This Immortal

Conrad Nomikos is not amused when he has to leave his beautiful new wife Cassandra while on their honeymoon so as to act as tour guide, in his capacity as Commissioner of Arts, Monuments, and Archives, for Cort Myshtygo, some blue skinned Vegan grandee culture lover who wants to be shown the glories of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. After humans almost destroyed the Earth in nuclear conflict, and when most of the continents are still hot, and radiation has caused mutations that often resemble mythological creatures, the Vegans stepped in to relocate most humanity in the Galactic empire, albeit as second class citizens. Now only about 4 million humans lives on the safre islands, and the Vegans, utterly fascinated with Earth's culture art and architecture, tend to use Earth as a sort of resort, despite bitter but futile violent protest for decades by resentful humans, who had included Conrad.

Conrad is a most unusual looking man. In his twenties, tall, with hair that grows down over his brow to only a few inches above his eyebrows, rather like a neanderthal, he has one blue eye, one brown, and a fungal growth on one cheek. He also has to wear a built up right shoe since one leg is shorter than the other. Despite his looks he is charismatic, and witty.

Conrad is disconcerted and suspicious to find that various old friends/allies have also turned up for this trip, including old bitter enemies of the Vegans, and Hasan, a famous contract killer who always gets his man. Conrd suspects he is there to kill Myshtigo, with who knows what dire effects. And despite constantly asking them to call him Conrad, they repeatedly embarrass him by reminding him that he used to have other names other agendas. Oh, and he has stayed looking in his twenties for many hundreds of years.

Then tragedy strikes, the entire island where he left his wife is destroyed by a tsunami and after a berserk outbreak of grief and rage he decides to focus on the trip to overcome his unhappiness. He decides he will led Myshtigo on his scenic trip, he will protect him against Hasan (even though the outcome of a confrontation with his old friend Hasan is most uncertain, it would be a fight to the death), and lastly, he will find out just what this Vegan is up to and what are the implications for earth.

Then off we go on a picaresque trip where only an exuberant confident young author like Zelazny would pile up higgledy piggledy such plot items as a visit to a voodoo ceremony on Haiti, an albino vampire, being captured by a tribe of cannibals led by a man who seems to be living out a Heart of Darkness scenario (Hmm, a book written by another Conrad!), wild mutants resembling greek mythological creatures, and a rescue by Conrad's huge metal dog!

All this is told at a breakneck pace, full of humour and puzzles, and typicall Zelazny extravagant style and wonderful descriptions of landscapes. You need to keep on your toes to keep up with Zelazny, and the more greek mythology you know the more fun you will have. It all comes to a satisfactory end, and as ever I finished a Zelazny book with a smile on my face, because I know I will reread it and get much more out of it second time round. OK, there are some faults, but for a first novel this is pretty good. Oh, and tying with Frank Herbert's Dune as Hugo winner? Not so shabby, is it?

And its not just fast and furious adventuer, with scads of fascinating things tossed off that others would have turned into about 4 volume series. There are poignant moments when we see the pitfalls of longevity, as society changes, and old friends and lovers succumb to death. How do you cope?. Conrad seems to do so by living intensely in the present. He wants to be called Conrad because that represents him as he is now, not 20, 40, 100, or even 300 years go. Unfortunately, his companions consistently try to pin him down in an earlier scenario, and are annoyed and bewildered when he leaves past ideals behind.

The mystery of who Conrd is is never really solved. Was his longevity just another mutation caused by the radiation, or is he even older, truly immortal?Zelazny deliberately wrote the book to accommodate such a reading, and working out all the mythological hints and illusions is just another delight of the book. All in all, I give this book 4 stars because of its zest, its originality, and pure fun value. Zealzny was only 57 when he died, a great loss to SF/F. If you want a great read, look no further than this small book, less than 200pages long. I sometimes feel after reading his books that I should march along with a placard stating "Have you read Zelazny? If not, why not?"