Jack of Shadows By Roger Zelazny

Jack of Shadows

By Roger Zelazny

Back in April of 2019 (which wasn't that long ago but feels like a completely different age for many reasons [There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen]), I reviewed a novel called Lord of Light. I'm actually looking at it right now as it rests on one of my bookshelves not far from me (That he can find it in his stacks surprises me.{I would think that a scientist would be familiar with the concept of organization but I’ve seen your apartment} Bro, you need mobile shelves and a card catalog at this point.  And yet, you still know where everything is like a dragon out of Norse myth.  You are a book dragon, sir.). Why am I bringing up a completely different book? Well, both books were written by Roger Zelazny, American science fiction and fantasy writer of Polish descent, who is mainly known for the Chronicles of Amber series (I go into further detail in the Lord of Light review). They are, however, very different books and if I didn't know better I would think they were from different people or very separated in time. Neither of that is true. Lord of Light was published in 1967 and Jack of Shadows in 1971. Jack of Shadows was written as an Homage to Jack Vance, an American writer who had a profound influence on American and British fantasy as men like Neil Gaimen, Michael Moorcock, and George RR Martin all considered him a powerful influence on their own work. In Mr. Zelazny's words, he wanted to see if he could create something as exotic and powerful as Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Jack of Shadows was well-received being nominated for a Hugo award in 1972 and finishing 4th in a Locus Poll for best novel in the same year. Let's take a look at it, shall we?

Jack of Shadows takes place in a tidally locked world, so one side is always in bright daylight and the other in darkness. On the daylight side the science and civilization of mortal men rules.  They're not all that different from us, they live in cities and suburbs, go to universities and work jobs. I imagine they vote in elections as well but that's not gone into. The Darkside however is the realm of magic, where vampires, spirits, and all manner of strange beings consort with human beings. There are weird overlaps though, daylighters are very superstitious, for example, they believe that the core of the earth holds an immense demon of heat and light. Meanwhile, Darksiders believe that the core of the world is a vast ever-turning machine that maintains the world in its unmoving, stable state. There is also a band of twilight where both science and magic can work and interact, if somewhat unpredictably. Now the politics of the Dayside are not gone into but the Darkside is ruled over by a class of beings who mostly look perfectly human but are immortal. In the sense that if they die, they wake up in new bodies in the dung pits of the west pole, although this process can take years. I should also note that this only happens a finite amount of times so it's possible to run out of lives. From there they must walk through wild and desolate lands back to civilization and basically start all over while retaining all their knowledge. This is an unpleasant experience and the wilderness is full of predators who seek to make meals of the recently returned. So an unlucky darksider could actually die several times just trying to get to civilization, imagine dying, waking up on a pile of manure crawling out into a desert and being killed by some unclean spirit and having to do the whole thing all over again! I don't want to say this is the most inconvenient form of immortality but man it is up there (Yeah, that would be thoroughly unpleasant. Fuck that shit.). Should be in the top 10 or 20 at least. Now I do like this, it's immortality sure but death has consequences, and worse, dying can kick you into a spiral of misfortune and pain that could take a very long time to pull out of. So it makes perfect sense for immortal Darksiders to try and avoid death because even if it won't stick, they know they're in for a bad time that might last a while. So of course, our story begins with our main character Jack being killed for the crime of being a known thief and looking at a shiny thing wrong. This inciting incident leads to Jack embracing a terrible path that has ramifications for the entire world.

Because Jack wasn't all that innocent, he was definitely there to steal said shiny thing, an item referred to as the Hellflame. The Hellflame was the reward in a contest, but more importantly for Jack, it was the price that a fellow Immortal demanded allowing Jack to marry his daughter Evene. Jack fights his way out of the dung pits and the wilderness only to find that the guys who pointed him out to the cops in the first place not only won the Hellflame but handed it over a rival who then used it to marry Evene in his place.  Needless to say, Jack is less than pleased and vows to bring a whole different type of hell flame into people's lives and take back Evene (Ah, Fantasy in the 1970s, where women are basically objects of desire without plot agency of their own!). However, his enemies are many and powerful and frankly, Jack is a jerk so his friends are few and often unable to help him. Jack does have some advantages here, first of all, he's not called Jack of Shadows because it sounds nice. Jack's magic is focused on using shadows as a power source, which means as long as he can find a shadow, he can become nearly invincible (And he lives on the Dark Side of a tidally locked world.  There are light sources everywhere.  Of course, that brings something up… how do they do agriculture?  Magical greenhouses?{Never gone into, but there’s always plenty to eat in taverns and what not so they must have something}). He can also use shadows as a method of transport, which makes it damn hard to pin him down. Additionally, Jack is really good at thinking outside the box so he's willing to go to lengths and use resources that would never occur to his enemies. So thinking outside of the box Jack realizes what he has to do is find a magical artifact called Kolwynia, the key that was lost. Of course, if he can actually find and take possession of Kolwynia, he doesn't have to stop at just revenge. He could unite the entire Darkside and rule as he sees fit. If he finds it.

Now I find myself liking the world, the idea of a world divided into two competing sets of rules for how reality works is strangely compelling. That idea that you could literally walk to a place where everything is completely different down to the physical laws of reality is interesting. Neither the Daysiders nor Darksiders understand each other very well, which adds to the mystery of the setting. Part of this is the sheer difference of their lives and the rules that govern them. Another part is, the immortals believe that they don't have souls and the Daysider do. Because of this, a Daysider can change but a Darksider is constant and their nature remains unchanging. Or so they believe, I'm not sure I share that belief. The plot itself has a lot of potential, with Jack facing a wide array of enemies of varied abilities and strengths and a goal that is difficult at best. Hell, I'll be honest and say that the first three chapters caught hold of my attention and interest as Jack was executed and crawled naked forth into a dangerous wild and dark land to fight his way back to life. Mr. Zelazny does a great job of making an environment that would be right at home in a Vance novel or any of the tales of Dying Earth.

The novel however falls flat for me after the first three chapters and drags through the middle portion of the story. There several reasons for this, first of all, is the fact that we are told things instead of shown things. We do not see Jack's quest for Kolwynia, we are just told that after spending 5 years living a lie to find it, he retrieves it (Ugh.  That was probably a novel all on its own.). Considering this is a pivotal moment that makes his revenge possible and sets up the rest of the book... More space should have been devoted to it, or the process made clearer because to me one minute he's reading computer print outs and the next minute he's attacking people with a flying mountain and I'm left asking “wait what happened here?” I'm not saying we need to be shown everything in explicit detail, Mr. Zelazny skips over what Jack does to break Evene's spirit and brainwash her into being his wife for example and that's just as well (Wait what?  So… the villain is the protagonist, I see.). It's also good that while avoiding explicit details, Mr. Zelazny doesn't handwave that away. This is repeatedly brought up in the narrative by other characters as a crime and a terrible one that Jack has committed. I am left wondering if Jack ever really loved Evene or was just taken with the idea of having her (Look, once you’re brainwashing someone, actual love is off the table.  The dude is a sociopath.). We have his word that Evene loved him (so I'm left wondering if this set of outrages is even the first time it's been done to Evene) and Jack isn't the most honest character in this story. It's also the only one that we're given any information on beyond a vague note that everyone hates him even as he unites the Darkside and takes power. Frankly, I'm left unsure as to why we get no sense that he's any more oppressive than the lords he's overthrown. In fact, he might be less oppressive in some ways given that no one among the common folk is trembling in fear that Jack will come to get them. On top of that, the people he's replaced were folks willing to murder and enslave each other at the drop of a hat so... What's the difference? (The Darkside needs a revolution.  Someone break the glass and get Lenin.)

When it comes to Jack, I feel like Mr. Zelazny was aiming for a character, not unlike Cudgel of the Dying Earth series but half the fun of a Cudgel story is watching him get his just deserts. Those stories always walked a fine line of letting Cudgel get away with just enough while getting punished just enough that in the next story he would have nothing to show for it but would be intact enough to continue. Jack starts off sympathetic but very quickly pisses it away by the fact that he treats people like crap (So it’s any and all personal interactions with a sociopath in microcosm.  Charming and sympathetic at first, but then holy shit.). There are only two characters we see Jack treat decently in the story and that's putting the bar pretty low, there's a wise woman that Jack treats as kind of a stray cat that he's fond of, as she was once a lover of his. He makes promises and will fulfill them but only if the wise woman calls him on it.  I get the sense that Jack just kinda forgets how short her life is compared to his and always assumes he'll have time to fulfill his side of the bargain later.  Which does come back to bite him a bit. Then there's Morningstar, a demonic creature locked in stone and cursed to remain there until morning comes to the Darkside (Huh.{it’s kind of poetic isn’t it?}). This combined with the fact that the only actions we tend to see Jack doing in the novel are taking advantage of people or brutally torturing and killing them (granted in response to them getting him killed and stealing his betrothed away [They were doing a public service {Jack disagrees and disagrees so much that he went and made himself God-King of the Darkness in order to win the debate with you}]) leaves me feeling rather cold at best towards Jack. Which is a problem since he's the only character who gets any real-time on-screen as it were.

That said the ending third of the book is pretty strong, with Jack finding out some things about himself and his world and having to take steps to save the world by ending it. Honestly, I think this book had too much telling and not enough showing. There's a lot of great ideas and possibilities to work with, but most of them are left unrealized and it feels like a pair of short stories that are not well joined together. I wasn't surprised to find that Jack of Shadows was written in a single draft and I really think it could have benefited from going back through the process. Another issue I think is while Mr. Zelazny is a talented writer, he’s trying to write like Jack Vance instead of writing like Roger Zelazny. Don’t get me wrong, he is great at setting up a Vancian setting and plot but he doesn’t have a grasp on Vancian characters and dialogue.  There are some scenes for example that feel like Zelazny is trying to homage the associations of wizards like the great Rhialto through the dialogue but it doesn’t quite work.  Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny gets a C- from me.  The setting and parts of the novel are great but the problems with the characters and middle of the novel really drag it down. Hopefully, we'll be able to return to some of Mr. Zelazny's other works in the future and see more of the material that gave him his well-earned reputation in the first place.

I’d like to thank our ever-wise patrons for supporting this review.  This book wasn’t selected by them but you can join them in helping select future books for a dollar a month.  Join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where the September poll is up and running till the end of the month.  Next week, we return to the universe of Daniel Gibbs with Breach of Peace by Gary T Stevens.  Until then, stay safe folks and keep reading! 

The Lord of Light review can be found here:  http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2019/04/lord-of-light-roger-zelazny.html