This Moment of the Storm

Novelette by Roger Zelazny

"Suddenly, it was very dark and there was only the rain."

Zelazny's description of the aftermath of a lightning strike could also double for a description of the turning point in the story where it appears.

This is one of my favorite stories, but one I sometimes have trouble recommending (although given the resemblance of most best-selling novels to cinderblocks, I probably shouldn't.) The writing itself is brilliant throughout, alternating the humor of the opening and foreshadowing the terrificly melancholic end around worldbuilding I still find interesting 65 years after Zelazny came up with it. The story is emotional and thoughtful and even a bit understated in parts.

Literally the only fault I find with "This Moment of the Storm" is that almost nothing happens in the first 2/3 of the story. It's all worldbuilding and character work and setup. All of which is engaging and well done, but it seems a bit slow. The first time I read this, I honestly found myself wondering if anything was going to happen in the story, or if Zelazny was just setting up a neat colony planet to describe hurricane flooding with time out for philosophy. And then, suddenly, everything happens in the last 1/3 of the story. It almost seems as if the slow build is there to make the ending that much more shocking. And where I'd usually wish I'd just skipped the first 2/3, everything that comes before is absolutely vital to the ending. I wouldn't want it a single word shorter.

I'm not sure exactly what I'd call the climax of the story, but I'm sure it doesn't take up more than a line or two. Everything after the line I opened with is short, dark, and devastating. We are moved from humor and love on a world ravaged by a record-setting rainstorm to what may as well be news footage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans with a slight SF tinge.

Here the narrator explains his dismissal of the definitions of humanity from the philosophy-class introduction.

"Man is the reasoning animal? Greater than beasts but less than angels? Not the murderer I shot that night. He wasn't even the one who uses tools or buries his dead."

Terrible things happen, but eventually the storm clears and recovery can begin. But the narrator finds that the storm has washed away what little progress he had made toward happiness, too. He ends the story, emotionally, in the same place he was before it began. Here are the closing lines, which cinch this one as a personal favorite:

"Years have passed, I suppose. I'm not really counting them anymore. But I think of this thing often: Perhaps there is a Golden Age someplace, a Renaissance for me sometime, a special time somewhere, somewhere but a ticket, a visa, a diary-page away. I don't know where or when. Who does? Where are all the rains of yesterday?

In the invisible city?

Inside me?

It is cold and quiet outside and the horizon is infinity. There is no sense of movement.

There is no moon, and the stars are very bright, like broken diamonds, all.

5 out of 5 philosophy professors are familiar with the time-killing method Zelazny explains here, for whenever they misplace their lecture notes.

The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth

Novelette by Roger Zelazny

WINNER: First Ever Nebula Award, 1965

First let me say that I love Zelazny, and I love his writing style. The most pleasurable thing about this story, and much of his work is in how it is written. All the subtle little jokes, the humor, the sarcasm, the repetition of metaphors and the willingness to take them a step farther than most writers would go. Particularly in this era of his writing, Zelazny could write a 10 page essay describing a salad and I'd probably give it a 3/5 on style alone.

But I like this one more than that hypothetical salad story, although the writing is especially good here, even for Zelazny.

Carl Davits is a baitman. This means he is hired to sail around on a ship the size of 10 football fields and bait the ends of a line shot out to catch the sort of thing you need a ship that size to catch. And they have to attach the bait once the line is already in the water, it would snap off otherwise. So he gets triple hazard pay.

The target is a huge reptile called Ichthyform Leviosaurus levianthus, or Ikky for short. The title of the story comes from a description of the biblical Leviathan by the way. And if Davits can overcome his fear, his rabbit-instincts, and his drinking problem, he might be able to redeem all his past failures by being the first to ever catch one.

But the real hazard on this fishing trip is his ex, Jean Luharich, who owns a giant cosmetics company, and the entire expedition. (The use of the monster hunt to sell cosmetics is a pretty funny running theme.) They both remain attracted to each other, but antagonistic and I can't help but wonder if their no doubt explosive breakup was related to the same fear which destroyed the other aspects of Davits' life.

I love the way Carl's attraction to Jean is described throughout. He likes the shape of her knees, her diving suit is tight enough it makes him want to look away... and look back again. I should give an example of one of my favorite descriptions before I wrap this up, so here is a poetic-and-then-backhanded description of Jean:

Hair like the end of the rainbow, eyes like nothing in nature, fine teeth.

And later:

She shook her end of the rainbow.

Anyway, I love the writing, I quite like the character development and setting, and things actually happen in this story. But it isn't Zelazny's best. 4.5 out of 5 baitmen never manage to keep something they catch.