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''Isle of the Dead'' is a science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny published in 1969. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1969,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 1969 Award Winners & Nominees )〕 and won the French Prix Apollo in 1972. The title refers to the several paintings by Swiss-German painter Arnold Böcklin. In the novel, Francis Sandow refers to “that mad painting by Boecklin, ''The Isle of the Dead''.” Böcklin created at least five paintings with that title, each depicting an oarsman and a standing figure in a small boat, crossing dark water toward a forbidding island. A later Ace books edition featured a (cover painting ) by Dean Ellis that was deliberately reminiscent of Böcklin’s work.〔"...And Call Me Roger"": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 2, by Christopher S. Kovacs. In: ''The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 2: Power & Light'', NESFA Press, 2009.〕 As to the novel's inspiration, Zelazny noted, “This was a spin-off from the novelette I did called ‘This Moment of the Storm.’ Actually, it wasn’t the guy I was interested in, at first. I wanted somebody that was born in the twentieth century, who had made it aboard one of these generation starships where he’d been frozen and spent generations getting to this new planet which proved habitable. By the time he got there, they’d invented a faster-than-light drive, because several centuries had gone by and they’d become more sophisticated. Earth had much higher technology, and he had the means of going back fast if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure he was happy on the world he’d reached, though, and decided to go out and try a few others, since it was easy to do. There were still time dilation effects and, through making a few sharp investments here and there, with so much time passing, he became quite wealthy. He also happened to become the oldest human in the galaxy, and because of the fancy new medicine he was in very good shape. He also just happened to have been through the initiation ritual which would make him a god in this other religion, even though he didn’t believe in it wholeheartedly. But it was the concept of the big expanse of time that interested me."〔"...And Call Me Roger: The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 2", by Christopher S. Kovacs. In: ''The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 2: Power & Light'', NESFA Press, 2009.〕 ==Plot introduction== Francis Sandow is the last surviving human born in the 20th century. An early space colonist, he spent long centuries of space travel in suspended animation. After his last such trip, he woke in the 27th Century, where everything had changed. Desperate for something to hold to, he sought out a mentor, who happened to be a member of a very long-lived and slowly dying alien race, the Pei'ans. Under this tutelage, Sandow eventually became a telepath and "worldscaper". Worldscapers have the ability to create and/or terraform planets. The process of becoming a worldscaper culminates in a mystic rite called Naming that binds the mortal to one of the gods in the Pei'an pantheon, and it is believed that the worldscaper is actually acting as an avatar for the god. There are only twenty-seven existing worldscapers; Sandow, bound to Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders, is the only non-Pei'an among them. Outworlders are welcome to practice the religion, which is called Strantri. Sandow opines it will be the first major religion to outlive its founders. Unlike most of the Pei'an deities, who tend to be chimeras like Egyptian gods, Shimbo is also unmistakably human, showing that the Pei'ans had visited Earth in the distant past. The rite of Naming was once reserved for the high priests of the Pei'an religion. Sandow is a confirmed agnostic as far as the objective existence of the gods is concerned. However, whenever he sits for a time in a Strantri shrine, the icon of Shimbo always lights up, and this happens simultaneously in every shrine in the galaxy. At the beginning of the novel, Sandow is one of the most famous men in the Galaxy, wealthy beyond imagination, living a life of seclusion and luxury in worlds he fashions according to his taste. But he is lured into action by a series of photographs sent to him anonymously, showing him old enemies, old friends, and old lovers—most of whom should be dead, but appearing in the photographs to be alive. The novel is partly a tribute to Ernest Hemingway and some of its meditative sequences are written in a Hemingway-like style. Through Sandow's narrative, Zelazny presents observations on 20th-century American culture and how it has changed as other planets are created or discovered. An episode in a luxurious city of an earth colony leads to a rant on gratuities, for example. Eventually Sandow makes his way to Illyria, a world he created as an idyllic paradise, but finds it has been severely damaged. The enemy is a Pei'an rival who as an orthodox member of the faith feels that Sandow's Naming was sacrilege. The ultimate conflict takes place on the Isle of the Dead, at the center of a great lake. It is a replica of Arnold Böcklin's famous ''Isle of the Dead'' painting. Sandow also appears as a character in ''To Die in Italbar'' (1973) and the short story "Dismal Light" in the collection ''Unicorn Variations''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Isle of the Dead (Zelazny novel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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