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.
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.