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Donnerjack Mass Market Paperback – August 1, 1998

by Roger Zelazny (Author)

24 customer reviews

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In our world, called the Verite, he is a Scottish laird, an engineer, and a master of virtual reality design. In the computer-generated universe of Virtu, created by the crash of the World Net, he is a living legend. Scientist and poet with a warrior's soul, Donnerjack strides like a giant across the virtual landscape he helped to shape. And now he has bargained with Death himself for the return of love.

The Lord of Entropy claimed Ayradyss, Donnerjack's beloved dark-haired lady of Virtu, with no warning, leaving a hole in the Engineer's heart. But Death offered to return her to him for a price: a palace of bones...and their first-born child. Since offspring have never before resulted from any union of the two worlds, Donnerjack accepts Death's conditions--and leads his reborn lover far from the detritus and perpetual twilight of Deep Fields to his ancestral Scottish lands, hoping to build a sanctuary and a self for Ayradyss in the first world.

But there is no escaping, because cataclysmic change is taking place in Virtu. A bizarre new religion is sweeping through this ever-shifting universe where the homely can be virtually beautiful, the lame can walk and the blind can see. Now it's threatening to spill over into Verite. And its credo is a call for a different kind of order. For all the ancient myths still occupy Virtu. And the Great Gods on Mt. Meru are amassing great armies in anticipation of the time when a vast computer system attempts to take over the reality that constructed it.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This "new" Roger Zelazny work was finished posthumously with the help of his coauthor and friend, Jane Lindskold. Unlike some after-the-fact "collaborations," this one has Zelazny written all over it. It's a typical tale from one of science fiction's greats, a world-spanning story that deals heavily with mythology and the ability to cross between two realities. In this case the realities are the real world, Verité, and the virtual world, Virtù. When Donnerjack--one of the architects of Virtù--loses his lover Ayradyss, he makes a pact with Death to return her from the dead. In return, Death demands their first-born child, who will be the first baby born from a Verité/Virtù union, and a force to be reckoned with in both worlds. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Zelazny died in 1995 after beginning this next-to-last hard sf collaboration with Lindskold. They have created a dazzling, 22nd-century future in which the real world, Verite, coexists with a computer-generated realm, Virtu. While citizens of Verite can visit the virtual world, denizens of Virtu cannot exist in Verite until John D'Arcy Donnerjack makes a deal with Death to save his beloved Virtual, Ayradyss. She is the first to cross over to Verite in exchange for giving their firstborn son to Death. First Donnerjack and then his son must find a way to cheat Death. In this intricately plotted novel, the authors create believable, densely populated worlds with a richness of characterization and subplots that will leave readers believing in Virtu. Highly recommended for most sf collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product details

Mass Market Paperback: 592 pages
Publisher: Harper Voyager; Reprint edition (August 1, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0380770229
ISBN-13: 978-0380770229
Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 6.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
Average Customer Review: 24 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #876,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3042 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Hard Science Fiction

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Customer reviews

3.2 out of 5 stars

5 star		25%
4 star		38%
3 star		12%
2 star		17%
1 star		8%

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Top customer reviews

An Excellent Work

ByKindle Customeron November 10, 2011

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

I love Zelazny and miss his works. This is one of the better entries in his bibliography, and it reflects well on Jane Lindskold that she was able to carry it.

I'm very satisfied.

The only modern scifi that compares to Zelazny is written by: John Scalzi, R. Scott Bakker, or Charles Stross. Spider Robinson is up there too.

How I rank my science fiction authors: Zelazny, Harry Harrison, Asimov, Scalzi, Stross, everyone else. :)

I'd write more, but I need to go "do this thing."

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Shades of the Great Zelazny

ByKindle Customeron August 19, 1997

Format: Hardcover

For the first 300 pages of Donnerjack I was in heaven. The Zelazny of "Lord of Light", "Jack of Shadows", and the original "Amber" series was evident. Strange places, myriad characters doing what they do, and why is up to, well, whatever you can deduce as the action goes on.

The concepts of "Virtu" (the cyberworld) and "Verite" (consensual mundane reality) are pure Zelazny. The mystery surrounding the interaction of the two is pure Zelazny. The characters are pure Zelazny.

Sometime around the middle third of the book the style underwent a significant change. The concepts were still fabulous, the characters still outrageous, but the style seemd very UNzelazny. The Zelazny of "Lord of Light", and indeed the first third of this book, does not reveal WHY the characters think and feel as they do. Enough background is supplied to allow the reader to deduce/intuit/project personal patterns and motivations. After the middle of Donnerjack, however, motives, attitudes and foibles are handily supplied in a pleasant, expository manner.

The STORY does not suffer particularly from the stylistic change, although towards the last third of the book I found myself skipping pages of stuff.

I've read several Zelazny collaborations that didn't work for me at all. This book, not a collaboration exactly, worked for me in all the important ways.

However, I must say that the stylistic inconsistancy of the prose kept me from TOTAL and COMPLETE ecstacy in the presence of the master.

0Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Quintessential Zelazny

ByBruce Trinqueon October 1, 1997

Format: Hardcover

I approached "Donnerjack", as a posthumously published novel, with some trepidation. Would there be anything of Roger Zelazny in this book beyond his name on the cover? The answer is, there is everything of Zelazny in "Donnerjack". Themes common to his best work - shadow worlds, shifting identities, ancient gods, children of two universes, Death personified, and artificial beings - resonate strongly throughout this book. Readers of "Lord of Light", "Creatures of Light and Darkness", "Jack of Shadows", the Amber novels, and his greatest short fiction will find much in "Donnerjack" to recall those earlier works, yet nowhere before did Zelazny take those themes to such a level of complexity. At 500 pages, the book is far longer than any of his previous novels, and the larger scale is put to good use in weaving an intricate tapestry out of those familiar colors and shapes, creating a picture full of quintessential Zelazny characters and images. What portion of the book belongs to Jane Lindskold and which to her friend and companion I cannot pretend to guess, but I would say that there is nothing in "Donnerjack" which falls outside of the expected range of the Zelazny universe. I read the book with great pleasure, tinged with sorrow from the knowledge that there will be no more works from Roger Zelazny. This final novel reminds us of his imagination and artistry and of what we have lost with his death.

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Reading Donnerjack Makes You Cry A Little, You Know

ByIdan Cohenon October 10, 2005

Format: Mass Market Paperback

Reviews before me have noted the obvious correlation between the end of the first third of this book and the death of the author. Others have argued with such statements, and offered grand compliments to the entirety of Donnerjack.

Allow me to underline the sentiments of the first and blink oddly at the latter in honest confusion.

The first third of Donnerjack is a work of art. Not only to fans of Zelazny, which I do not really count myself as. Not only to science-fiction fans, or fantasy fans. It is a true mythological tale which is so rarely seen in any genre. Death seems to spring from the page. John D'Arcy is seared into our minds. Virtu itself seems to spring up around us.

It's astounding. It is one the better books in this decade.

And then, as you go along, your mouth gaping with unshamed awe, the author dies.

And so does the grand story, its porportions, its characters, and its quiet grace.

It is replaced with something that at times seemed to be a childrens' book, a bodice-ripper, and a book based on a D&D session.

I tried to go on. I honestly did. Having devoured the first part in a day, I continued slogging on for literally weeks. I dismissed obvious inconsistencies. I skimmed over plot holes. I even laughingly skipped over the multiple, multiple, multiple times the characters acted with simple childish /idiocy/.

And then I stopped, somewhere fifty pages from the end. Because I could not bear to go on. Donnerjack had died, a hundred and fifty pages ago. What was left wasn't worth the torture.

Donnerjack is amazing. It is an astounding story, astoundingly written, striking somewhere deep within the collective unconcious. But it only runs for 186 pages before it turns into something debasing and crude, and something inside you breaks at that loss.

I've never written a amazon.com review before, and I doubt I will again. But I had to write this one.

Donnerjack is amazing. Don't ever read it. You'll cry a little.

22 comments 21 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Skip This Dreck Unless You're a Completist

ByW.W.on March 2, 2013

Format: Mass Market Paperback

I guess R. Z. must have died somewhere around page 175, because the rest of the novel is a third-rate hack job. The only good thing about this novel is that Zelazny died before he could read it. Yes, it's that bad. The Polly Anna gets slapped on so thick, the prose reads more like a movie treatment written in the past tense than an actual novel, with all the summarizing, summarizing, summarizing. J.L.'s laziness and lack of depth murders what could have been a truly epic masterpiece.