Cycle of Francis Sandow

The Cycle of Francis Sandow is a cycle of two novels written by Roger Zelazny, that is to say the island of died the ( Isle off the dead ) and the serum of the blue goddess ( To die in Italbar ). It also includes a news, Lugubrious Lumière ( Dismal light ), written at the same time but published later.

History

The island of dead (1969)

Francis Elastic cord, one of the Twenty-six alive Names, is able to work worlds with its own way. It is also a man alone, who ground on a planet, SA planet, where it can control until time. But caused by a mysterious adversary, it must leave its retirement and, to find the peace which fled it, to face its enemy on the island which it worked formerly, the island of Deaths.

Note: the book owes its name with the painting of Böklin, which also was used to him as cover. Indeed, it is while taking as a starting point this table that Sandow created " son" island of deaths.

Serum of the blue goddess

In a hostile jungle, a man travels to save an young girl. It is called sometimes H. It is the carrier of a strange paradox: at the same time propagating of diseases and sovereign remedy against those, according to the circumstances. On another world, Malacar Miles is the resistant last of a war for a long time lost. When he hears of H, he sees in him his last hope of decisive victory, the total bacteriological weapon. But Sandow, includes/understands to him what suffers H, and knows by personal experience that such a weapon is unverifiable.

Lugubrious light

On the Lugubrious planet-prison, a man refuses the evacuation become imperative, whereas the sun threatens to explode. Not a defect of planet, but of star, will be able to defend Sandow, which terraformé Lugubre…

Characters

Francis Elastic cord : Only character common to the three texts, he is not however strictly speaking the hero of the two last. Born on Earth at the end of the XXè century, he survived his time following several voyages in hibernation. Now multi-billionaire and practically immortal, it had time to still accumulate more experience than of money. In fact, Francis Sandow is a complex man. He lived several loves, survived many friends. He had two wire of his wife, Katherine, died in a fire. He has on his richness a point of view more external than many billionaires, because he forever really battled for becoming it. It is simply to have a monopoly in fact on an extremely lucrative profession, at which it arrived by despair and lassitude more than by ambition. When, tired of living, it had gone to Marling de Megapei, a pe' IEN, member of the famous race oldest and wisest of the known worlds, it was not really in the intention to become fashioner of worlds, it just arrived like that.

Vervair Th'arl : Vervair Th' arl of the town of Dilpei is a pe' IEN. As respected as is its race, it is also declining. He regards as an affront the accession of Elastic cord, human, with the row of Name, because this honor was refused to him. One thought until there that only a pe' IEN was able to learn how to work worlds.

Malacar Miles : The resistant last of the war between the League and Nadya (including the Earth), lost by Nadya, he is also the last inhabitant of a Ground made uninhabitable by the radioactivity and pollution. When he learns the existence from H, he immediately sees of them the applications, but not the dangers. Hard, solved until fanaticism, it comes from there to be plugged by its obsession.

H : At the origin archeologist, H survived a disease which up to now did not make a district. Since, it is carrying contagious but healthy all the diseases which it crosses. In certain circumstances, however, it is as able to cure a disease as it already contracted. It is the goal which it had while arriving at Italbar, but it is delayed too much, and starts in spite of him an epidemic. Driven out by the inhabitants, lapidated, he survives hatred in the middle. A hatred which is not entirely his, because he is always unaware of why he survived.

Topics

Capacity

It is a recurrent theme at Zelazny, which explores of them here the various facets with a pensive detachment, between cynicism and the melancholy.

To be able of the money, with its theory of the Large Tree representing all the money of the world. To hold foliage so much offers certainly some advantages to Sandow, but its richness seems incidental with its personality, does not define it.
To be able of knowledge, because Sandow is also rich experiments. But its studies, with time, are done obsolete. These are not so much knowledge that it accumulated which matters that the experiment that it lived, and who modelled it.
To be able of the Name which it carries. Francis Sandow carries the Name of Shimbo of the Tower of the Black Tree, the Sower of Thunder, and it is not a question there of a vain title. It is the incarnation of a creative divinity, and the art of the shaping of the worlds is the most obvious demonstration. More subtly, it can control all the creatures of its worlds, where it in addition has a perfect direction of the orientation.

Love

Also tired and cynical that Sandow can appear, there remains capable of major feelings. Simply, it had time to see many deaths, and a mourning after the other, the attraction of the innovation blunts. Women, amantes, friends or enemies, he survived to them. He believed…

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