This Immortal

Roger Zelazny has always struck me as a strange author. I did not think much of his co-authored novel with Philip K. Dick a few years ago, but that project is not a fair one to judge his work. So, after receiving a copy of This Immortal, I can appreciate his unique style and fast-moving prose and dialogue more. Set in an underpopulated and post-apocalyptic world, featuring aliens with an interest in the past of humanity, it actually brings Samuel R. Delany's Einstein Intersection to mind. 

Both novels share a similar post-apocalyptic setting with various mutants and alien life-forms, deeply immersed in Greek mythology and 20th century cultural references. Intriguingly, Zelazny's novel features Haitian Vodou, Port-au-Prince, and Egypt as additional settings and cultural allusions, with the main characters actually taking an alien visitor to a Vodou ceremony near the harbor of the Haitian capital. This could be a reflection of the legacy of Haitian tourism in the 1950s and 1960s, and makes one wonder if already in 1965 Zelazny was aware of the exploitative aspect of tourism in Haiti, Egypt, and Greece. 

While the book's representation of Haiti seems to owe more to Seabrook and primitivist foreign conceptions of Vodou, the novel offers a mix of Haitian and Greek mythological material as collective remnants of human civilization. Indeed, one of the main characters, an Arab named Hasan, appears to be possessed by a loa named Angelsou, while Conrad either is or isn't Pan. The Zelazny protagonist, however, is the only compelling character whose quest to discover the truth behind the alien tourist's visit maintains suspense. Overall, an interesting read.