[Roger Zelazny's To Die in Italbar] avoids central characters altogether, except in so far as a plague vector is central. We open with a series of apparently unconnected scenes whose characters share only a quality of bizarre invention: a telekinetic dream-sculptor, a frozen pathologist, a professional deicide, a man who is both disease-pool and universal panacea. As the book progresses these parallel figures are (as one of the characters remarks) "cramp'd into a Planisphere". But the sense of their separateness remains; Mr Zelazny relies heavily on his ability to suggest the presence in the background of whole worlds and policies and technologies, all profoundly interesting but too large for comprehension. It is almost a pity that the convention of the novel forces a plot and an ending on him.

T. A. Shippey, "Obsequious in Space," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1976; reproduced from The Times...