Roger Zelazny
One of my favorite writers, Roger Zelazny, has received an Infinity Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. It is similar to the organization's older Grandmaster Award, but it goes to writers who died before they could be declared a "grandmaster." Previous Infinity Award winners are Frank Herbert, Tanith Lee and Octavia Butler.
I haven't been able to determine if Robert Anton Wilson or Robert Shea were Zelazny fans (I asked Scott Apel and Mike Shea). Apel's Science Fiction: An Oral History, only $1 for the Kindle or the Nook, has an excellent interview with Zelazny.
Scott shared this background bit about the interview:
"At one point before I published Science Fiction: An Oral History, I considered including the stories of how we obtained the interviews, but opted to go with brief objective bios instead of personal anecdotes. But you might be interested in that story. When Briggs and I started working on the book, we knew we had to include RZ, but he lived in New Mexico at the time we were "down & out in Silicon Valley" and couldn't afford to travel there. (We'd earlier decided that we simply HAD to conduct these interviews in person rather than by mail or phone so that we could engage the writers in hopefully spirited discussions.) So we concocted a Grand Scheme: I was working in the largest used bookstore in Silicon Valley, and we specialized in science fiction. I convinced the owners that we should sponsor an "Author Reading" event, as other bookstores were doing, to draw in more customers, and lobbied for RZ. So they paid for him to travel to San Jose and do a reading. Since they put me in charge of the event, I was able to arrange in advance that he should sit for a 2-hour interview with me and Briggs, which he was happy to do. He seemed rather reserved at first, but as we were driving him to a party in Santa Cruz, Briggs happened to mention Aleister Crowley, and RZ almost jumped into the front seat of the car, he was so excited. 'You know Crowley? You know his work?' he screamed with joy. From then on, he was our new bestie. Later, we sat in Briggs' apartment and did the interview--you can hear us sucking on joint after joint on the tape (edited out for the text version, of course). We ended up getting along so well -- and he seemed so pleased with the interview -- that he insisted we send the book to his agent (as did Phil Dick). RZ's agent ended up screwing us, and when I mentioned this to RZ, his response was, 'I don't know what's happened to him. Over the past couple of years, he grew fangs.' "
I've noticed that the availability of Zelazny's work for the modern reader is rather spotty -- for example, there's no Kindle currently available for Lord of Light, has best-regarded novel. (Note that there's a listing at the link, but it says, "This edition of this title is not available for purchase in your country.") I tracked down the literary agency that handles Zelazny's estate, the Zeno Agency, and pointed out some of the problems. The guy who runs the agency, John Berlyne, apparently did not appreciate the feedback -- he wrote back and said I was "a little naïve" and I "really don't have a clue of what is entailed." He also assured me he's working hard to preserve Zelazny's legacy: "I might argue that it is wonderful that Zelanzy work is handled by people who sees the value in his work and works tirelessly in difficult circumstances to ensure the author's name is not forgotten." I wrote on April 20 and as of today, Lord of Light is not available as an ebook, but I guess he's on the case.
One final point about Zelazny: An old friend of mine, Brett Cox, wrote an excellent book about him.
In other news, the British science fiction writer Ian Watson has died. It doesn't look like even British newspapers have given this much coverage, but he was a talented writer.
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