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Revision as of 05:25, 18 October 2011

A Dark Traveling
[[Image: |200px]]
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
AuthorRoger Zelazny
IllustratorLebbus Woods
Cover artistLebbus Woods
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMillennium
GenreScience fiction
PublisherWalker and Company
Publication date
1987
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages143
ISBN0802766862
OCLC248644304
FIC
LC ClassPZ7.Z3963 Dar 1987

A Dark Traveling is the only young adult science fiction novel[1] by Hugo- and Nebula-award winner,[2] Roger Zelazny. The hardcover edition was first published in 1987 and the paperback in 1989. Zelazny dedicates the book to the teachers at Rio Grande School in Santa Fe for teaching his children to enjoy reading.

Plot Introduction

When an injured scientist disappears into a parallel world that is the battlefield between the forces of light and dark, his children set out to find him.

Setting

Our Earth is but one of many parallel Earths split off from each other by world-changing historical events. Over many generations the Wiley family guards and develops our Earth’s transcomp, a portal to the other worlds. Parallel Earths are called bands, a term taken from the bandwidth or frequency that a transcomp tunes to in order to open a portal to each world. There are four categories of bands:

  • Lightbands are friendly worlds that exchange information, students, and observers.
  • Graybands are worlds without transcomps and delicate historical conditions.
  • Deadbands have no people, but they have artifacts of past ruined civilizations.
  • Darkbands exploit other bands with lower levels of technology.

Lightbands and darkbands prosecute wars against each other on graybands.

Principal Characters

  • James Wiley – A fourteen-year-old boy, an incipient werewolf, joins with his sister Becky and exchange-student Barry to find and rescue his father and mother who are missing among the bands.
  • Becky Wiley – A tough fifteen-year old sorceress and James' adopted sister transports James, Barry and herself to other bands without a transcomp.
  • Barry – A fifteen-year-old exchange student is a trained assassin and devotee of the martial arts.
  • George – James uncle, a werewolf and shapeshifter, saves James, Becky, and Barry from certain death.
  • Agatha Wiley – James mother, a sorceress, fights Crow, a darkband sorcerer, psychically. James is lead to believe she is dead.
  • The Golem (Golly) – An android is activated by James to protect the Wiley family’s transcomp.
  • Crow – A darkband sorcerer attempts to stop the children from destroying a transmitter that disables the lightband’s transcomps.
  • Transcomps – Transporters connected to computers open portals to the other bands.

Plot summary

Becky Wiley has a vision of someone threatening her father, Tom Wiley, in their transcomp room. She runs to the control room and finds blood on the floor. The transmission part of the transcomp is destroyed, but the receiving mechanism still works.

She waits for her brother, James, and their exchange student Barry to return home. They theorize that Tom is attacked by an intruder. After a brief fight in which one of them is wounded, Tom escapes through the transcomp. The intruder damages the sending capability of the transcomp and leaves.

The children decide Tom is probably wounded, so they decide to find and help him. The controls on the transcomp suggest two possible bands for Tom’s escape.

As a sorceress Becky has the ability to transport the boys to the bands in question without a transcomp. She sends them to the wrong worlds, however. Barry is sent to a deadband where he verifies that Tom is not there.

James arrives at night in a world with a full moon. He has his first transformation into a werewolf. His uncle George, a werewolf and shapeshifter, is the resident transcomp operator. He finds and cares for James. He expects James because Barry arrives earlier from the deadband.

Tom escapes to a darkband, a former lightband which is only partly controlled by the darkbanders. Forces from the lightbands including Tom and Agatha, James’ mother, are assisting a rebellion against the darkbanders. It is closely fought so darkbanders are attacking lightbander transcomps to stop armed lightbanders from entering the war.

Becky arrives later through her own magical means of travel to bands. Through sorceress to sorceress communication with Agatha, Becky discovers that the darkbanders are jamming the lightbanders’ transcomp on the battlefield with a special transmitter so that lightbander reinforcements can not pour in from their transcomps. Agatha is involved in a psychic battle with a darkbander sorcerer named Crow.

The children decide to go with Becky to the darkbander’s camp and destroy the transmitter. They arrive in a wood at the edge of the camp. They identify a tent that they think houses the jamming transmitter. Through a spell Becky is able to make them invisible so that the darklanders in the camp can not see them.

They reach the tent and although Becky senses danger, they enter. Crow, the blackbander sorcerer, confronts them in the tent. He disables Barry and focuses his attention on Becky, who engages him in psychic battle. Although the sorcerer is able to slow him down, James manages to push the transmitter off its table and break it. Uncle George follows the children and, in werewolf form, bounds into the tent and kills the sorcerer.

Without the jamming of their transcomp, the lightbanders bring in their reinforcements and advance on the darkbanders who surrender knowing they can not win. However, the battle is so closely fought and of such world-changing significance that a new darkbander world is created.

The children find Tom and Agatha. Tom is wounded superficially. They return to their Earth realizing that the darkbanders will have to be fought again and again.

Critical discussion

Publication history

  • (1987) Walker & Co. pp 143. Hardcover. isbn: 0802766862, 9780802766861
  • (1989) Arrow (A Division of Random House Group). pp 109. Hardcover. isbn: 0091737567, 9780091737566
  • (1989) Avon Books. pp 160. Paperback. isbn: 0380705672, 9780380705672
  • (1990 ) Red Fox. pp 109. Paperback. isbn: 0099609703, 9780099609704

Notes

  1. ^ Lindskold 1993, p 118
  2. ^ "Roger Zelazny". Worlds without End. Retrieved October 16, 2011.

References

  • Zelazny, Roger (1987). A Dark Traveling. New York: Walker and Company. ISBN 0-8027-6686-2. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)







Zelazny, Roger (1978). The Courts of Chaos. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Zelazny, Roger (1970). Nine Princes in Amber. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Zelazny, Roger (1971). Jack of Shadows. New York: Walker. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)








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  • Kovacs, Christopher S. " '...And Call Me Roger': The Early Literary Life of Roger Zelazny." The New York Review of Science Fiction #246, Vol. 21 No. 6, February 2009, p 1, 8-19. [Essay-length excerpt of full biography shown in next entry]
  • Kovacs, Christopher S. "...And Call Me Roger": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny. Published in 6 parts as part of The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volumes 1 to 6, Boston: NESFA Press, 2009. [see volume titles at the external link or above under Collections

Notes

References

  • Budrys, Algis (July 1977). "Books". The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
  • Card, Orson Scott (1990). How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Writer’s Digest Books. ISBN 0898794161.
  • Carroll, Lewis (1865). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan. In Gardner, Martin (1960). The Annotated Alice. New York: Meridian.
  • Carroll, Lewis (1871). Through the Looking Glass. London: Macmillan. In Gardner, Martin (1960). The Annotated Alice. New York: Meridian.
  • D'Ammassa, Don (2005). "Roger Zelazny". Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc. pp. 432–434. ISBN 0-8160-5924-1. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |trans_title=, |month=, and |coauthors= (help)
  • Gardner, Martin (1960). The Annotated Alice. New York: Meridian. ISBN 0452010411.
  • Geis, Richard E. (February 1976). "Prozine Notes". Science Fiction Review. 5.
  • Hartwell, David G. (1996). Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction. Tor Books. ISBN 0312862350.
  • Fred Kiesche (2009). "Review: Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny". SF Signal. Retrieved August 7, 2011.
  • Robinson, Spider (October 1976). "Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine.
  • Sterling, Bruce. "Science Fiction". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved August 1, 2011. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |trans_title=, |month=, and |coauthors= (help)
  • Jo Walton (2009). "Science Fiction and Fantasy Books". World Without End. Retrieved August 7, 2011.
  • Wood, Susan (January 1976). "Locus Looks at Books". Locus. 9.
  • Zelazny, Roger (1976). Doorways in the Sand. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN 0-060-14789-X.

Other sources

  • Krulik, Theodore (1986). Roger Zelazny. New York: Ungar Publishing. ISBN 080442490X.
  • Levack, Daniel J. H. (1983). Amber Dreams: A Roger Zelazny Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller. pp. 34–35. ISBN 0-934438-39-0.
  • Lindskold, Jane M. (1993). Roger Zelazny. New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 080573953X.
  • Sanders, Joseph (1980). Roger Zelazny: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. ISBN 0816180814 978081618081. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Stephens, Christopher P. (1991). A Checklist of Roger Zelazny. New York: Ultramarine Press. ISBN 089366166X 9780893661663. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
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