Isle of the Dead (novel)

Isle of the Dead is a science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny published in 1969. It is inspired in part by the eponymous painting.

Plot

Sandow is jolted from his lifestyle by a series of messages, each accompanied by a picture of one of a number of people once important to him, and all quite definitely dead for decades, or even centuries. His former wife Kathy, and his best friend Nick the Dwarf; Mike Shandon, a man who tried to kill him; Lady Karle, a woman he both loved and hated; Courtcour, a human computer; Dango, an assassin who used to kill for him but also betrayed him.

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The pictures are shocking, but could be fakes. He has other obligations, one of which is responding to a call for help from a former lover, Ruth Laris. He goes to her world in disguise, but not before a struggle with the local wildlife, who don't want him to leave the planet. This is an occupational hazard for worldscrapers on planets they have created.

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When he arrives, he finds she has put her house up for sale and vanished. Her lawyer is little help, but Sandow does buy the house so he can search it.

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At this point the lawyer becomes mysterious about Ruth's intentions, but finally concedes she also left an envelope with him, but refuses to say who it is for. Sandow reveals his true identity and receives the envelope. In it are more pictures, with a message that he will find all his friends on the Isle of the Dead. The message is in Pei'an, addressed to Shimbo and signed by Belion.

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On returning to his homeworld, he finds a visitor from old, overpopulated, bureaucratic Earth. Somebody has been stealing the memory records and tissue samples of people who died on Earth. Under this future regime, everyone on Earth must provide tissue, and wear or have implanted a recorder that can capture their memory at the moment of death, so that the authorities can reconstruct anyone who has information important to the State. Of the six sets stolen, all are people in the pictures Sandow has been receiving.

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Sandow resolves to go to Illyria, the planet where he created the Isle of the Dead for rich clients, but first he must visit his mentor Marling on MegaPei. Marling intends to end his long life. There Sandow learns that his tormentor is Gringrin, another Pei'an who is a religious fundamentalist, and who was denied communion with a deity despite passing all the other tests for a worldscraper. Since Sandow, a non-Pei'an, was the next worldscaper to be confirmed, Gringrin vowed revenge on the other worldscrapers, starting with Sandow. As Sandow has been a worldscraper for a century or two, this is a typical long, slow, elaborate Pei'an revenge. Somehow Gringrin was able to achieve communion without official help, but is now allied with Belion, the enemy of Shimbo.

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Sandow helps his mentor end his life with the glitten root ceremony, in which two worldscrapers take the hallucinogenic root and have a shared dream, from which only one returns alive. This is also used for duelling between worldscrapers, which is what Sandow must do when he finds Gringrin. After the funeral, Sandow sets out for Illyria.

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Landing by stealth, and armed to the teeth, he sets out to walk the remaining distance to the Isle of the Dead. He now believes that Gringrin intended him to be lured there, and slowly humiliated before all the people who ever mattered to him. He will go there, but he is sure Gringrin has made a major mistake. Illyria is Sandow's world, and all the forces on it will help him. All planets contain "power-pulls", centers of force which worldscrapers can use by invoking their deities to wield huge powers.

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Along the way he finds, first Dango the assassin, who has been made part-tree, part-human, and then the injured Gringrin himself, who he holds at gunpoint. Things have gone badly wrong. Mike Shandon, who is also a telepath, has persuaded Belion to abandon Gringrin and go to him. Sandow is astonished by this, but Gringrin tells him that the Pei'an gods are real, and his intent had been to become a High Priest, not a worldscraper. It was not until he secretly performed the communion ceremony by himself that Belion took over and he began to plot against Sandow/Shimbo. Gringrin wants to flee, but Sandow is determined to rescue as many of his friends as possible. He shames Gringrin into going with him, but also offers him a shot at his revenge if both return alive.

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The Isle of the Dead sits in the lake Sandow named Acheron, and is a replica of the subject of the painting by Boecklin. Unbeknownst to any of his opponents, Sandow knows a secret entry on the otherwise inaccessible far side of the island. He and Gringrin cross the lake on a makeshift raft, but not before Sandow has a hallucination where Shimbo and Belion confirm their intent to fight.

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As the two work their way across the island they meet more of Sandow's revived enemies and friends. Courtcour tells Sandow he has calculated that Sandow will die. Lady Karle ushers them on, saying she hates Sandow for betraying her. Sandow protests, but to no avail, claiming he was himself betrayed and still loves her. Finally Nick the dwarf, a brawling, hard-drinking bundle of pugnacity, threatens Gringrin for torturing him and drops a bombshell. Kathy and Shandon are in love.

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Sandow is stopped in his tracks. He realizes he will not be able to get Kathy back, but can't bear to abandon her either. Finally he decides to buy Shandon off, which he is well-equipped to do. Shandon had hated him enough to want to kill him with his bare hands rather than at a distance, but it seems like the only way out. He calls down to where Shandon and Kathy are together in a house, and negotiates what seems to be a price. As they link minds to confirm the deal, the gods assert themselves and a battle begins.

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Shimbo's air and water battle Belion's earth and fire. A storm rages as the ground shakes and splits. Both Sandow and Shandon are consumed by their godgame, until Sandow sees Nick try to rescue Kathy from a ledge, only to fall with her into a fissure. Both die, and Shimbo deserts him. Shandon continues attacking, and Sandow goes down under a pile of rocks, breaking bones. Sandow has one last trick - a laser weapon surgically implanted in his middle finger. In a supremely ironic gesture, he "gives Shandon the finger", killing him and ending the battle.

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In a long slow finale, Sandow has to crawl to a power-pull so he can use its energies to summon his ship, orbiting on automatic. On the way he meets Gringrin, mortally wounded. Gringrin deceives him into performing the glitten rite with him. During this, in which we see the content of the glitten dream for the first time, Sandow faces Death again in the shape of the Valley of Shadows, the image that haunts him the most. Suddenly in the valley he sees all the worlds he has made. As long as he can create life, casting worlds like "jewels in the darkness", he has a purpose. Gringrin in turn loses his dread of death, and walks happily into the Valley.

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Waking, Sandow crawls on and encounters Lady Karle, alive but entombed in a cave. Sandow bitterly dismisses her cries and goes on, but once reunited with his ship and his gadgets he goes back for her. They hobble back to the ship together.

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