Influences

Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite authors, so I was delighted to find that several of his long-out-of-print titles have been republished, including a few stories that I had somehow never read. Check out their reviews below.

Zelazny's writing is vivid with imagery of both the visual and the metaphorical varieties. "The moon came up full and splendid above the skyline, and its light spread like spilled buttermilk among the canyons of the city." A tad purple perhaps, but The Night Kings is enough over the top to carry the load. And while he doesn't write funny stories, per se, there's always something witty about the turn of phrase that he uses, usually in the hands of his sardonic protagonists or their worthy adversaries. Zelazny is one of the largest influences on the way my own writing style has evolved, along with Robert Silverberg for his voyages of discovery and Terry Pratchett for his deft use of absurdity. I can't say I do it so well as any of them, but those are my guiding stars.