Some readers have said it better already. This is a classic. It is not about Hinduism and Buddhism, but it is about humanity, and religeon in large part. I read this book every year. I love Zelazny's prose as much as anything, but I really love the central character. He is very passionate about this belief regarding all humanity, but isn't a raging lunatic. One of my favorite authors and my favorite book.

This novel is classic and ageless, and it reads just as well now as it did when I first read it more than twenty years ago.

On a distant Earth colony, some of the original settlers decide to keep the technology for themselves, dooming their own descendants to a brutal and primitive life. Those settlers with the high tech eventually take on the roles of the Hindu pantheon and become gods, turning the world and its people into mere playthings.

But not all of the original settlers go for this idea. And eventually some of them begin to fight back in every way they can, to better the lot of the humans.

Zelazny tells the story in a circular fashion - it is not in chronological order - and this might be initially confusing for some readers.

the chronology actually goes :
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter one
chapter seven

The author also packs a lot of characters, subplots, ideas, and information into a rather short novel. Some of today's giants such as Robert Jordan and Steven Erikson would probably be able to get an 800 page novel out of each chapter. But Zelazby somehow manages to fit it all into about three hundred pages.

I was severely underwhelmed with this book when I read it several years ago.

It's always difficult to represent the Buddha in Novel form, and for my part, I believe Zelazny does a fairly poor job. He comes off as a bit immature for "one who awoke", and when he does interject Buddhist wisdom (the protagonist cries out at one point "revenge is an illusion of self!") it seems a bit more like sophomoric whining than any sort of meaningful instruction.

One notable exception is a metaphysical aside about the nature of words and representation, which is eloquently done.

For all it's Buddhist references, the book concludes with a kind of melancholy, ride into the sunset fantasy-esque ending which is peculiarly non-Buddhist.

On a positive not, the book maintains some interesting in its mixture of technology with classical Hindu/Buddhist concepts, and a few characters who are fairly engaging.

While I thoroughly enjoyed "He Who Shapes", I have never given this book a second read, and never intend to.

... when can we have this on Kindle?!

There aren't many books I continually re-read over the years but this one is at the top of stack.

Got your Eastern Gods straight? If not, you'll find slow sledding at the beginning of Roger Zelazny's science fiction classic, LORD OF LIGHT. Once you're into it, however, you will appreciate the philosophy and the mythology equally. As a bonus, Zelazny provides some interesting battle scenes, too.

In one episode, a demon possesses the protagonist of many name's (I'll use Sam here, as that's the easiest) body, giving Zelazny an opportunity to riff on the extended metaphor of our innate capacities for good and evil. The purely evil demon gets his comeuppance when Sam gives him the "gift" of guilt, which sure ruins a lot of his debauchery and drunken pleasures.

Ultimately, with gods dying and coming back to life in new bodies and with everyone switching sides in the epic battle of the heavens, my interest began to wane a bit. Just a bit. But you'll like this without fail if you are a fan of science fiction and are conversant in Eastern mythologies.

My hope is that the AMBER series will now be republished in ten separate editions. Presently there's a big book of AMBER with all ten novels in one tome, but it's too unwieldy and teens who love science fiction and fantasy especially are shortchanged, as they seldom take to such formats. I hope, with the new issues of LORD OF LIGHT, that the publisher will now republish the much-loved AMBER series as well, starting with the beloved NINE PRINCES OF AMBER.