I think Agyar is something great that was beyond Zelazny's range. On the other hand A Rose for Ecclesiastes achieves a similar tragic effect in fewer words. I don't think Zelazny wrote great novels as novels per se - every paragraph and page of LoL is incomparable but I don't feel it is more than an assemblage of wondrous things. Compare for example probably my two favorite works - both by Gene Wolfe - _Peace_ and _The Book of the New Sun_. The former is a novel, the latter is an assemblage. Another favorite book, _Little, Big_ is perhaps more the latter after starting as the former. Depends on one's definition of novel - according to someone a novel is a long prose work with something wrong with it - but I tend to be more in the Jane Austen camp than the Old Curiosity Shop camp. Re Zelazny, I don't think he ever lived up to his potential. I think he could have written everybody else under the table, but for some reason never did. I remember when Eye of Cat came out and I thought, ok, here we go - but sadly he died not long after. The late 24 Views Of Mount Fuji is another reminder of what he could have achieved but for the most part didn't. - Philip On Fri, 24 Jan 2003, Steven Brust wrote: > At 02:15 PM 1/24/2003 -0600, pddb at demesne.com wrote: > > I think > >Steven is a better novelist than Zelazny, actually. > > *Croggle* > > Pamela? > > <Does fish imitation--open, close, open, close, open...> > > Uh...LORD OF LIGHT? If ever write something that good, I could die content. > > > >