Calling all classic SFF and audiobook fans: four more of Roger Zelazny‘s novels have new audiobook editions! Published by Tantor Media, the following are now available in audio:
- DAMNATION ALLEY — read by Paul Bellantoni
- DILVISH, THE DAMNED — read by Eric Michael Summerer
- THE CHANGING LAND — read by Eric Michael Summerer
- MY NAME IS LEGION — read by Adam Barr
Read on for some more details…
DAMNATION ALLEY (cover at top) was first published in 1968…
Hell Tanner isn’t the sort of guy you’d mistake for a hero: he’s a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he’s given a choice: Rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts. The chance of a full pardon does wonders for getting his attention. And don’t mistake this mission of mercy for any kind of normal road trip-not when there are radioactive storms, hordes of carnivorous beasts, and giant, mutated scorpions to be found along every deadly mile between Los Angeles and the East Coast. But then, this is no normal part of America, you see. This is Damnation Alley…
DILVISH, THE DAMNED, first published in 1982, collected together stories featuring Dilvish, which had originally been published in a variety of magazines and other publications. The collection came 5th in Locus Award voting (1983)…
Dilivish, a half elf-half man hybrid, failed in his attempt to rescue a young maiden being ritually sacrificed by the dark sorcerer Jelerak. In his anger at the attempt Jelerak kills the maiden and turns Dilvish’s body to stone and banished his soul to Hell.
It takes Dilvish two hundred years to escape Hell and reclaim his body. Dilvish does not leave hell unprepared. He returns with a number of very powerful spells and a faithful metal steed, Black who is far more than he seems. Together Black and Dilvish plan to hunt down Jelerak and make him pay. Heroic fantasy at its finest from a master storyteller.
THE CHANGING LAND is the second book in the Dilvish series — it was originally published in 1981, a year before Zelazny’s earlier Dilvish stories were collected into a single volume. The novel came 3rd in Locus Award voting (1982).
The Changing Land picks up shortly after the events chronicled in Dilvish, the Damned. Dilvish must gain entry to Castle Timeless if he is to destroy his nemeses Jelerak. Unbenounced to Dilvish, Jelerak is also seeking to gain entrance to his own castle as his apprentice has blocked him out while attempting to lean the castles secrets so that he may become lord of Castle Timeless.
The castle is protected by a lethal, chaotic, ever-changing land. In a race against time and reality itself both Dilvish and Jelerak must survive the maze-like changing lands and then somehow survive whatever traps await them and perhaps even the elder gods themselves may intervene if the whim strikes them. A breathtaking grand adventure!
Another of Zelazny’s short novels from the 1970s, MY NAME IS LEGION originally appeared in 1976.
He’d been an important part of the team putting together the International Data Bank, which would track every single move made by every single human being. As the project neared completion, he realized that no one would ever truly be free again. At the very last moment he blanked his file, changed his face, and created a back door into the system. Now he was nameless, had no past, left no traces, according to the IDB he no longer existed. But he could become anyone at any time for any reason. Not being in the system meant that he had to earn a living outside of the normal confines of human society. But there were people willing to pay cold, hard cash for a man who could be anyone and then disappear once the job was done.