The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth

Few authors are as like themselves as Roger Zelazny, and as hard to explain why they are like themselves. This collection encompasses the short fiction of the middle 1960s, when Zelazny was at the height of his power (his two novel Hugos were awarded in this time.) The stories are lyrical meditations on great themes of life, death, change, and small moments of humanity in the face of the absolute powers of the universe.

The stories are all solid, but the clear standout is “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”, which follows a genius poet on a mission to understand Martian religion and culture, and translate the whole sense of that dying race.