Part of Series
The play’s the thing in this comic fantasy from the authors of Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming and If at Faust You Don’t Succeed It’s that quiet time between Millennia, and the demon Azzie is becoming bored and restless. Then inspiration hits. On a devilish sabbatical in Europe, Azzie discovers that morality plays are all the rage. He decides to strike back by producing an “immorality play,” in which seven nondescript human pilgrims will be allowed by magic to attain their hearts’ desires. But the forces of Good are determined to close the play before it opens. New characters suddenly start romancing the stage, such as a Grateful Dead–listening Cyclops, and Azzie’s own protagonists begin changing their hearts’ desires on the slightest whim. This is one theatrical production that could do without an angel—and there’s even worse news waiting in the wings... “Zelazny and Sheckley make for a synergy that’s just about unequaled in . . . fantasy humor.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Author
Roger Zelazny made his name with a group of novellas which demonstrated just how intense an emotional charge could be generated by the stock imagery of sf; the most famous of these is A Rose for Ecclesiastes in which a poet struggles to convince dying and sterile Martians that life is worth continuing. Zelazny continued to write excellent short stories throughout his career. Most of his novels deal, one way or another, with tricksters and mythology, often with rogues who become gods, like Sam in Lord of Light, who reinvents Buddhism as a vehicle for political subversion on a colony planet. The fantasy sequence The Amber Chronicles, which started with Nine Princes in Amber, deals with the ruling family of a Platonic realm at the metaphysical heart of things, who can slide, trickster-like through realities, and their wars with each other and the related ruling house of Chaos. Zelazny never entirely fulfilled his early promise—who could?—but he and his work were much loved, and a potent influence on such younger writers as George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman. He won the Nebula award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo award six times (out of 14 nominations). His papers are housed at the Albin O. Khun Library of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger\_Ze...
