Of “Buddha’s” Revolution, and “Keanu Reeves’” Gang

“Reviewing” Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Sometimes I wonder if Hideo Kojima even likes video game. Throughout the pieces collected in Creative Gene, the man never mentioned one single video game that is not branded “A Hideo Kojima Game” as a point of reference. Meanwhile, Vinny dropped video game references left and right during Film & 40s. The podcasters over at Abnormal Mapping, feed up with the industry as they are, would at times refer to video games even when criticizing non-interactive media. Then yours truly just got to start a review of a 1967 science fiction like this. Or maybe it’s the twenties anniversary of Matrix Reloaded coming up got me thinking like that.

For my money, Keanu Reeves is the Mr. Video Game when it comes to Hollywood leading man. This statement got nothing to do with his involvement with Cyberpunk 2077. He just had starred in 8 movies across 2 series, the Matrix and John Wick, that incorporate video game elements into their stories better than almost all video game adaption out there, while Tom Cruise only got Edge of Tomorrow to point to.

Matrix got that in a good way (Morpheus saying how the rules of Matrix are to be bent or broken in the original), a bad way (That Smith Musou bullshit in Reloaded) and something in between (Thomas Anderson being a video game developer in the fourth one). Meanwhile, the John Wick sequels all have contemporaries, big or small, to point to.

2017’s Chapter 2 has a before-hit-job/pre-dungeon preparation scene where Wick gets weapon (The hotel provides on demand free of charge), armor (Tailored suits with bullet-prof fabric) and intel (Counts as 4 coins for 4 flavors.). This is somewhat uncannily to the one Divine Beast yours truly managed to clear in Breath of the Wild. Before the water one, Link gets armor (Provided by the fish people on arrival free of charge), weapon (A quest to pull 20 thunder arrows near a dangerous creature) and intel (Upload to the Sheeka tablet at the dungeon entrance). Then both Wick and Link throw useless-to-them weapons at enemies more than once in their 2017 outings.

2019’s Chapter 3 came out between 2 Devolver side-scrolling blood bath, Katana Zero and My Friend Pedro. All 3 feature motorcycle chase and mayhem. Then in 2023, Chapter 4 and that new Resident Evil 4 came out the same day. John Wick 4 ended on a down note (By which I mean the final pistol duel simply drained all the energy out, not that Wick seemingly dies in the end. The latter is great, no better way to close out a series than to kill off the titular character if you ask me.) so I am more than ready to shoot up then throw down a torch and pitch fork mob in Capcom’s new old game.

I can hear you asking, what do all those have to do with a 1967 science fiction novel? Well, yours truly had read the said 1967 book four times, all with Keanu Reeves kicking ass in movies as vivid memory in their mind. So, I can’t help but face cast characters in Lord of Light as Reeves.

The first 2 times were not even in English. The year was 2006, and the ultimate Matrix DVD collection, one with a Neo bust, hanged around a book store I visited regularly. I jokingly called it the Buddha statue due to the not-entirely-accurate news that Reeves is a Buddhist. Thus, I imagined Lord of Light lead, Sam the Buddha imposter as Reeves.

However, that was because the Chinese translation did not keep all the wits Sam showed in the original text. I finally read the book in all its punny glory in English early 2020, shortly before the earliest lockdown and a back-to-back viewing of John Wick 2 plus 3. And I could see Reeves as the no-nonsense Yama while another John Wick and Matrix cast members as the titular Lord of Light.

In a very distant future on a planet far, far away, Matrix gets reversed.

If Vanillaware dares to make a darker, slightly more depressing and sort of direct sequel to 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, then Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light would give them an adequate blueprint to work with. In a far future when Common Era calendar has become meaningless, humans has left Earth behind for reasons too ancient to matter for this story and settled on an alien planet originally habited by pure energy life-form. Well, none of this is revealed to the readers when they open this book though. Instead, they will be treated to some tongue-in-cheek poetic about the titular Lord of Light and something lifted from Frankenstein into the Matrix through the so-called Bollywood lens.

Mad scientist Yama adjust the machine he made, located something resemble the soul of the revolutionary Sam and upload it into a new body. Sam woke up, recovered and was asked to finish the revolution he had started. Sam eventually did and became a legend and myth, just not before he pondered on his life as a revolutionary in a 5-act structure.

I still recall how 2006’s first issue of Science Fiction World All Translation Bi-monthly introduced this novel. In its world, humanity had achieved immortality through magic like advanced technology but the story is not about that. In this world, a pure energy life form has to be conquered so humanity might live, but the story is not about that. In this world, gods and mortals mingles like in any myth, but, yet again, the story is not about that.

Instead, Lord of Light is a story of revolution, it’s about the eternal war between the Haves and the Have-nots. Or more preciously and realistically like in any real life revolution, a war between the Haves who want to share more with the Have-nots and the Haves who do not. The former is known as Accelerationism and the latter self-proclaimed gods after the Hindu pantheon. Then of course there are those who simply grab and keep what can be theirs in the chaos. But I’m getting ahead of myself again since none of those would be lay bare until the fifth of seven chapters.

Like any fiction renowned for this tricky thing we call “world building”, Lord of Light feels like a sequel. At least the fifth volume in a long epic series: book one about why humanity left earth then a trilogy about how they settled on this world. Does encountering a pure energy alien life form make the recantation technology possible or is there some other reasons? It doesn’t really matter for this story, it just is like this. The internal works of technology is not Lord of Light’s focus, its external effect on society is.

As Chapter 2 of this book shows, Sam thought the police state would be easier to topple than it’s since he was not aware of the technological advancement in the tools of suppress. Then he learned of the genius Yama and tried to get he to rebel until the latter had a face turn in Chapter 6.

All right, it’s time for fun

None of what was described above matters if Lord of Light is not a fun book to read. Yes, there is hard to process poetic, but Frank Herbert’s Dune looks like one long dry stick in the mud compared to this book, yet that Desert book just keeps getting visual audio adaption from Hollywood. Clocked at 280 pages compared to Dune’s more than 700, Lord of Light is a lean and mean exercise in two cinema genres yours truly adore: comedy and action.

Roger Zelazny was fond of puns as Martin pointed out in his afterword. So despite all the color, style and myth in the book’s narration, those under the banner of Accelerationism all talk in a witty that had been done to death by the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Joss Whedons of the world. Well, none of those has the serious narration to balance things out after all.

Then, there is the action. This thing called New Wave in the 1960s is about Style, by which they should mean everything would be written more vividly compared to the dry text of the so-called Golden Age. Some went for sex, and Zelazny seemed to go for stylized violence, since the text in Lord of Night would provide people doing audio visual adaption adequate blueprints.

Speak of audio visual adaption, with a heavy Hindu mythology favor, one might think the best way to do audio visual adaption of this is just sell it to Bollywood. I wholeheartedly disagree on the ground that the sense of humor simply would not have worked outside any other language than English. In fact, for five characters in this book, I could not see them other than those 5 or 6 cast members of Matrix series, John Wick series or both.

For the protagonist Sam, I can only see him as Lawrence Fishbourne, with Clarke Peter plays the old Sam in the second chapter. The ever-sharp detective Lester Freamon in the Wire can be seen as a revolutionary looking for information. Sam’s interaction with Yama in the book contains both Morpheus’ purpose to enlighten in Matrix and the meaness of John Wick’s Bowery King.

Then of course Yama can be played by none than Keanu Reeves. The deathgod in this story has some more grounded action where “pace” was used as verb. Yama threw down a lot like Neo or Wick, he fires only once in the book to no effect much like how Neo gunned down a dozen then did not pick up any gun in the Matrix sequels.

To throw down with Yama wearing Reeves’ face would be Rild played by Mark Dacascos. Rild was the killer of Kila’s, sent to kill Sam but ended up helped and enlightened by the Buddha imposter. Dacascos and Reeves still had the best one-on-one in all of the John Wick movies, so I can see those 2 in the first detailed duel in Lord of Light.

Speak of Kali, the goddess of destruction, Asia Kate Dillion the gender non-binary is definitely a fit since the same person eventually became Brahma, the counterpart to Zeus in the Hindu pantheon. To think Reeves acting up affection for them is fun enough for yours truly.

Carrie Ann Moss would be fit for Ratri, goddess of the night and somewhat of a third wheel in the late stage of this revolution. She was said to be switching between a full bodied look and slim look in the book, so Moss being slightly out of shape when she did voice work for Mass Effect sequels and her in shape form in the Matrix movies were all I can see. Yeah, yeah, I know the book ain’t too kind on the women, but what can one do.

Tabletop role playing is another thing Roger Zelazny was fond of according to Martin’s afterword, so I guess he would have been happy to see someone “face cast” characters he wrote all those years later. And that would be how I close this out.