SOJALS rating:

Very good (4/5)

I first read this in 1976 and most recently in March 2001

Angelo Di Negri, Mafia mobster, awakens to find that cryogenic freezing really does work, most specifically in his case. Furthermore he's been awakened for one last job.

In the future, and far away, humanity lives within the protected environment of one giant house, its eighteen wings each located on a different world.

A secret family of clones have ruled for centuries, slowly conditioning humankind into less aggressive patterns of behaviour. The intention is that, eventually, when humankind can live peacefully together, they will be allowed freedom outside of the wings of the world-spanning house to live once more unprotected upon the surfaces of the worlds, under the stars.

Life is not entirely peaceful for the secret rulers: some one has trying to kill them for a very long time, and this time around the mysterious murderer is doing so quite successfully.

On the planet Alvo, there is a last desperate fight to determine who will choose the future direction of humanity.

Well, he did it again. Another long-lived antihero, a plot spanning centuries, moral questions, great fights and cool dialogue. Plus all the favourites: cryogenics, cloning, teleportation. artificial intelligence and telepathy, and quite a lot of telephones.

The House with its manifold Wings is fabulous yet such a truly depressing place in which to live. Poor old Lange - he didn't have a chance against Mr Black. Engel did better, except for his witless panic at the ringing of the telephones. And who is Glenda? And wasn't it just so great at the end with the final telephone call?

Oh it was such a great read the first time, and continues to be. Read this book and also "Lord of Light". After, if you still want to, go back to all those "Princes in Amber" fantasy books but they just won't seem quite as good after you know what Zelazny could do when he put his mind to it.