Dilvish, the Damned

Short story series more than a novel; with a very special "american epic" writing, genius worldbuilding and storytelling

I have a feeling that most of the sketches in this book could have been turned into proper novels by a genius Roger Zelazny was.

In regards to the ideas I've picked up on...

A big one was how arbitrary history is and how stupid is revisionism. I wish people would internalise that idea more.

On arbitrarity of revisionism:

A question has just occurred to me,” Dilvish shouted, “with respect to identification. With these troops and gods moving about the countryside, how does one distinguish a statue of Cabolus from one of Salbacus?”

“Cabolus has his right hand upraised!” cried the short priest, whacking the other upon the shoulder.

“Should you change your mind,” Izim called out, tripping the other, “Salbacus has his left hand upraised.”

On the real issues that drive revisionists:

“Now you have the belt back, why not just call things off and go home?”

The priest quirked an eyebrow. “Surely you jest,” he said. “They started this. They need a lesson. It’s our turn, anyway. They did it to us within my lifetime. And besides, the troops are already in the field. Can’t send them home at this point without some action or there’d be trouble. No, that’s the long and short of it. Some of them should be arriving here shortly, in fact. You can accompany our band.

It will be an honor to go with Cabolus—and you’ll come in for a share of the spoils.”

Dilvish's stoicism plays into this arbitrarity in almost a comical fashion. Picking the "right side" only to realise that the right side shall continue their crusade regardless of the fact that the declared grievance was settled in their favour.

There are some cute aspects to worldbuilding, for instance, toponym Princeaton as well as one of the character referring to a very Amberian concepts of "many worlds", suggests that the events of the book may be happening in a parallel-world America (how colonialist of Zelazny to assume that Princeton is a thing in all the Americas).

And of course, Zelazny's pulpy humour amidst a stylised classical epic always gets me:

“Not a bad final speech,” Black observed. “It had all of the classical elements—the threat, the curse, the proper bravado, the invocation of the deity—”

“Great,” Dilvish acknowledged. “But if you’ll save the literary criticism for later, I’d like some practical advice: Did you just drive off an invisible creature of sufficient solidity to devour Fly?”

Almost a perfect book, the fractured nature of it just shows how hard Zelazny had to hustle to push the short stories into various magazine instead of writing novels like more privileged authors.