Children of Dune
The first SF hardcover bestseller in publishing history, completing the original trilogy and pivoting the series towards God Emperor of Dune's grand inhumanity.
Book Entry · Science Fiction
What is Lord of Light about?
The crew of a colony starship have used mutation-bred powers and body-printing technology to install themselves as the Hindu pantheon, ruling their world's descendants through controlled reincarnation and engineered ignorance. One of them, Sam, dissents — and resurrects Buddhism as a revolutionary technology, accelerating heaven's fall through rebellion, alliance with the planet's energy-being natives, and several deaths that don't take. Zelazny structures it as linked legends, opens in the middle, and packs in the genre's single worst/best pun ('then the fit hit the Shan'). Myth, mischief and munitions in perfect proportion.
Why it matters
Hugo winner (1968), perennial top-ten-of-all-time material, and the masterpiece of mythological SF. The fake film production used in the CIA's Argo operation was an adaptation of this book, which is somehow fitting.
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Read next
Dune
Co-winner of the first Nebula, Hugo winner, and the bestselling SF novel of all time.
The Amber Spyglass
Whitbread Book of the Year 2001 — the first children's book ever to take the overall prize — and the most theologically audacious bestseller in the YA canon; the trilogy's capstone and lightning rod alike.