HW:Damnation Alley

[Andrew Apold]

At 07:40 AM 3/14/01 -0000, Kevin Perry wrote:
>Well, I've read the book and haven't seen the film yet (sitting on video
>waiting).  If the book's better, then the film must be truly, truly awful.
>I love Zelazny's Amber series, but Damnation Alley must be one of the worst
>written books of all times.

Hrm?  It was based on a shorter story, novella length, that got lengthened
into novel length to set up the movie deal (at the request of Zelazny's agent
IIRC).  Not sure why they bothered having him do that as they didn't use much
of the book at all.

Worst ever written?   Zelazny's had far better (Lord of Light, This Immortal,
The Dream Master, etc) but DA he pretty much set out to do something and
then did it pretty well straightforward.  While I agree with Z's statement
that
the novella was better, I can surely find worse things even sticking only to
Zelazny's own stuff...   What specifically did you dislike about it?   It's
hard to take up a contrary position without much to base it against.  As
matter
of simple refute, though, I'll offer up "Madwand", "Dilvish the Damned" or any
of number of other non-Amber fantasies by Zelazny.  Heck, some would argue you
could just as easily toss "Prine of Chaos" or the entire "Merlin" series in
there as well (I am not one of these).

I enjoyed DA.  Didn't take it for what it wasn't.  Remember this predates
Mad Max, Car Wars, and most cheesy movies of that genre that have followed
it.  Not
sure whether this predates ADF's "Why Johnny Can't Speed".

If it was science that bothered you, Zelazny has always been a very
unscientific
SF writer, at least in terms of hard physical sciences.  He does his work
in the
"soft" sciences, psychology (you can line up the entire house of amber as
straight
Jungian archetypes and mythology especially.

Sorry to digress, but when you say "worst written books of all time" you
gotta
expect some flak on it.

I would stand by the statement that "Lord of Light" is one of the best written
books of all time.
=============================
"To dwell within Samsara, however, is to
 be subject to the works of those mighty
 among dreamers."

 - Mahasamatman, in Zelazny's "Lord of Light"

Andrew Apold