Doorways in the Sand
Encyclopedia
Doorways in the Sand is a Nebula
- and Hugo
-nominated science fiction
novel
with mystery
and comic
elements by Roger Zelazny
. It was originally published in serial form in the magazine Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact; the hardcover edition was first published in 1976 and the paperback in 1977. The book is dedicated to Isaac Asimov
.
confederation
of alien
civilizations exchanges the star-stone and the Rhennius machine, mysterious alien artifacts
, for the Mona Lisa
and the British Crown Jewels as part of the process of admitting Earth to its organization. The star-stone is missing, and Fred Cassidy, a perpetual student and acrophile, is the last known person to see it. Various criminals, Anglophile zealots, government agents and aliens torture, shoot, beat, trick, chase, terrorize, assault telepathically, stalk, and importune Fred in attempts to get him to tell them the location of the stone. He denies any knowledge of its whereabouts, and decides to make his own investigation. Through the examination of an alien telepath, Fred finds out that the star-stone entered his body through a wound while he was asleep. An alien agent, a representative of the Whillowhim culture, attempts to steal the stone when it is removed from Fred’s body. The Whillowhim seek to limit the power of an alliance of newer, less-developed members of the galactic coalition, and its theft would temporarily stop the entry of Earth to the organization. In a struggle atop the building housing the Rhennius machine, the Whillowhim agent falls to its death. Fred accepts a position as alien cultural expert for the legation of the U.S. to the United Nations. The star-stone, now identified with the name Speicus, is a sentient, telepathic sociological computer that can gather and analyze information and make reports with Fred as its host
.
crystalline object of unknown origin and function. He denies any knowledge of its whereabouts. Fred receives a generous stipend from his cryogenically-frozen uncle as long as he is a full-time student and has not received an academic degree
, which he has put off for 13 years by changing majors repeatedly. Since he is an acrophile, a lover of high places, he occasionally climbs tall buildings.
The Rhennius machine -- An alien device that can transform objects in different ways through its "inversion program." In Doorways it reverses, turns inside out, and incises objects.
Dennis Wexroth -- Fred’s latest academic counselor is determined to graduate Fred against his will.
Hal Sidmore -- Fred’s best friend and former roommate unknowingly switches a model of the star-stone for the real one in Professor Byler’s laboratory. When he moves out, he leaves the stone in Fred’s apartment.
Paul Byler -- A professor of geology
and world-renowned crystallographer manufactures replicas of the star-stone for the United Nations. As an extremist Anglophile, Byler is incensed by the loan of the British Crown Jewels to the alien confederation. He hires two thugs, Morton Zeemeister and Jamie Buckler, to plan and help carry out the theft of the star-stone during the delivery of a replica and the real stone to the United Nations.
Charv and Ragma -- Alien police officers investigate the theft of the star-stone in order to return it to the United Nations. They assume Fred does not know where it is, but believe the secret of its recovery lies in his subconscious
. Ragma is disguised as either a wombat
or a dog, while Charv wears a kangaroo
suit.
Morton Zeemeister and Jamie Buckler -- Sadistic professional criminals are originally employed by Paul Byler and others in his extremist Anglophile group to plan the theft of the star-stone. Ragma and Charv assume that they want the stone for themselves to ransom it back to the United Nations; however, they really work for the Whillowhim.
Speicus (the star-stone) -- A sentient telepathic alien life form of unknown origin in the shape of a stone acts as a recorder and data processor of sociological information. It needs a symbiote in order to use its nervous system to collect data. Speicus enters Fred’s body through a wound while he is sleeping and convinces him to reverse himself through the Rhennius machine so that it can be fully activated. It can keep its host alive indefinitely.
Doctor M’mrm’mlrr -- An alien telepathic analyst practices a technique known as assault therapy. It examines Fred and discovers that Speicus is inside him.
Ted Nadler -- A representative of the State Department persuades the university to award Fred a Ph.D in Anthropology
and hires Fred as an alien culture expert for the U.S. legation to the United Nations.
The Whillowhim Agent -- An alien disguised as a black cat desires the stone in order to keep Earth from joining a coalition
of newer, weaker planets whose interests are at odds with the Whillowhim civilization and the massive power block of older, entrenched powers that it belongs to. Fred identifies the Whillowhim with Carroll's Cheshire cat
.And Speicus calls him a Boojum, a very bad snark
.
Ralph Warp -- Fred’s partner in the Warp and Woof, a crafts shop, lets Fred crash at his apartment.
One character describes the near future in Doorways:
Add air scooters and flycars and that completes the near future in Doorways.
The action takes place mostly in the United States at an unnamed university in an unnamed city near an unnamed ocean. However, the Australia
n desert, New York, a small unnamed town in the Alps
, and a spacecraft in orbit are other locations in the narrative.
The will of Fred Cassidy’s cryogenically-frozen uncle provides him with a generous stipend to attend the university until he is awarded an academic degree. By carefully choosing his courses and changing majors, Fred avoids mandatory graduation for thirteen years. He meets with his new academic counselor, Dennis Wexroth, who is infuriated by what he calls Fred’s “dronehood” (See text box.) and threatens to send him off into to the real world by graduating Fred in the coming semester. Fred, however, finds a way to get enough credits in different majors to avoid graduation.
Fred goes to his apartment and finds it ransacked. He examines the apartment, but finds nothing missing. Paul Byler, Fred’s geology
teacher comes out of a closet. He slaps Fred around demanding the return of a replica he made of the crystalline star-stone. Byler is a world-renowned expert in crystallography
and says he makes copies of the star-stone in order to sell them as novelty items. Fred states that the replica is not in the apartment and maybe his ex-roommate has it. Byler does not believe Fred. After a brief fight Fred escapes through a window to an outside ledge.
Byler visits Hal Sidmore, Fred’s ex-roommate, roughs him up and demands the model of the star-stone. Hal insists he does not have it saying that Fred probably has it in their old apartment. Previously, during a poker
game, Byler gives the copy of the star-stone to Hal. However, Hal switches it without Byler's knowledge for what he thinks is a better model, but is in fact the star-stone itself. Arriving home Fred sees a news story on television reporting Byler’s murder and the odd removal of some of his vital organs.
As part of his study plan Fred goes to the desert
in Australia
to study ancient carvings on a cliff
. Zeemeister and Buckler, two professional criminals, arrive and torture Fred for the location of the star-stone. Two alien law officers, Charv and Ragma, disguised as a wombat
and a kangaroo
respectively save Fred, and they all go into orbit
in their spacecraft
.
Later, as he comes slowly into consciousness a voice instructs Fred that he should not permit the aliens to take him to another world where they want to telepathically examine his mind for clues to the whereabouts of the star-stone. Fred convinces them that it would be against their alien field regulations to take him without his consent. They return him to Earth.
After being set down on Earth, Fred goes to visit Hal who reports that he receives phone calls from various people trying find Fred. People break into and ransack his apartment several times. And that Ted Nadler, a State Department employee, is looking for him. Finding himself intoxicated Fred stays the night with Hal and hears the voice, now identifying itself as Speicus, that has been talking to him. It tells him to test the inversion program of the alien Rhennius machine and then get intoxicated. It is easier for Speicus to talk to Fred if he is drunk. Fred breaks into the room with the Rhennius machine and, hanging from a rope from the ceiling, puts a penny through the machine three times. The first time Lincoln is looking backwards and the ONE is also backwards. The second time the penny is incised
like an intaglio
. The third time returns it to normal.
Fred goes bar-crawling to get drunk as Speicus instructs him. He runs into a shady old school adviser named Doctor Merimee who tells him he is being followed. He joins Merimee at a party at his apartment, finishes getting drunk, and falls asleep. On waking Fred remembers a communication with Speicus during the night.
According to Speicus, reversing himself through the Rhennius machine will put "everything in proper order.”
By subterfuge Fred manages to reverse himself by going through the Rhennius machine. Left is right and vice versa, and letters are read backwards from right to left with the letters turned backwards. He remembers his biochemistry
and realizes that this reversal can be dangerous to his health. Meanwhile, Ted Nadler convinces the university to award Fred a Ph.D in Anthropology. This outrages Fred because he loses his uncle’s stipend and has to get a job.
Fred calls Hal and they agree to meet in a secret place. They begin driving, aimlessly Fred thinks. Hal explains that Zeemeister and Buckler have his wife, Mary, and are demanding the star-stone. He has another replica of the stone from Byler’s lab and is going to trade it for Mary. Fred agrees to go along with the plan against his better judgment. They go to a beach cottage
where they find Zeemeister, Buckler, a cat and Mary. Zeemeister declares the stone to be a fake and threatens to pull Mary’s fingernails off until they tell him where the star-stone is. Paul Byler, brought back to life by multiple organ transplants, enters through the back of the cottage with a drawn gun. In the ensuing struggle Buckler shoots Fred in the chest, and he blacks out.
Fred awakens in a hospital. He is alive since his heart was on the right side of his body due to the reversal, and he was shot on the left side where the heart is usually found. Everyone else from the cottage survives with minor injuries. Ted Nadler stops by Fred’s hospital room and offers him a position as alien culture specialist for the U.S. legation to the United Nations. Fred says he’ll think about it.
Nadler explains the history of the star-stone. The United Nations hires Byler as an expert in synthetics
and crystals to make a replica for safety purposes. The loan of the British Crown Jewels to the aliens outrages Byler and some of his fanatical Anglophile friends. Byler and an accomplice exchange the real star-stone for a fake one. Byler hires Zeemeister and Buckler in their capacity as professional criminals to assist in the substitution of the stones, but they really want the original for themselves for a ransom, Nadler believes.
While shaving the next morning Fred remembers a smile that remains with him from his night’s dreams. Ted Nadler and Fred travel to New York to meet with a telepath. As Fred enters his hotel room he is seized and raised into the air by the tentacles of an alien telepathic analyst who practices attack therapy
. He attempts to reach into Fred’s subconscious
for information about the star-stone. He is stunned to discover that the star-stone, Speicus, is inside Fred, having entered his body through a wound while Fred was asleep. Since he was reversed by the Rhennius machine Speicus is now fully functional and should be able to communicate telepathically directly and easily with Fred, but because Fred is now reversed it cannot. On the way to the Rhennius machine to have him reversed back to his original state, Speicus warns Fred about an unknown enemy by saying, “Our Snark
is a Boojum.”
In the building housing the Rhennius machine Doctor M’mrm’mlrr, the alien analyst, supervises the removal of the star-stone from Fred’s body. On the wall Fred sees a vision of “massive teeth framed by upward curving lips. . . .Then fading, fading. . . Gone.” Fred looks up and sees a black shape and cries out, “The smile.” Fred chases a telepathic alien disguised as a black cat up to the roof and over girders of the adjacent building. It attacks Fred and falls to its death. During the fight Fred realizes that Zeemeister and Buckler work for the alien agent called a Whillowhim.
Ragma explains that the Whillowhim are one of the oldest, most powerful and entrenched cultures in the galaxy. However, there is an alliance of younger ones that back common policies in conflict with those of the older blocs. The Whillowhim belong to a faction of the galactic coalition that opposes the policies of younger, newer members on major issues. One way to limit the power of the newer, less developed planets is to limit their number. The Whillowhim seeks to steal the star-stone to embarrass Earth and delay its entrance into the coalition of planets thereby weakening the power of the newer planets’ alliance.
Fred’s future is as an alien culture expert for the U.S. legation of the United Nations and as a host for Speicus. Speicus will use Fred’s nervous system as well as his broad knowledge of many subjects to gather information and process it as a kind of sociological computer. It can produce uniquely accurate and useful reports on anything they study together. In the end, Fred sees a beach with doorways leading to unique experiences in exotic places throughout the galaxy.
Spider Robinson
in Galaxy Science Fiction
Magazine stated that Zelazny's initial works gave the science fiction world hope that he would write “muscular adventure in the language of the poet, uniting drama and beauty,” but he had failed. Nonetheless, he described Doorways as “A cracking good yarn, thin on calories but delicious.”
Richard E. Geis
in Science Fiction Review wrote that “at the end I was left vaguely unsatisfied,” but the novel had “Zelazny magic; that indefinable stylistic touch that makes him extremely readable.”
Locus
magazine’s Susan Wood
wondered if Zelazny’s “promise would ever be fulfilled.” She described Doorways as “a well-written adventure,” and “fast enough, interesting enough, to carry any bedtime reader through arbitrary plotting to midnight and the loose-ends-tied-up conclusion.”
Having read seven of Zelazny’s most recent books in one month, Richard Cowper in Foundation: The Science Fiction Review lamented the loss of Zelazny as science fiction’s prose-poet:
Nonetheless, he rated Doorways as "definitely superior."
On the other hand, Algis Budrys
in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction wrote that Doorways “is one of the first hopeful signs from this author in some time” and “a return toward the power Zelazny once displayed, plus a maturation that runs deeper than witticism.” He called Doorways a “rather good novel.”
Doorways in the Sand has had 11 English editions, the last in 1991, and has been translated into German, Bulgarian, Dutch, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, French, and Polish.
s into his science fiction and fantasy works. In his fantasy Amber series, Krulik identifies space opera, mystery and fairy tale elements in Nine Princes in Amber
; tales of knighthood and allegory
in The Guns of Avalon
; drawing-room mystery in Sign of the Unicorn
; and, as in Doorways, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
in The Courts of Chaos
.
Doorways is a science fiction
novel
with mystery
and comic
elements that evokes and offers homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass
, and The Hunting of the Snark
; and to notes by Martin Gardner in The Annotated Alice
.
Many of the hallmark
s of science fiction are part of Doorways:
The setting is Earth in the near future. Aliens come in space ships giving the Rhennius machine and the star-stone. Fred leaves Earth in a space ship to orbit the globe. In the end Fred and the star-stone are on an alien world.
Doorways is also a mystery
. Some characteristics of mysteries are:
In Doorways there are two mysteries: the location of the star-stone and what it can it do. Fred investigates because everybody keeps after him thinking that he knows where it is. Two alien law officers run a parallel investigation. Some clues are offered such as the fading smile and Speicus’ communications. The star-stone and its functions are discovered. The evil party, the Whillowhim , and its goals are revealed. Its death ends the mystery.
novel, it is necessary to understand the differences between fantasy and science fiction since Zelazny converts elements of one into elements of the other. Some traits of fantasy are:
Doorways shares none of these characteristics.
.
Krulik writes:
An example of the absurd is the name Zelazny gives to the cryonics facility that stores Fred's uncle: "Bide-A-Wee."
Word play is a staple in Zelazny's humor. Here is an example between Fred and his best friend, Hal Sidmore:
"Enter, pray."
"In which order?"
O bless this house, by all means, first. It could use a little grace."
"Bless," I said, stepping in.
Zelazny's first job was with the Social Security Adminstration. Here he satirizes
some silly practices of bureaucracies
with some double-talk. This is a series of conversations between Fred and the alien cop, Ragma:
"Indicated by whom?" I asked.
"I am not permitted to say"
He cut short a snappy rejoinder by pouring more water down my throat. Choking and considering, I modified it to "This is ridiculous!"
"How? How did you know?"
"Sorry," Ragma said. "That's another."
"Another what?"
"Thing we are not permitted to say."
"Who does your permitting and forbidding?"
"That's another."
"However, since it is all contingent on the results of the analysis, it would be an exercise in redundancy to detail the various hypotheses which may have to be discarded."
"In other words, you are not going to tell me?"
"That pretty well sums it up."
In Doorways as in The Courts of Chaos
the evocations of and homage
to Lewis Carroll
's works provide many of the gags
and mad humor. Lewis Carroll is mentioned by name in the novel. Here are some of the many allusion
s to Alice in Doorways:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Doorways begin on warm May afternoons. On page one of Doorways Fred says, “I glanced at my watch. It indicated that I was late for my appointment.” Zelazny relates Fred to the White Rabbit, who on page one of Alice says, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late.” He then takes out his pocket watch
and looks at it. Many other Doorways characters are parallel to Alice characters:
Zelazny refers to well-known Carrollian quotations throughout the novel:
Other references to Alice include:
One reviewer has been critical of Zelazny’s use of the first-person narrative
technique: “It’s a difficult form to control, since the narrator
has to be used to tell his . . . own story, give us a sense of his own personality, suggest enough of outside events and responses to give another perspective on that character. Over and over in his work, Zelazny only accomplishes the first of these tasks.”
technique which can be confused with flashback
. Zelazny himself used the term flashback
:
Zelazny divided most chapters into two to five sections, placed the most mysterious or exciting part first, then arranged the other pieces of the narrative out of sequence. His use of this method had a mixed reception.
Susan Wood
in Locus
magazine wrote, “Used sparingly, it could effectively create suspense. Used in each chapter, however, it becomes monotonous and mannered, interfering with the flow.” Another critic stated, “It seems like grandstanding, and it gets in the way of my enjoyment of the story. . . . It makes it easy to identify with a protagonist
who doesn’t know what’s going on either, but it’s irritating.”
However, Fred Kiesche of SF Signal felt that “The magic of the plot [is] where you’re never sure of what exactly is going on.”
-poet
. However, there does not appear to be agreement about the true nature of his prose.
Geis writes that Doorways "is written with the Zelazny magic; that indefinable stylistic touch that makes him extremely readable." The prose in Doorways has been variously described as "straight-forward," "well-written and fast paced," "colloquial and functional."
Cowper writes that Zelazny
Sturgeon praises him for his "texture, cadence and pace."
Lindskold asserts that "In the final analysis . . . unlike a poet, a fiction writer must emphasize content and character over form, image, and structure."
Lindskold adds as elements of poetic diction alliteration
, internal rhyme
, and metaphor
to form, image, and structure.
In Doorways, with the exception of Speicus' narration in the last chapter (See text box.), Zelazny utilizes the language of poetry to characterize the mental states of falling asleep or into a stupor, or awakening from such states.
In the Australian desert, bound and being tortured by Zeemeister and Buckler, Fred evokes losing consciousness:
"Sunflash, some splash. Darkle. Stardance. Phaeton
's solid gold Cadillac
crashed where there was no ear to hear, lay burning, flickered, went out. Like me."
In Charv and Ragma's space vehicle Fred comes out of unconsciousness with Speicus speaking to him in his head:
On a long bus ride Fred nods off drunkenly: "Drifting drowsy across the countryside, I paraded my troubles through the streets of my mind, poking occasional thoughts between the bars of their cages, hearing the clowns beat drums in my temples."
Again with Speicus in his head, Fred describes going to sleep and dreaming:
or nearly immortal. Zelazny believed living a long life would make people have great intellectual and perceptual faculties and would produce a good sense of humor.
Immortality for Zelazny generally meant an immortal can be killed like any other person, but not from old age. A long life according to Zelazny would not cause ennui, but rather curiosity, changing and maturing, growing and learning, and lead to knowledge, culture and satisfying experiences. He believed that “Given all eternity to live, each experience becomes a jewel in the jewel-clutter of life; each moment becomes infinitely fascinating because there is so much more to relate it to."
In Doorways Fred achieves near immortality as a host for Speicus. In the hospital after being shot all of Fred’s injuries heal speedily. Later Speicus tells Fred that he is able to repair his body indefinitely.
In college he often audited courses he found interesting in addition to his regular plan of studies. In 1971 he designed an evolving curriculum
of studies for himself that he would pursue for the rest of his life. One of his concerns was to obtain greater amounts of diverse information that would make him a better writer. These studies included cultural
and physical geography
, ecology
, education
, history
, biography
, literature
, and other sciences and humanities
. A principle of his studies was the notion that we create ourselves, and learning is part of that process.
In Doorways Fred has a similar program of studies, not just motivated by a desire to learn, but also to keep money flowing from his cryogenically-frozen uncle’s trust fund.
During his thirteen years of studies at the university he takes just enough courses in each discipline to not receive a degree according to the mandatory departmental graduation requirements, making him one of the most broadly-educated people on the planet.
, and its reverse, forms a fascinating conflict that is apparent in his writings.” In Doorways Zelazny changes three fantasy elements into science fiction elements.
Jewels
with supernatural properties are a staple in fantasy. In Zelazny’s Amber series the Jewel of Judgment plays a decisive role in the plot. In Jack of Shadows, Jack is imprisoned in a jewel that is worn around the neck by another character, the Lord of Bats.
Zelazny takes the jewel fantasy motif and revises it into the star-stone in Doorways. Instead of having magical
qualities, the star-stone is described grandly in the vocabulary of science:
Another fantasy element that Zelazny converts to science fiction is Alice’s looking glass. Looking through her mirror
Alice observes that objects are the same as in her drawing room
, but “. . . the things go the other way.” A book held up to a mirror in the right hand has reversed writing in the mirror and the book is in the left hand of the mirror image of the person on the other side of the looking glass. The mirror reverses the image from one side to the other.
In Doorways Zelazny reimagines Alice’s looking glass as the Rhennius machine, the device given to man by the aliens that reverses objects into their mirror images. At Speicus’ urging Fred puts himself through the machine. The left side of his body is on the right and vice versa. Also left becomes right and vice versa, and writing is backwards for Fred.
And finally, Zelazny reenvisions another Alice artifact
in Fred's mind. In Alice the White Rabbit goes down the rabbit hole which leads to Wonderland. While Fred is being tortured in the Australian desert, he looks around for a doorway in the sand, a passageway that will take him out of his surreal nightmare back to his normal world.
However, at the end of Doorways Zelazny revises the rabbit hole again. Fred imagines all the doorways in the sand that will lead to all the exotic places he and Speicus will visit and experiences that they will have throughout the galaxy
: “Behind me the beach was suddenly full of doorways, and I thought of ladies, tigers, shoes, ships, sealing wax. . . .”
Fred Cassidy does not appear to be a complex personality, but he has two special abilities: he climbs buildings well because of his acrophlia and he has an extraordinary thirteen-year education in all the departments of the university. He is intelligent, cultured and experienced due to his education only, fallible, needs emotional maturity and experience, but does not dwell on his life's struggles very much.
Lindskold believes that Krulik's view oversimplifies Zelazny's protagonists and proposes four classifications: heroic, morally ambivalent "heroes," more villain
than hero, and ordinary people. She classifies Fred as an ordinary person "who is forced into action by extraordinary circumstances." Other than his acrophilia and education he is ordinary, definitely not heroic until he agrees to carry the star-stone as his symbiote, which is a major sacrifice he makes partly for mankind.
However, it is difficult to characterize Fred as ordinary. His education makes him one of the most educated people in the world and the perfect host for Speicus. And he uses his amazing climbing skills to gain access to the Rhennius machine and to fight the novel's villain, the Whillowhim, at the end of the story.
and an irresponsible dilettante with no desire to work or repay society.
With regard to the maturation of his protagonists, Zelazny writes: "I am interested in characters in a state of transformation. I feel it would be wrong to write a book where the character proceeds through all of the action and winds up pretty much the same at the end as he was in the beginning, just having an adventure. He has to be changed by the things that take place."
In this vein Krulik observes: "Growth of any fictional character depends on what he learns about himself during the course of a work, and how he changes as a result of this knowledge. This is a basic tenet of all literature and certainly one that Zelazny subscribes to."
In Doorways Fred goes through a series of life-changing experiences. He is stalked, slapped around, beaten, chased, threatened, terrorized, tortured and shot. He fears mutilation
and contemplates his own death.
In the end he accepts a responsible position as an alien culture specialist for the U.S. legation
to the United Nations. And he agrees to serve as host for Speicus and travel the galaxy studying various cultures. His old mentor
, Professor Dobson, urges him to learn something in his job, if only humility. Using Fred's acrophilia as a metaphor, Dobson tells him to "Keep climbing. That is all. Keep climbing, and then go a little higher."
s. His critics disagree over the effect these references might have on readers.
Theordore Sturgeon in his introduction to Four For Tomorrow calls Zelazny's more obscure allusions "furniture." Some allusions, he writes "can keep a reader from his speedy progress from here to there, and that his furniture should be placed outside the traffic pattern."
Krulik takes the view that "It's a risky business, but Zelazny has enormous stylistic power, and his strong characterizations are usually able to draw back the reader to the written word after chewing momentarily on the morsel
given to him for thought."
Lindskold feels that in stories "the reader who is uninterested in delving into the subtext
can still enjoy the story simply for the plot alone."
Below are a few of the literary and scientific allusions in Doorways:
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
- and Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
-nominated science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
with mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
and comic
Comic novel
A comic novel is a work of fiction in which the writer not only seeks to amuse the reader, but also to make the reader think about controversial issues, sometimes with subtlety and as part of a carefully woven narrative; sometimes, above all other considerations...
elements by Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
. It was originally published in serial form in the magazine Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact; the hardcover edition was first published in 1976 and the paperback in 1977. The book is dedicated to Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
.
Plot introduction
A galacticGalaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
confederation
Confederation
A confederation in modern political terms is a permanent union of political units for common action in relation to other units. Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution, confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues such as defense, foreign...
of alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
civilizations exchanges the star-stone and the Rhennius machine, mysterious alien artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
, for the Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
and the British Crown Jewels as part of the process of admitting Earth to its organization. The star-stone is missing, and Fred Cassidy, a perpetual student and acrophile, is the last known person to see it. Various criminals, Anglophile zealots, government agents and aliens torture, shoot, beat, trick, chase, terrorize, assault telepathically, stalk, and importune Fred in attempts to get him to tell them the location of the stone. He denies any knowledge of its whereabouts, and decides to make his own investigation. Through the examination of an alien telepath, Fred finds out that the star-stone entered his body through a wound while he was asleep. An alien agent, a representative of the Whillowhim culture, attempts to steal the stone when it is removed from Fred’s body. The Whillowhim seek to limit the power of an alliance of newer, less-developed members of the galactic coalition, and its theft would temporarily stop the entry of Earth to the organization. In a struggle atop the building housing the Rhennius machine, the Whillowhim agent falls to its death. Fred accepts a position as alien cultural expert for the legation of the U.S. to the United Nations. The star-stone, now identified with the name Speicus, is a sentient, telepathic sociological computer that can gather and analyze information and make reports with Fred as its host
Host (biology)
In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter. In botany, a host plant is one that supplies food resources and substrate for certain insects or other fauna...
.
Principal characters
Fred Cassidy -- A building-climbing, wise-cracking, perennial student is the last known person to see the missing star-stone, a unique alienExtraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
crystalline object of unknown origin and function. He denies any knowledge of its whereabouts. Fred receives a generous stipend from his cryogenically-frozen uncle as long as he is a full-time student and has not received an academic degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
, which he has put off for 13 years by changing majors repeatedly. Since he is an acrophile, a lover of high places, he occasionally climbs tall buildings.
| The Rhennius machine [was] three jet-black housings set in a line on a circular platform that rotated slowly in a counterclockwise direction, the end units each extruding a shaft-one vertical, one horizontal-about which passed what appeared to be a Moebius strip of a belt almost a meter in width, one strand half running through a tunnel in the curved and striated central unit, which faintly resembled a wide hand cupped as in the act of scratching. |
| — Doorways in the Sand |
The Rhennius machine -- An alien device that can transform objects in different ways through its "inversion program." In Doorways it reverses, turns inside out, and incises objects.
Dennis Wexroth -- Fred’s latest academic counselor is determined to graduate Fred against his will.
Hal Sidmore -- Fred’s best friend and former roommate unknowingly switches a model of the star-stone for the real one in Professor Byler’s laboratory. When he moves out, he leaves the stone in Fred’s apartment.
Paul Byler -- A professor of geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
and world-renowned crystallographer manufactures replicas of the star-stone for the United Nations. As an extremist Anglophile, Byler is incensed by the loan of the British Crown Jewels to the alien confederation. He hires two thugs, Morton Zeemeister and Jamie Buckler, to plan and help carry out the theft of the star-stone during the delivery of a replica and the real stone to the United Nations.
Charv and Ragma -- Alien police officers investigate the theft of the star-stone in order to return it to the United Nations. They assume Fred does not know where it is, but believe the secret of its recovery lies in his subconscious
Subconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
. Ragma is disguised as either a wombat
Wombat
Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately in length with a short, stubby tail. They are adaptable in their habitat tolerances, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as...
or a dog, while Charv wears a kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
suit.
Morton Zeemeister and Jamie Buckler -- Sadistic professional criminals are originally employed by Paul Byler and others in his extremist Anglophile group to plan the theft of the star-stone. Ragma and Charv assume that they want the stone for themselves to ransom it back to the United Nations; however, they really work for the Whillowhim.
| I looked down at the pseudostone, semiopaque or semitransparent, depending on one's philosophy and vision, very smooth, shot with milky streaks and red ones. It somewhat resembled a fossil sponge or a seven-limbed branch of coral, polished smooth as glass and tending to glitter about its tips and junctures. Tiny black and yellow flecks were randomly distributed throughout. It was about seven inches long and three across. It felt heavier than it looked. |
| — Doorways in the Sand |
Speicus (the star-stone) -- A sentient telepathic alien life form of unknown origin in the shape of a stone acts as a recorder and data processor of sociological information. It needs a symbiote in order to use its nervous system to collect data. Speicus enters Fred’s body through a wound while he is sleeping and convinces him to reverse himself through the Rhennius machine so that it can be fully activated. It can keep its host alive indefinitely.
Doctor M’mrm’mlrr -- An alien telepathic analyst practices a technique known as assault therapy. It examines Fred and discovers that Speicus is inside him.
Ted Nadler -- A representative of the State Department persuades the university to award Fred a Ph.D in Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and hires Fred as an alien culture expert for the U.S. legation to the United Nations.
The Whillowhim Agent -- An alien disguised as a black cat desires the stone in order to keep Earth from joining a coalition
Coalition
A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...
of newer, weaker planets whose interests are at odds with the Whillowhim civilization and the massive power block of older, entrenched powers that it belongs to. Fred identifies the Whillowhim with Carroll's Cheshire cat
Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll's depiction of it in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Known for his distinctive mischievous grin, the Cheshire Cat has had a notable impact on popular culture.-Origins:...
.And Speicus calls him a Boojum, a very bad snark
Snark (Lewis Carroll)
The Snark is a fictional animal species created by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark. His descriptions of the creature were, in his own words, unimaginable, and he wanted that to remain so.-The origin of the poem:...
.
Ralph Warp -- Fred’s partner in the Warp and Woof, a crafts shop, lets Fred crash at his apartment.
Setting
The setting is in the “near-future Earth.” The “near future” is an “imprecise term used to identify novels set just far enough in the future to allow for certain technological or social changes without being so different that it is necessary to explain that society to the reader.”One character describes the near future in Doorways:
I am especially conscious of the difference between that earlier time and this present. It was a cumulative thing, the change. Space travel, cities under the sea, the advances in medicine—even our first contact with the aliens—all of these things occurred at different times and everything else seemed unchanged when they did. Petty pace.
Add air scooters and flycars and that completes the near future in Doorways.
The action takes place mostly in the United States at an unnamed university in an unnamed city near an unnamed ocean. However, the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n desert, New York, a small unnamed town in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, and a spacecraft in orbit are other locations in the narrative.
Plot summary
| You are a playboy and a dilettante, with no real desire ever to work, to hold a job, to repay society for suffering your existence. You are an opportunist. You are irresponsible. You are a drone. |
| — Doorways in the Sand |
The will of Fred Cassidy’s cryogenically-frozen uncle provides him with a generous stipend to attend the university until he is awarded an academic degree. By carefully choosing his courses and changing majors, Fred avoids mandatory graduation for thirteen years. He meets with his new academic counselor, Dennis Wexroth, who is infuriated by what he calls Fred’s “dronehood” (See text box.) and threatens to send him off into to the real world by graduating Fred in the coming semester. Fred, however, finds a way to get enough credits in different majors to avoid graduation.
Fred goes to his apartment and finds it ransacked. He examines the apartment, but finds nothing missing. Paul Byler, Fred’s geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
teacher comes out of a closet. He slaps Fred around demanding the return of a replica he made of the crystalline star-stone. Byler is a world-renowned expert in crystallography
Crystallography
Crystallography is the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms in solids. The word "crystallography" derives from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and grapho = write.Before the development of...
and says he makes copies of the star-stone in order to sell them as novelty items. Fred states that the replica is not in the apartment and maybe his ex-roommate has it. Byler does not believe Fred. After a brief fight Fred escapes through a window to an outside ledge.
Byler visits Hal Sidmore, Fred’s ex-roommate, roughs him up and demands the model of the star-stone. Hal insists he does not have it saying that Fred probably has it in their old apartment. Previously, during a poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
game, Byler gives the copy of the star-stone to Hal. However, Hal switches it without Byler's knowledge for what he thinks is a better model, but is in fact the star-stone itself. Arriving home Fred sees a news story on television reporting Byler’s murder and the odd removal of some of his vital organs.
As part of his study plan Fred goes to the desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
to study ancient carvings on a cliff
Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...
. Zeemeister and Buckler, two professional criminals, arrive and torture Fred for the location of the star-stone. Two alien law officers, Charv and Ragma, disguised as a wombat
Wombat
Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately in length with a short, stubby tail. They are adaptable in their habitat tolerances, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as...
and a kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
respectively save Fred, and they all go into orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
in their spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
.
Later, as he comes slowly into consciousness a voice instructs Fred that he should not permit the aliens to take him to another world where they want to telepathically examine his mind for clues to the whereabouts of the star-stone. Fred convinces them that it would be against their alien field regulations to take him without his consent. They return him to Earth.
After being set down on Earth, Fred goes to visit Hal who reports that he receives phone calls from various people trying find Fred. People break into and ransack his apartment several times. And that Ted Nadler, a State Department employee, is looking for him. Finding himself intoxicated Fred stays the night with Hal and hears the voice, now identifying itself as Speicus, that has been talking to him. It tells him to test the inversion program of the alien Rhennius machine and then get intoxicated. It is easier for Speicus to talk to Fred if he is drunk. Fred breaks into the room with the Rhennius machine and, hanging from a rope from the ceiling, puts a penny through the machine three times. The first time Lincoln is looking backwards and the ONE is also backwards. The second time the penny is incised
Incised
Incised means cut, particularly with a "V" shape. It is a term found in a number of disciplines.-Geology: In geomorphology, the term Incised refers to when a river has cut downward through its riverbed. The river may have been incising through sediment or bedrock. The river begins at one elevation...
like an intaglio
Intaglio (printmaking)
Intaglio is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate, and the incised line or area holds the ink. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or...
. The third time returns it to normal.
Fred goes bar-crawling to get drunk as Speicus instructs him. He runs into a shady old school adviser named Doctor Merimee who tells him he is being followed. He joins Merimee at a party at his apartment, finishes getting drunk, and falls asleep. On waking Fred remembers a communication with Speicus during the night.
According to Speicus, reversing himself through the Rhennius machine will put "everything in proper order.”
By subterfuge Fred manages to reverse himself by going through the Rhennius machine. Left is right and vice versa, and letters are read backwards from right to left with the letters turned backwards. He remembers his biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
and realizes that this reversal can be dangerous to his health. Meanwhile, Ted Nadler convinces the university to award Fred a Ph.D in Anthropology. This outrages Fred because he loses his uncle’s stipend and has to get a job.
Fred calls Hal and they agree to meet in a secret place. They begin driving, aimlessly Fred thinks. Hal explains that Zeemeister and Buckler have his wife, Mary, and are demanding the star-stone. He has another replica of the stone from Byler’s lab and is going to trade it for Mary. Fred agrees to go along with the plan against his better judgment. They go to a beach cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
where they find Zeemeister, Buckler, a cat and Mary. Zeemeister declares the stone to be a fake and threatens to pull Mary’s fingernails off until they tell him where the star-stone is. Paul Byler, brought back to life by multiple organ transplants, enters through the back of the cottage with a drawn gun. In the ensuing struggle Buckler shoots Fred in the chest, and he blacks out.
Fred awakens in a hospital. He is alive since his heart was on the right side of his body due to the reversal, and he was shot on the left side where the heart is usually found. Everyone else from the cottage survives with minor injuries. Ted Nadler stops by Fred’s hospital room and offers him a position as alien culture specialist for the U.S. legation to the United Nations. Fred says he’ll think about it.
Nadler explains the history of the star-stone. The United Nations hires Byler as an expert in synthetics
Artificial chemistry
An artificial chemistry is a computer model used to simulate various types of systems. Artificial chemistry is in some ways similar to a chemical reaction, hence the name...
and crystals to make a replica for safety purposes. The loan of the British Crown Jewels to the aliens outrages Byler and some of his fanatical Anglophile friends. Byler and an accomplice exchange the real star-stone for a fake one. Byler hires Zeemeister and Buckler in their capacity as professional criminals to assist in the substitution of the stones, but they really want the original for themselves for a ransom, Nadler believes.
While shaving the next morning Fred remembers a smile that remains with him from his night’s dreams. Ted Nadler and Fred travel to New York to meet with a telepath. As Fred enters his hotel room he is seized and raised into the air by the tentacles of an alien telepathic analyst who practices attack therapy
Attack therapy
Attack therapy is a controversial type of psychotherapy evolved from ventilation therapy. It involves highly confrontational interaction between the patient and a therapist, or between the patient and fellow patients during group therapy, in which the patient may be verbally abused, denounced, or...
. He attempts to reach into Fred’s subconscious
Subconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
for information about the star-stone. He is stunned to discover that the star-stone, Speicus, is inside Fred, having entered his body through a wound while Fred was asleep. Since he was reversed by the Rhennius machine Speicus is now fully functional and should be able to communicate telepathically directly and easily with Fred, but because Fred is now reversed it cannot. On the way to the Rhennius machine to have him reversed back to his original state, Speicus warns Fred about an unknown enemy by saying, “Our Snark
Snark (Lewis Carroll)
The Snark is a fictional animal species created by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark. His descriptions of the creature were, in his own words, unimaginable, and he wanted that to remain so.-The origin of the poem:...
is a Boojum.”
In the building housing the Rhennius machine Doctor M’mrm’mlrr, the alien analyst, supervises the removal of the star-stone from Fred’s body. On the wall Fred sees a vision of “massive teeth framed by upward curving lips. . . .Then fading, fading. . . Gone.” Fred looks up and sees a black shape and cries out, “The smile.” Fred chases a telepathic alien disguised as a black cat up to the roof and over girders of the adjacent building. It attacks Fred and falls to its death. During the fight Fred realizes that Zeemeister and Buckler work for the alien agent called a Whillowhim.
Ragma explains that the Whillowhim are one of the oldest, most powerful and entrenched cultures in the galaxy. However, there is an alliance of younger ones that back common policies in conflict with those of the older blocs. The Whillowhim belong to a faction of the galactic coalition that opposes the policies of younger, newer members on major issues. One way to limit the power of the newer, less developed planets is to limit their number. The Whillowhim seeks to steal the star-stone to embarrass Earth and delay its entrance into the coalition of planets thereby weakening the power of the newer planets’ alliance.
Fred’s future is as an alien culture expert for the U.S. legation of the United Nations and as a host for Speicus. Speicus will use Fred’s nervous system as well as his broad knowledge of many subjects to gather information and process it as a kind of sociological computer. It can produce uniquely accurate and useful reports on anything they study together. In the end, Fred sees a beach with doorways leading to unique experiences in exotic places throughout the galaxy.
Reception
Some reviewers expressed disappointment not only in Doorways, but in Zelazny’s previous recent work as well. Praise was unenthusiastic.Spider Robinson
Spider Robinson
Spider Robinson is an American-born Canadian Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction author.- Biography :Born in the Bronx, New York City, Robinson attended Catholic high school, spending his junior year in a seminary, followed by two years in a Catholic college, and five years at the State...
in Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
Magazine stated that Zelazny's initial works gave the science fiction world hope that he would write “muscular adventure in the language of the poet, uniting drama and beauty,” but he had failed. Nonetheless, he described Doorways as “A cracking good yarn, thin on calories but delicious.”
Richard E. Geis
Richard E. Geis
Richard E. Geis is an American erotica writer and science fiction fan and writer from Portland, Oregon who won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1982 and 1983; and whose science fiction fanzine Science Fiction Review won the 1969, 1970, 1977 and 1979 Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine...
in Science Fiction Review wrote that “at the end I was left vaguely unsatisfied,” but the novel had “Zelazny magic; that indefinable stylistic touch that makes him extremely readable.”
Locus
Locus (magazine)
Locus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
magazine’s Susan Wood
Susan Wood (science fiction)
Susan Joan Wood Susan Joan Wood Susan Joan Wood (August 22, 1948-November 12, 1980 was a Canadian author, critic, and science fiction fan, born in Ottawa, Ontario.Wood discovered science fiction fandom while she was studying at Carleton University in the 1960s. Wood met fellow fan Mike Glicksohn of...
wondered if Zelazny’s “promise would ever be fulfilled.” She described Doorways as “a well-written adventure,” and “fast enough, interesting enough, to carry any bedtime reader through arbitrary plotting to midnight and the loose-ends-tied-up conclusion.”
Having read seven of Zelazny’s most recent books in one month, Richard Cowper in Foundation: The Science Fiction Review lamented the loss of Zelazny as science fiction’s prose-poet:
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. As I progressed from one improbable fantasy to the next, I winced at what I felt to be the squandering of a rare and remarkable talent and felt a growing sense of dismay—in truth as much for Zelazny as for myself. There are felicities of style, of invention, of learning or wit, which stamp it as being his alone. The energy is still there, together with the desire to experiment, but the early promise remains unfulfilled. He has yet to give us that major work.
Nonetheless, he rated Doorways as "definitely superior."
On the other hand, Algis Budrys
Algis Budrys
Algis Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names "Frank Mason", "Alger Rome", "John A. Sentry", "William Scarff", and "Paul Janvier."-Biography:...
in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction wrote that Doorways “is one of the first hopeful signs from this author in some time” and “a return toward the power Zelazny once displayed, plus a maturation that runs deeper than witticism.” He called Doorways a “rather good novel.”
Doorways in the Sand has had 11 English editions, the last in 1991, and has been translated into German, Bulgarian, Dutch, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, French, and Polish.
Genres
Zelazny mixes other genreGenre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s into his science fiction and fantasy works. In his fantasy Amber series, Krulik identifies space opera, mystery and fairy tale elements in Nine Princes in Amber
Nine Princes in Amber
Nine Princes in Amber is a new wave fantasy novel and the first in the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. It was first published in 1970. The book has also spawned a computer game of the same name...
; tales of knighthood and allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
in The Guns of Avalon
The Guns of Avalon
The Guns of Avalon is the second book in the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. The book continues straight from the previous volume, Nine Princes in Amber, although it soon includes a recap.-Setting:...
; drawing-room mystery in Sign of the Unicorn
Sign of the Unicorn
Sign of the Unicorn is the third book in the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. It was first published in serial format in Galaxy Science Fiction.-Plot introduction:...
; and, as in Doorways, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
in The Courts of Chaos
The Courts of Chaos
The Courts of Chaos is the fifth book in the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. It was first published in serial format in Galaxy Science Fiction.This book ends the original series narrated by Corwin...
.
Doorways is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
with mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
and comic
Comic novel
A comic novel is a work of fiction in which the writer not only seeks to amuse the reader, but also to make the reader think about controversial issues, sometimes with subtlety and as part of a carefully woven narrative; sometimes, above all other considerations...
elements that evokes and offers homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
, and The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old...
; and to notes by Martin Gardner in The Annotated Alice
The Annotated Alice
The Annotated Alice is a work by Martin Gardner incorporating the text of Lewis Carroll's major tales: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as well as the original illustrations by John Tenniel...
.
Science fiction
While it is difficult to define “science fiction,” some features often cited include:- Science or pseudosciencePseudosciencePseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
orientation to the story - The future
- Space near earth
- Space travel
- Aliens, especially visits by aliens
- Visiting other worlds
- Different political systems
- New inventions and technologies
Many of the hallmark
Hallmark
A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of precious metals — platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium...
s of science fiction are part of Doorways:
The setting is Earth in the near future. Aliens come in space ships giving the Rhennius machine and the star-stone. Fred leaves Earth in a space ship to orbit the globe. In the end Fred and the star-stone are on an alien world.
Mystery fiction
| As I grinned and grimaced in the glass, I had thought of the only fragment of the night's dreaming that remained with me. There was this smile. Whose? I did not know. It was just a smile, somewhere a little over the line from the place where things begin to make sense. It remained with me, though, flickering on and off like a fluorescent tube about to call it quits . . . |
| — Doorways in the Sand |
Doorways is also a mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
. Some characteristics of mysteries are:
- DetectiveDetectiveA detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
s, amateur and police - A crime or mystery
- An investigationDetectiveA detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
- Clues
- A solution to the crime or mystery
- Exposure of the guilty parties
- HardboiledHardboiledHardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...
detective language
In Doorways there are two mysteries: the location of the star-stone and what it can it do. Fred investigates because everybody keeps after him thinking that he knows where it is. Two alien law officers run a parallel investigation. Some clues are offered such as the fading smile and Speicus’ communications. The star-stone and its functions are discovered. The evil party, the Whillowhim , and its goals are revealed. Its death ends the mystery.
Fantasy
While Doorways is clearly not a fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novel, it is necessary to understand the differences between fantasy and science fiction since Zelazny converts elements of one into elements of the other. Some traits of fantasy are:
- Inspiration from mythologyMythologyThe term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and folkloreFolkloreFolklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called... - Self-contained world different from ours.
- Consistent rules of magicMagic (paranormal)Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
. - Fantastic devices
- SupernaturalSupernaturalThe supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
elements
Doorways shares none of these characteristics.
Comedy
Zelazny laces many of his works with humor, but with Doorways he set out to write a truly comedic novelComic novel
A comic novel is a work of fiction in which the writer not only seeks to amuse the reader, but also to make the reader think about controversial issues, sometimes with subtlety and as part of a carefully woven narrative; sometimes, above all other considerations...
.
Krulik writes:
An important reason for Doorways success is Zelazny’s humor. This novel is probably his most wildly comic work, combining the kind of verbal humor he is known for with ridiculous situations that border on the absurdAbsurdityAn absurdity is a thing that is extremely unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., “this encyclopedia article is absurd”. It derives from the Latin absurdusm meaning "out of tune", hence...
, and secondary characters whose posings and behavior give an antic flavor to the comedy.
An example of the absurd is the name Zelazny gives to the cryonics facility that stores Fred's uncle: "Bide-A-Wee."
Word play is a staple in Zelazny's humor. Here is an example between Fred and his best friend, Hal Sidmore:
"Enter, pray."
"In which order?"
O bless this house, by all means, first. It could use a little grace."
"Bless," I said, stepping in.
Zelazny's first job was with the Social Security Adminstration. Here he satirizes
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
some silly practices of bureaucracies
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
with some double-talk. This is a series of conversations between Fred and the alien cop, Ragma:
"Indicated by whom?" I asked.
"I am not permitted to say"
He cut short a snappy rejoinder by pouring more water down my throat. Choking and considering, I modified it to "This is ridiculous!"
"How? How did you know?"
"Sorry," Ragma said. "That's another."
"Another what?"
"Thing we are not permitted to say."
"Who does your permitting and forbidding?"
"That's another."
"However, since it is all contingent on the results of the analysis, it would be an exercise in redundancy to detail the various hypotheses which may have to be discarded."
"In other words, you are not going to tell me?"
"That pretty well sums it up."
In Doorways as in The Courts of Chaos
The Courts of Chaos
The Courts of Chaos is the fifth book in the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. It was first published in serial format in Galaxy Science Fiction.This book ends the original series narrated by Corwin...
the evocations of and homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's works provide many of the gags
Visual gag
In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humor visually, often without words being used at all.There are numerous examples in cinema history of directors who based most of the humour in their films on visual gags, even to the point of using no or minimal dialogue...
and mad humor. Lewis Carroll is mentioned by name in the novel. Here are some of the many allusion
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
s to Alice in Doorways:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Doorways begin on warm May afternoons. On page one of Doorways Fred says, “I glanced at my watch. It indicated that I was late for my appointment.” Zelazny relates Fred to the White Rabbit, who on page one of Alice says, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late.” He then takes out his pocket watch
Pocket watch
A pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design,...
and looks at it. Many other Doorways characters are parallel to Alice characters:
- Morton Zeemeister and Jamie Buckler are sadistic versions of the Walrus and the Carpenter. Zeemeister is described as “a little under six feet—but heavily built and beginning work on a paunch.” He produces “a surprisingly delicate handkerchiefHandkerchiefA handkerchief , also called a handkercher or hanky, is a form of a kerchief, typically a hemmed square of thin fabric that can be carried in the pocket or purse, and which is intended for personal hygiene purposes such as wiping one's hands or face, or blowing one's nose...
.”Zelazny 1976, p. 30 Alice’s Walrus is tall, corpulent and dabs his eyes with a prettily decorated handkerchief in Tenniel’sJohn TennielSir John Tenniel was a British illustrator, graphic humorist and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories...
drawing. The Walrus and the Carpenter mercilessly consume the oysterOysterThe word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....
s that they have lured out of their beds, and Zeemeister and Buckler tortureTortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
Fred at length and threaten to pull out Mary’s fingernails.
- Ralph Warp, Fred’s partner in the crafts store, Warp and Woof, is described as having bad posture and lots of dark hair. He teaches basket weavingBasket weavingBasket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
and moves his furniture around so often that it's always confusing to Fred. Chapter 5 of Through the Looking Glass is entitled Wool and Water. Tenniel’s drawing shows that the sheep in the shop has dark wool and no shoulders to speak of, and is knitting. Whenever Alice tries to look directly at an item on a shelf, it moves.
- Throughout the story Fred is haunted by a phantomGhostIn traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
smile, perhaps telepathic touches of the Whillowhim, his evil alien nemesis. Before his fight with the Whillowhim who is disguised as a cat he sees on the wall of the building housing the Rhennius machine: "massive teeth framed by upward curving lips on the far wall. Then fading, fading . . . Gone.” In Alice the Cheshire-Puss slowly disappears beginning with its tail and ending with its grin full of teeth hanging in the air for a few moments before disappearing.
Zelazny refers to well-known Carrollian quotations throughout the novel:
- “Curiouser and curiouser.”
- “Our snarkSnark (Lewis Carroll)The Snark is a fictional animal species created by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark. His descriptions of the creature were, in his own words, unimaginable, and he wanted that to remain so.-The origin of the poem:...
is a Boojum.”
- Zelazny lampoons Carroll’s The JabberwockyJabberwocky"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
: “Behold the riant anthropoid, beware its crooked thumbs!" The corresponding lines of The Jabberwocky are “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
Other references to Alice include:
- Zelazny writes a nonsense poem that uses the non-Euclidian geometry of Nikolai Lobachevsky and Bernhard RiemannBernhard RiemannGeorg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was an influential German mathematician who made lasting contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them enabling the later development of general relativity....
to extol the curved features of the female form.
- One device used in Doorways is reversed writing, a result of Fred’s reversal through the Rhennius machine. Carroll uses mirror writingMirror writingMirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes used as an extremely primitive form of cipher...
for the first stanza of the Jabberwocky before printing the whole poem correctly. After his inversion, Fred reads all writing backwards, most notably the writing on his Ph.D diplomaDiplomaA diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
.
- Alice talks to many different creatures in her walks through Wonderland. Fred talks to aliens disguised as a kangaroo, a cat, a dog, a wombat and a donkeyDonkeyThe donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
. The kangaroo, a cat, and a (non-speaking) dog are found in Alice. Gardner suggests that Alices dormouse may have been modeled after a real wombat. The donkey is absent.
First person
Doorways is mostly narrated in the first person by its protagonist, Fred Cassidy. However, in the last chapter Speicus, the sentient sociological computer, takes up the story.One reviewer has been critical of Zelazny’s use of the first-person narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
technique: “It’s a difficult form to control, since the narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
has to be used to tell his . . . own story, give us a sense of his own personality, suggest enough of outside events and responses to give another perspective on that character. Over and over in his work, Zelazny only accomplishes the first of these tasks.”
Structure
Zelazny experimented with a of number of narrative techniques. Doorways uses a flashforwardFlashforward
A flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards are often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future...
technique which can be confused with flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. Zelazny himself used the term flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
:
Once I knew what the story was to be, I ran it, a piece at a time, through a flashbackFlashback (narrative)Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
machine, using the suspenseSuspenseSuspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic...
-heightening flashbackFlashback (narrative)Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
trick so frequently and predictably that the practice intentionally parodied the device itself.
Zelazny divided most chapters into two to five sections, placed the most mysterious or exciting part first, then arranged the other pieces of the narrative out of sequence. His use of this method had a mixed reception.
Susan Wood
Susan Wood (science fiction)
Susan Joan Wood Susan Joan Wood Susan Joan Wood (August 22, 1948-November 12, 1980 was a Canadian author, critic, and science fiction fan, born in Ottawa, Ontario.Wood discovered science fiction fandom while she was studying at Carleton University in the 1960s. Wood met fellow fan Mike Glicksohn of...
in Locus
Locus (magazine)
Locus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
magazine wrote, “Used sparingly, it could effectively create suspense. Used in each chapter, however, it becomes monotonous and mannered, interfering with the flow.” Another critic stated, “It seems like grandstanding, and it gets in the way of my enjoyment of the story. . . . It makes it easy to identify with a protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
who doesn’t know what’s going on either, but it’s irritating.”
However, Fred Kiesche of SF Signal felt that “The magic of the plot [is] where you’re never sure of what exactly is going on.”
Prose
Zelazny has been repeatedly referred to as a proseProse
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
-poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. However, there does not appear to be agreement about the true nature of his prose.
Geis writes that Doorways "is written with the Zelazny magic; that indefinable stylistic touch that makes him extremely readable." The prose in Doorways has been variously described as "straight-forward," "well-written and fast paced," "colloquial and functional."
Cowper writes that Zelazny
has fashioned for himself a style which . . . is designed to dazzle. Seen at its best, . . . it is allusive, economical, picturesque and witty [and] highly metaphorical. There are felicities of style, of invention of learning or wit, which stamp it as being his own.
Sturgeon praises him for his "texture, cadence and pace."
Lindskold asserts that "In the final analysis . . . unlike a poet, a fiction writer must emphasize content and character over form, image, and structure."
Poetry
| Epiphany Epiphany (feeling) An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something... in Black & Light, Scenario in Green, Gold, Purple & Gray . . . There is a man. He is climbing in the dusky daysend air, climbing the high Tower of Cheslerei in a place called Ardel beside a sea with a name he cannot quite promounce as yet. The sea is as dark as the juice of grapes, bubbling a Chianti and chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted".... fermentation of the light of distant stars and the best rays of Canis Vibesper, its own primary, now but slightly beneath the horizon, rousing another continent, pursued by the breezes that depart the inland fields to weave their courses among the interconnected balconies, towers, walls and walkways of the city, bearing the smells of the warm land toward its older, colder companion . . . |
| — Doorways in the Sand |
Lindskold adds as elements of poetic diction alliteration
Alliteration
In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
, internal rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
, and metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
to form, image, and structure.
In Doorways, with the exception of Speicus' narration in the last chapter (See text box.), Zelazny utilizes the language of poetry to characterize the mental states of falling asleep or into a stupor, or awakening from such states.
In the Australian desert, bound and being tortured by Zeemeister and Buckler, Fred evokes losing consciousness:
"Sunflash, some splash. Darkle. Stardance. Phaeton
Phaëton
In Greek mythology, Phaëton or Phaethon was the son of Helios and the Oceanid Clymene. Alternate, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Merope, of Helios and Rhode or of Helios and Prote....
's solid gold Cadillac
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
crashed where there was no ear to hear, lay burning, flickered, went out. Like me."
In Charv and Ragma's space vehicle Fred comes out of unconsciousness with Speicus speaking to him in his head:
Thus, thus, so and thus: awakening as a thing of textures and shadings: advancing and retreating along a scale of soft/dark, smooth/shadow, slick/bright: all else displaced and translated to this: The colors, sounds and balances a function of these two.
Advance to hard and very bright. Fall back to soft and black . . .
"Do you hear me, Fred?"--the twilight velvet.
"Yes" --my glowing scales.
"Better, better, better . . ."
"What/who?"
"Closer, closer, that not a sound betray . . ."
On a long bus ride Fred nods off drunkenly: "Drifting drowsy across the countryside, I paraded my troubles through the streets of my mind, poking occasional thoughts between the bars of their cages, hearing the clowns beat drums in my temples."
Again with Speicus in his head, Fred describes going to sleep and dreaming:
Some upwelling in the dark fishbowlAquariumAn aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...
atop the spine later splashed dreams, patterns memory-resistant as a swirl of noctilucae, across consciousness' thin, transparent rim, save for the kinesthetic/synesthetic DO YOU FEEL ME LED? which must have lasted a time-less time longer than the rest, for later, much later, morning's third coffee touched it to a penny's worth of spin, of color.
Immortality
More than half of Zelazny’s novels have characters who are immortalImmortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
or nearly immortal. Zelazny believed living a long life would make people have great intellectual and perceptual faculties and would produce a good sense of humor.
Immortality for Zelazny generally meant an immortal can be killed like any other person, but not from old age. A long life according to Zelazny would not cause ennui, but rather curiosity, changing and maturing, growing and learning, and lead to knowledge, culture and satisfying experiences. He believed that “Given all eternity to live, each experience becomes a jewel in the jewel-clutter of life; each moment becomes infinitely fascinating because there is so much more to relate it to."
In Doorways Fred achieves near immortality as a host for Speicus. In the hospital after being shot all of Fred’s injuries heal speedily. Later Speicus tells Fred that he is able to repair his body indefinitely.
Education
For Zelazny one of the attractions of immortality was that an immortal could continue to learn forever. And Zelazny had a life-long love of learning.In college he often audited courses he found interesting in addition to his regular plan of studies. In 1971 he designed an evolving curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
of studies for himself that he would pursue for the rest of his life. One of his concerns was to obtain greater amounts of diverse information that would make him a better writer. These studies included cultural
Cultural geography
Cultural geography is a sub-field within human geography. Cultural geography is the study of cultural products and norms and their variations across and relations to spaces and places...
and physical geography
Physical geography
Physical geography is one of the two major subfields of geography. Physical geography is that branch of natural science which deals with the study of processes and patterns in the natural environment like the atmosphere, biosphere and geosphere, as opposed to the cultural or built environment, the...
, ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, and other sciences and humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. A principle of his studies was the notion that we create ourselves, and learning is part of that process.
In Doorways Fred has a similar program of studies, not just motivated by a desire to learn, but also to keep money flowing from his cryogenically-frozen uncle’s trust fund.
During his thirteen years of studies at the university he takes just enough courses in each discipline to not receive a degree according to the mandatory departmental graduation requirements, making him one of the most broadly-educated people on the planet.
Literary revisionism
Zelazny wrote science fiction and fantasy, receiving Hugo and Nebula awards in both genres. However, he sometimes took elements from one and converted them to the other. Krulik writes: “This imposition of science upon magicMagic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
, and its reverse, forms a fascinating conflict that is apparent in his writings.” In Doorways Zelazny changes three fantasy elements into science fiction elements.
Jewels
Gemstone
A gemstone or gem is a piece of mineral, which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments...
with supernatural properties are a staple in fantasy. In Zelazny’s Amber series the Jewel of Judgment plays a decisive role in the plot. In Jack of Shadows, Jack is imprisoned in a jewel that is worn around the neck by another character, the Lord of Bats.
Zelazny takes the jewel fantasy motif and revises it into the star-stone in Doorways. Instead of having magical
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
qualities, the star-stone is described grandly in the vocabulary of science:
To function properly, [Speicus] requires a host built along our lines. It exists then as a symbiote within that creature, obtaining data by means of that being’s nervous system as it goes about its business. It operates on this material as something of a sociological computer. In return for this, it keeps its host in good repair indefinitely. On request, it provides analyses of anything it has encountered directly or peripherally, along with reliability figures, unbiased because it is uniquely alien to all life forms, yet creature-oriented because of the nature of the input mechanism. It prefers a mobile host with a fact-filled head.
Another fantasy element that Zelazny converts to science fiction is Alice’s looking glass. Looking through her mirror
Mirror
A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
Alice observes that objects are the same as in her drawing room
Drawing room
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms "withdrawing room" and "withdrawing chamber", which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made its first written appearance in 1642...
, but “. . . the things go the other way.” A book held up to a mirror in the right hand has reversed writing in the mirror and the book is in the left hand of the mirror image of the person on the other side of the looking glass. The mirror reverses the image from one side to the other.
In Doorways Zelazny reimagines Alice’s looking glass as the Rhennius machine, the device given to man by the aliens that reverses objects into their mirror images. At Speicus’ urging Fred puts himself through the machine. The left side of his body is on the right and vice versa. Also left becomes right and vice versa, and writing is backwards for Fred.
And finally, Zelazny reenvisions another Alice artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
in Fred's mind. In Alice the White Rabbit goes down the rabbit hole which leads to Wonderland. While Fred is being tortured in the Australian desert, he looks around for a doorway in the sand, a passageway that will take him out of his surreal nightmare back to his normal world.
However, at the end of Doorways Zelazny revises the rabbit hole again. Fred imagines all the doorways in the sand that will lead to all the exotic places he and Speicus will visit and experiences that they will have throughout the galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
: “Behind me the beach was suddenly full of doorways, and I thought of ladies, tigers, shoes, ships, sealing wax. . . .”
Protagonists
Zelazny's literary biographers have disagreed over the basic profile of his protagonists. Krulik writes:More than most writers, Zelazny persists in reworking a personaPersonaA persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
composed of a single literary vision. This vision is the unraveling of a complex personality with special abilities, intelligent, cultured, experienced in many areas, but who is fallible, needing emotional maturity, and who candidly reflects upon the losses in his life. This complex persona cuts across all of Zelazny's writings. . . .
Fred Cassidy does not appear to be a complex personality, but he has two special abilities: he climbs buildings well because of his acrophlia and he has an extraordinary thirteen-year education in all the departments of the university. He is intelligent, cultured and experienced due to his education only, fallible, needs emotional maturity and experience, but does not dwell on his life's struggles very much.
Lindskold believes that Krulik's view oversimplifies Zelazny's protagonists and proposes four classifications: heroic, morally ambivalent "heroes," more villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
than hero, and ordinary people. She classifies Fred as an ordinary person "who is forced into action by extraordinary circumstances." Other than his acrophilia and education he is ordinary, definitely not heroic until he agrees to carry the star-stone as his symbiote, which is a major sacrifice he makes partly for mankind.
However, it is difficult to characterize Fred as ordinary. His education makes him one of the most educated people in the world and the perfect host for Speicus. And he uses his amazing climbing skills to gain access to the Rhennius machine and to fight the novel's villain, the Whillowhim, at the end of the story.
Maturation
Zelazny portrays Fred as a hard partyer who sometimes drinks too much, a gambler, and a good student who wants to study but not get a degree. Professor Wexroth, Fred's academic adviser, calls Fred a playboyPlayboy (lifestyle)
A playboy is a modern version of a public Casanova — a man of means with ample time for leisure, who demonstratively appreciates the pleasures of the world.The term has also been applied to a flashy womanizer, such as a player, pappagallo, or Don Juan....
and an irresponsible dilettante with no desire to work or repay society.
With regard to the maturation of his protagonists, Zelazny writes: "I am interested in characters in a state of transformation. I feel it would be wrong to write a book where the character proceeds through all of the action and winds up pretty much the same at the end as he was in the beginning, just having an adventure. He has to be changed by the things that take place."
In this vein Krulik observes: "Growth of any fictional character depends on what he learns about himself during the course of a work, and how he changes as a result of this knowledge. This is a basic tenet of all literature and certainly one that Zelazny subscribes to."
In Doorways Fred goes through a series of life-changing experiences. He is stalked, slapped around, beaten, chased, threatened, terrorized, tortured and shot. He fears mutilation
Mutilation
Mutilation or maiming is an act of physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, usually without causing death.- Usage :...
and contemplates his own death.
In the end he accepts a responsible position as an alien culture specialist for the U.S. legation
Legation
A legation was the term used in diplomacy to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an Ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary....
to the United Nations. And he agrees to serve as host for Speicus and travel the galaxy studying various cultures. His old mentor
Mentorship
Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person....
, Professor Dobson, urges him to learn something in his job, if only humility. Using Fred's acrophilia as a metaphor, Dobson tells him to "Keep climbing. That is all. Keep climbing, and then go a little higher."
Allusions
Zelazny makes many obscure literary and scientific allusionAllusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
s. His critics disagree over the effect these references might have on readers.
Theordore Sturgeon in his introduction to Four For Tomorrow calls Zelazny's more obscure allusions "furniture." Some allusions, he writes "can keep a reader from his speedy progress from here to there, and that his furniture should be placed outside the traffic pattern."
Krulik takes the view that "It's a risky business, but Zelazny has enormous stylistic power, and his strong characterizations are usually able to draw back the reader to the written word after chewing momentarily on the morsel
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
given to him for thought."
Lindskold feels that in stories "the reader who is uninterested in delving into the subtext
Subtext
Subtext or undertone is content of a book, play, musical work, film, video game, or television series which is not announced explicitly by the characters but is implicit or becomes something understood by the observer of the work as the production unfolds. Subtext can also refer to the thoughts...
can still enjoy the story simply for the plot alone."
Below are a few of the literary and scientific allusions in Doorways:
- A quotation from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John BerrymanJohn BerrymanJohn Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...
's The Dream Songs is written in reversed writing: "I stalk my mirror down this corridor/my pieces litter. . . ."
- Zelazny refers to FlatlandFlatlandFlatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott. Writing pseudonymously as "A Square", Abbott used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to offer pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture...
and SpherelandSpherelandSphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe is a 1965 novel by Dionys Burger, and is a sequel to Flatland, a novel by "A Square" . The novel expands upon the social and mathematical foundations on which Flatland is based...
, books which discuss applications in Euclidean (flat) and non-Euclidean (sphere) geometry.
| Lobachevsky alone has looked on Beauty bare. She curves in here, she curves in here. She curves out there. Her parallel clefts come together to tease In un-callipygianous-wise; With fewer than one hundred eighty degrees Her glorious triangle lies. Her double trumpet symmetry Symmetry Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection... Riemann did not court— His tastes to simpler-curvedness, the buxom Teuton sort! An ellipse Ellipse In geometry, an ellipse is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis... is fine for as far as it goes, But modesty, away! If I’m going to see Beauty without her clothes Give me hyperbola Hyperbola In mathematics a hyperbola is a curve, specifically a smooth curve that lies in a plane, which can be defined either by its geometric properties or by the kinds of equations for which it is the solution set. A hyperbola has two pieces, called connected components or branches, which are mirror... s any old day. The world is curves, I’ve heard it said, And straightway in it nothing lies. This then my wish, before I’m dead: To look through Lobachevsky’s eyes. |
| — Doorways in the Sand |
- Along the same lines, Zelazny writes a nonsense poem evoking the non-Euclidean geometry of Lobachevsky and Riemann to describe the curves of the female anatomy.
- See above under "Literary revision" and "Comedy" the many tributes to Alice.
- Zelazny refers in passing to B. TravenB. TravenB. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B...
, a mysterious German novelist who lived most of his life in Mexico. He is known for his novel The Treasure of the Sierra MadreThe Treasure of the Sierra MadreThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1927 novel by the mysterious German-English bilingual author B. Traven, in which two penurious Americans of the 1920s join with an old-timer, in Mexico, to prospect for gold...
.
- A "brace of roodRoodA rood is a cross or crucifix, especially a large one in a church; a large sculpture or sometimes painting of the crucifixion of Jesus.Rood is an archaic word for pole, from Old English rōd "pole", specifically "cross", from Proto-Germanic *rodo, cognate to Old Saxon rōda, Old High German ruoda...
s" does not describe two crosses in Doorways, but rather a double cross.
- Fred says he does not want to remain a "Spiegelmensch" (a mirror man) very long. This is a reference to Franz Werfel's 1921 play whose title is translated as Mirror Man. The play is about a pair of doppelgangerDoppelgängerIn fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
s, one good, one evil.
- Hilbert spaceHilbert spaceThe mathematical concept of a Hilbert space, named after David Hilbert, generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. It extends the methods of vector algebra and calculus from the two-dimensional Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space to spaces with any finite or infinite number of dimensions...
is a mathematical concept that is about the conversion of 2-dimensional space to spaces with more than two or three dimensions.
- After Fred gets shot the next chapter does not begin in the hospital showing that he is alive, but rather is preceded by two pages discussing Charles William EliotCharles William EliotCharles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university...
, President of Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and his impact on the modern liberal artsLiberal artsThe term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
curriculum, and the pseudosexual behavior of an African waspWaspThe term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
and an orchid.
- When going to sleep Fred says, "'Let there be an end to thought. Thus do I refute Descartes.' I sprawled, not a cogito or a sum to my name." This refers to Descartes' famous dictum "Cogito ergo sum," "I think therefore I am."
Publication history
- (1976) New York: Harper and Row. pp. 181. Hardcover. English. isbn: 006014789X
- (1977) New York: Avon Books. pp. 189. Paperback. English. isbn: 0380009498
- (1977) London: W.H. Allen/Virgin Books. pp. 185. Cloth. English. isbn: 9780491020220, 0491020228
- (1977) Stersteen. Het Spectrum. pp. 192. Paperback. Dutch, Flemish. isbn: 9027409293, 9789027409294
- (1978) Star Books/W. H. Allen. pp.185. Paperback. English. isbn: 0352397241
- (1981) Stempel über Fußschnitt. Moewig, Rastatt. Paperback. German. isbn: 3811835254
- (1981) Suna no naka no tobira. (trans. Hisashi Kuromaru). Hardcover. Japanese. OCLC: 672582333
- (1985) Tore in der Wüste. Pabel-Moewig Verlag Kg. Broschiert. German. isbn: 3811835254, 9783811835252
- (1987) New York: Avon Books. pp. 189. Paperback. English. isbn: 0-380-00949-8 (7th Avon printing)
- (1991) New York: HarperPaperbacks. Paperback. English. isbn: 006100328X : 9780061003288
- (1991) HarperCollins/HarperPrism. pp. 240. Paperback. English. isbn: 006100328X, 9780061003288
- (1993) Bramy w piasku. Warszawa: "Alkazar". Polish. isbn: 8385784179 9788385784173
- (1998) La pierre des etoiles. Denoel (Editions). pp.192. Mass Market Paperback. French. isbn: 2207247783, 9782207247785
- (1998) La pierre des etoiles. Denoel (Editions). pp.192. Poche. French. isbn: 2207302431, 9782207302439
- (1998) Пясъчни врати. Юлиян Стойнов (Translator). Камея. pp. 208. Paperback. Bulgarian. isbn: 9548340363
- (1999) Dveri v peske. Moskva: Ėksmo-Press. Russian.
- (2003) Miftaḥim ba-ḥol. Tel Aviv : ʻAm ʻoved. Hebrew. isbn: 965131656X 9789651316562
- (2004) Dveri v peske. Moskva: Ėksmo. Russian. isbn: 5040096534 9785040096534
- (2006) Dveri v peske. Moskva: Ėksmo. Russian. isbn: 5699173390 9785699173396
Awards and nominations
- Nominated for the Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
for Best NovelNebula Award for Best NovelWinners of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.- Winners and other nominees :...
in 1975. - Nominated for the Hugo AwardHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for Best NovelHugo Award for Best NovelThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1976.
Other sources
- Kovacs, Christopher S. The Ides of Octember: A Pictorial Bibliography of Roger Zelazny. Boston: NESFA Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-886778-92-4
External links
- Roger Zelazny at the Locus Index to SF Awards