American science fiction and fantasy writer, who often based his stories on myths and legends. Roger Zelazny was one of the most important writers of the New Wave of science fiction along with Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Harlan Ellison. He published 50 novels, some 150 stories and three collections of poetry.

"I do not have a soul. You do."
"A soul?" she laughed. "What's a soul? I've never seen one. How do I know it's there? Even so, what good has it done to me? I'd trade it in a twinkling to be like one of you. It's beyond my Art, though."
(from Jack of Shadows, 1971)

Roger Zelazny was born in Euclid, Ohio, the son of Joseph Frank Zelazny, a Polish immigrant, and Josephine Flora Sweet. While attending Euclid Senior High School, he published stories in the school's litetary magazine, Eucuyo. In 1957, Zelazny enrolled at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, graduating with a B.A. in English in 1959. He won the University's Finley Foster Poetry Prize in 1957 and in 1959 he won his second Finley Foster Prize and the Holden Essay Award for an expanded term paper on Chaucer. Zelazny's early interest in judo led him to study other martial arts, too, and he eventually gained a black belt in Akido.

Zelazny received his M.A. in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama from Columbia University in 1962. During this period, he was briefly enlisted with the Ohio National Guard. After graduating Zelazny worked for the Social Security Administration in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Baltimore, Maryland, where he moved in 1965 after being promoted to Claims Policy Specialist. In 1964 he married Sharon Steberl; they separated within a year and divorced in 1966. Zelazny married then Judith Alene Callahan, whom he had met in Baltimore. They had three children, two sons and a daughter. From the mid-1990s, Zelazny lived with Jane Lindskold, a writer and Ph.D. in English. Her biography on Zelazny came out in 1993 in Twayne's American Author's series.

Zelazny's first published story was 'Passion Play', which appeared in Amazing Stories in 1962. His father, who died in the early 1960s, never witnessed Zelazny's breakthrough and success as a novelist. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1969, Zelazny concentrated on short stories and novellas. At the age of 38, Zelazny moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lived until his death.

In the 1960s Zelazny became highly visible in a group of science fiction writers known as the "New Wave". Up until that time the genre had been dominated by writers producing action-adventures set in space. The new generation felt that they had freedom to experiment; they focused on psychology and believed science fiction should be taken seriously as literature. Zelazny's novel This Immortal won the 1966 Hugo for Best Novel, and the self-mocking, immortal, jokester became Zelazny's favorite character type. The Dream Master won the 1966 Nebula for Best Novella. In the same year The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth won a Nebula for Best Novellette. 'A Rose for Ecclesiastes,' published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1963), was selected as one of the most outstanding novelettes of the early sixties and included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929–1964 (1970, edited by Robert Silverberg). The story of a poet and translator, who saves the Martian civilization, but is betrayed in love, took one of its central symbols, the rose, from Rilke who used the image throughout his poetry.

The Immortal told of a post-apocalyptic Earth, which have become a wasteland and place of entertainment for aliens, the Vegans. Conrad Nomikos or "Konstantuin Kallikanzaros", the many-talented Commissioner of Arts, Monuments and Archives for the planer Earth, is employed as a guide to an alien official. The Vegans want to turn Earth into a holiday resort, but Nomikos has his own ideas and he helps to preserve the remnants of humanity. The Dream Master was about a psychiatrists who is able to enter and affect his client's dreams – and thus cure the neuroses of their patients. Its shorter version, 'He Who Shapes' (1965) won a Nebula.

"It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game."
"I am pleased that you were not wholly bored," Martin said. "Now will you tell me what you were talking about concerning the destruction of my species?"
(from 'Unicorn Variations', the Hugo Award in 1981)

Zelazny's interest in magic, myths and dreams are already at present in these early stories which are considered among his best works. His heroes and villains are larger-than-life characters, immortal or near-immortal, who are going through a process of growth and self-discovery, or as Francis Sandow, the hero of Isle of the Dead (1969) says, "I have been a coward, a god and a son of a bitch in my time, among other things. That is one of the things about living for a very long time. You go through phases." Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969) was inspired by the gods of ancient Egypt.

In 1970 Zelazny started the enormously popular Amber series, which have been adapted for comics and used as the basis for a computer game. Zelazny spent much of his later life in the writing of this series. The nine books, beginning with Nine Princes in Amber, evoked the betrayals of Jacobean drama. The narrator Corwin and rival princes and princesses double-cross one another, all seeking the crown. Corwin's arch-rival is Eric, his brother. One of the siblings is responsible for Corwin losing his memory in an automobile accident. Noteworthy, Zelazny himself was involved in a serious car accident in 1964, outside of Mansfield, Ohio. His fiancée was a passenger, but both survived without permanent physical injuries. Zelazny's face got cut up from the broken mirrior pieces.

The first Chronicles of Amber included Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon (1972), Sign of the Unicorn (1975), The Hand of Oberon (1976) and The Courst of Chaos (1978). Triumps of Doom (1985) opened a follow-up featuring Corwin's son Merlin. This series continued in Blood of Amber (1986), Sign of Chaos (1987), Knight of Shadows (1989), and Prince of Chaos (1991). The first five novels were collected together as The Chronicles of Amber (2000). Two further related works were A Rhapsody in Amber (1981) and Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber (1988, with Neil Randall). Zelasny's work was a forerunner to George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, hugely popular and highly acclaimed epic fantasy series.

Amber is a higher, sophisticated plane, and the actions of its godlike inhabitants reflect in the human actions – humans being marionettes of gods. Corwin and his many siblings are more real than mortals, or the Gods of any Shadow realm – our world. The concept of Shadow has much in common with Plato's famous cave analogy and Jungian psychology. Jung considered the "shadow" the sum of those characteristics we wish to conceal – the most famous example found in literature is R.L. Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. However, when the story continues, it turns out that Amber itself is not an ultimate reality, but shares a Ying-Yang relationship with the forces of Chaos. Zelazny's principal characters are sometimes mirror-images of one another, or symbols for the opposite forces of form and chaos, good and evil, life and death.

Unfaithful to genre boundaries, Zelazny relished the "science fantasy" form. In Lord of Light (1967) he established a world ruled by gods, immortals equipped with technological wonders. Human colonists have settled a distant planet. They have developed a technology, which allows them to don godlike personas. With their exotic weapons they and their psionic ability they battle for power. The novel won a Hugo. "From then on his work – with exceptions – was to call more on the stereotype of power fantasy than an genuinely envisaged characters and scenarios," wrote Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove in Trillion year spree (2001). However, in 1974 Zelazny was Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention, Washington, D.C.

Zelazny collaborated with Philip K. Dick in Deus Irae (1976) – Dick could not finish the novel himself – and with Alfred Bester in Psychoshop (1998) – Bester had died before completing the text. Zelazny considered Dick a writer's writer, "rich enough in fancy that he can afford to throw away in a paragraph ideas another writer might build a book upon." However, in the mid-1970s Dick wasn't able work on his own any more. His first collaborator on Deus Irae had been Ted White, who lost his enthusiasm. Dick and Zelazny worked primarily through the mail. The collaboration turned out to be pleasant and productive. When Zelazny learned of Dick's financial straits, he voluntarily reduced his royalty from one-half to one third.

The movie version of Zelazny's novel, Damnation Alley (1969), was released in 1977. This post-Apocalypse adventure bore little resemblance Zelazny's original work, which was inspired by Hunter S. Thompson's book on the Hell's Angels, replacing the mean, violent biker, the last of the breed, with decent Air Force officers. Jack Smight, the director, was a veteran of television, known as a craftsman of slick Hollywood entertainment.

Among Zelazny's other works are Jack of Shadows (1971), set on a non-rotating world whose dark side is run by magic, the "Wizard World" sequence Changeling (1980) and Madwand (1981), the "Dilvish" fantasies The Changing Land (1981) and Dilvish the Damned (1982). The comic A Night in the Lonesome October (1993) recounts a gaslight romance with Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper and others, but has also a talking animal, Snuff, in the central role. In the 1990s Zelazny published several books with Robert Sheckley. One of the author's last works was Wilderness (1994), written with Gerald Hausman. It tell true stories of two mountain men in the Old West. Zelazny died of cancer on June 16, 1995, in Santa Fe, at the age of 58.Zelazny's unpublished thriller about smuggling and missing church funds, The Dead Man's Brother, was published by Hard Case Crime in 2009, with an afterword by the author’s son, Trent Zelazny. The manuscript had been lost among Zelazny's papers for more than 30 years.

For further reading: Roger Zelazny by Carl B. Yoke (1979); Roger Zelazny: A Primary and Secondary Biography by Joseph L. Sanders (1980); The Dream Master; Roger Zelazny by Carl B. Yoke (1980); A Checklist of Roger Zelazny by Christopher P. Stephens (1990); Roger Zelazny by Jane Lindskold (1993); The Complete Amber Sourcebook by Theodore Krulik (1996) - Note: Richard Paul Russo's short story 'In the Season of the Rains', published in the anthology In the Field of Fire, ed. by Jeanne Van Buren Dann and Jack Dann (1987), took its title form the the opening lines of Zelazny's Lord of Light.

Selected works:

• This Immortal, 1966
• The Dream Master, 1966 (novella)
• Lord of Light, 1967
• Four for Tomorrow, 1967
• Nebula Award Stories 3, 1968 (ed.)
• Isle of the Dead, 1969
• Creatures of Light and Darkness, 1969
• Damnation Alley, 1969
  - Kujanjuoksu (suom. Leena Peltonen, 1990)
  - Film: Damnation Alley (1977), prod. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, screenplay Alan Sharp, Lukas Heller, dir. by Jack Smight, starring Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Dominique Sanda, Paul Winfield, Jackie Earle Haley. Four survivors from World War Three try to reach a colony of fellow-survivors in New York.
• Nine Princes in Amber, 1970
  - Amberin yhdeksän prinssiä: Amberin kronikat 1 (suom. Mervi Hämäläinen, 2008)
• he Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories, 1971
• Jack of Shadows, 1971
• The Guns of Avalon, 1972
  - Avalonin luodit: Amberin kronikat 2 (suom. Mervi Hämäläinen, 2008)
• Today We Choose Faces, 1973
• To Die In Italbar, 1973
• Poems, 1974
• Sign of the Unicorn, 1975
• Doorways in the Sand, 1976
• Bridge of Ashes, 1976
• Deus Irae, 1976 (with Philip K. Dick)
• Hand of Oberon, 1976
• The Authorized Illustrated Book of Roger Zelasny, 1978
• The Courts of Chaos, 1978
• Roadmarks, 1979
• The Bells of Shoredan, 1979
• Changeling, 1980
• The Last Defender of Camelot, 1980
  - TV film: A Day in Beaumont/The Last Defender of Camelot (1986), in The Twilight Zone, dir. Philip DeGuere, Jeannot Szwarce, with Victor Garber, Stacey Nelkin, Jeff Morrow, John Agar
• When Pussywillows Lost in the Catyard Bloomed, 1980
• Madwand, 1981 (a sequel to Changeling)
• A Rhapsody in Amber, 1981
• The Changing Land, 1981
• Coils, 1982 (with Fred Saberhagen)
• Eye of Cat, 1982
• Dilvish, the Damned, 1982
• To Spin Is Miracle Cat, 1982
• Dilvish, the Damned, 1982
• Unicorn Variations, 1983
• Trumps of Doom, 1985
• Blood of Amber, 1986
• A Dark Traveling, 1987
• Sign of Chaos, 1987
• Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber, 1988
• Knight of Shadows, 1989
• Frost and Fire, 1989
• The Black Throne, 1990 (with Fred Saberhagen)
• The Mask of Loki, 1990
• The Graveyard Heart, 1990
• Home is the Hangman, 1990
• Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming, 1991 (with Robert Sheckley)
• Prince of Chaos, 1991
• Flare, 1992 (with Thomas T. Thomas)
• Here There Be Dragons, 1992 (illustrated by Vaughn Bodé)
• Gone to Earth, 1992
• Way Up High, 1992
• A Night in the Lonesome October, 1993 (illustrated by Gahan Wilson)
• If at Faust You Don't Succeed, 1993 (with Robert Sheckley)
• Wilderness, 1994 (with Gerald Hausman)
• A Farce to be Reckoned With, 1995 (with Robert Sheckley)
• Home is the Hangman, 1996
• Donnerjack, 1997 (with Jane M. Lindskold)
• Psychoshop, 1998 (with Alfred Bester)
• Lord Demon (with Jane M. Lindskold)
• The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles 1-10, 1999
• The Chronicles of Amber, 2000
• The Dead Man's Brother, 2009
• The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, 2009 (6 vols.)