power where they are at the strongest (i.e. their realms which are like feudal estates). Jack has no one place of power but is strongest wherever he can create shadows. Inside shadow he has unmatched strength.

At the beginning of the story, Jack is apprehended as a thief and decapitated by one of this rivals (OUCH!!). Years later (as resurrection is not immediate), Jack awakens in the Dung Pits of Glyve at the West Pole of the world and begins his quest for revenge against those who killed him.

However, this is NOT a simple revenge piece set in an interesting SF world. Jack quest for revenge becomes the catalyst for events that will shake the foundations of the planet and lead either to a brand new world ….or the destruction of everything. I am not going to give away any spoilers so will just say that I "LOVED" the ending. It has an aspect to it that is left purposely ambiguous and I think adds to the mystery of the work.

With one critical exception, this story has a very "Dying Earth" feel to it, which is intentional as Zelazny wrote this story as a tribute to Vance. For example, Jack of the Shadows, like Cugel the Clever and other Dying Earth rogues, is a thief and a magician. Like Cugel's adventures, this story involves an extended journey in which Jack encounters the strange wonders of the world and the many interesting characters living in it.

The one critical exception is that this is a dark, serious tale and the light-hearted whimsy that Jack brought to his "Dying Earth" stories is distinctly absent. By absent, I don't want to imply that this is a bad thing, but I wanted to make sure you didn't pick this up looking for a bag of feel good.

Jack is REALLY not a nice person. He does very bad things during the course of this book, some of them down right despicable. He's selfish, lonely, angry, filled with bitterness and shows zero compassion for those who have wronged him. Despite that, Zelazny makes you understand Jack and provides not only a reason for his behavior, but also a very interesting moment of "redemption" at the end of the story. The redemption isn't perfect, it's messy and far from clear cut…but so is life and I was impressed with how Zelazny handled it.

Again…all this in 142 pages.

As I have said before about Vance's work, Zelazny's talent for providing a rich background and interesting characters with and economy of words is something special and a sign of true mastery over prose craft. He does this in a variety of ways. One of them is to take a pivotal event that will occur over a significant period of time and lay it out in such a way that the impact is immediate and yet the power of the event is not diminished. Here is an example: 'So be it,' he said. 'Yet all that have described to you will come to pass, and you will be with me to witness it.'
'No. I will have taken my life long before.'
'I will bend your will, and you will love me.'
'You will never touch me, body or will.'
'You will sleep now,' he said, 'and when you awaken we will be coupled. You will struggle briefly and you will yield to me'first your body, then your will. You will lie passive for a time, then I will come to you again and yet again. After that, it will be you who come to me. Now you will sleep while I sacrifice [______] upon his Lord's altar and cleanse this place of all things which displease me. Dream well. A new life awaits you.'
And he departed, and these things were done as he had said. In a paragraph, Zelazny provides a chilling account of the brutal subjugation, rape and brain washing of one character by another.

Often, dark and dire situations in stories can be gratuitously dragged out FOREVER or else you will find characters fearing promised torments that never come to pass as event intervene to save the characters. Here, in 9 words ("and these things were done as he had said"), Zelazny both makes real the promised horror and closes the door on any reprieve. While lacking the tension that drawing out the process might bring, he injects a powerful image into the readers mind and then moves on with the story leaving the reader to fill in the cracks and catch up because the next evocative moment could occur (and probably will) in the next paragraph. I'm sure there are far better examples out there, but hopefully this helps somewhat in seeing the effective use of economy Zelazny brings to his works.

I thought this was a terrific story with a wonderful backstory, some memorable characters and an interesting plot. Again, loved the ending. 4.0 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Nominee: Hugo Award for Best Novel
Nominee: Locus Award for Best SF Novel.