Book 6 is another DNF: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. It won the Hugo for best novel in 1968, and the premise is fascinating: human settlers on an alien planet use science to mold their society after Hindu mythology. Awesome, right? After all, that's what Sharon Shinn did with Christian mythology in the Samaria books, and I'm a big fan of those. And it won a Hugo!
But.
The writing-- egad. It is so, so stilted. I can only describe it as a white American guy in 1968 trying really hard to sound like a Hindu god. And the tone is consistent: every single character so far speaks in the same stilted way as the narration. If it was just one character speaking like this, it would be fine-- amusing, even. But after 45 pages it looks like the whole book is going to be this way. The few things that have actually happened are interesting, but they are buried beneath tediously vague conversations about Being Wary of the Unnamed Forces Against Us, and tediously long philosophical speeches that sound to me like hippie-dippy pseudo-"Eastern" BS.
I am sorely disappointed.
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