Mon 11 Mar 2024
SF Diary Review: ROGER ZELAZNY “Damnation Alley.”
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[11] Comments
ROGER ZELAZNY “Damnation Alley.” Novella. First appeared in Galaxy SF, October 1967. First collected in The Last Defender of Camelot (Pocket, 1980). Reprinted in Supertanks, edited by Martin H. Greenberg et al (Ace, 1987). Expanded into the novel of the same title (Putnam, hardcover, 1969). Nominated for a Hugo Award in Best Novella category (placed third). Film: 20th Century Fox, 1977, with Jan-Michael Vincent (as Tanner) and George Peppard.
Damnation Alley is the cross-continent route from Los Angeles to Boston, some years after the Bomb. The plague has hit Boston, and Hell Tanner is one of the drivers sent out with the essential serum [they need]. Armored cars are necessary to avoid radioactivity, mutated monsters, and violent storms.
Tanner is an ex-convict, a Hell’s Angel gangleader, who is forced into leading the caravan with the promise of a full pardon. It is his story, his changing reaction to the job he must do, with side glimpses into the resiliency of man. There is, of course, a tremendous build-up of tension and emotion as Boston gradually becomes reachable.
Zelazny’s picture of a new world is both beautiful and horribly terrifying: do you believe that?
Rating: *****
March 13th, 2024 at 4:26 am
“Zelazny’s picture of a new world is both beautiful and horribly terrifying: do you believe that?”
In an Election Year, yeah.
March 13th, 2024 at 7:46 pm
Roger Zelazny was a true visionary, wasn’t he?
March 13th, 2024 at 1:04 pm
Still haven’t read either version, but the first issue of F&SF I bought new was the March 1978 number, with Baird Searles’s review of the misbegotten movie travesty of it. Ever sit through that?
March 13th, 2024 at 7:57 pm
No, never had that (dis)pleasure, and any memory that it actually existed failed me while putting opening credits for this old review put together. (An error since corrected, and thanks!)
I saw one MAD MAX movie, and of movies of that particular genre, that one will do me just fine for one lifetime.
March 13th, 2024 at 7:02 pm
Haven’t read this one.
But thought Lord of Light was terrific.
March 13th, 2024 at 8:04 pm
Roger Zelazny came out of nowhere when he started writing, winning Hugos (6) and Nebulas (3) like crazy, all real hotwired stuff.
Then he settled down writing fiction of a much more commercial nature. Can’t blame him for that, but I for one never read any of his Amber books (ten novels and some shorter stuff).
March 13th, 2024 at 8:30 pm
This review was the first in a series of my reading and reporting on each of the novels and novellas that had been nominated for Hugos in 1968 for the year 1967.
I wish I remembered this book more. I would be the first to admit that the review I wrote back then doesn’t do the job for me now to tell me why I gave it five stars.
On the other hand, that’s how many stars I gave it, and that fact alone tells me a lot.
March 14th, 2024 at 3:00 pm
In the unlikely event that you ever have nothing better to do, check out my article “The Three Faces of Tanner: Damnation Alley on Page and Screen,” bare⋅bones #8 (Fall 2021).
March 14th, 2024 at 6:55 pm
Uh oh. That’s one of the issues of bare*bones I don’t have. Or maybe I do. I’ll keep looking.
March 17th, 2024 at 12:48 am
I preferred the novella version to the novel, but only because it was tighter and more controlled.
Zelazny was a considerable stylist as well as a compelling storyteller, and seldom afraid to explore new avenues.
I did tire of Amber eventually, but the first two of three novels were exceptional reads.
March 18th, 2024 at 9:31 am
Yes, as I recall, there was a lot of filler obviously added just to pad it out to novel length, without really bringing anything else significant to the table. I believe it was expanded partly, or perhaps wholly, to facilitate a screen sale.