Book Review: Roger Zelazny, The Dead Man's Brother (c. 1971)

The hero of The Dead Man's Brother, Ovid Wiley, is an art dealer and blowhard who has a rare genetic predisposition for luck in the face of death. His story might have been interesting if Roger Zelazny (who ordinarily was a science-fiction writer, after all), had focused his attention on Wiley's remarkable gift for survival. Instead, this detail is an afterthought in the novel's serpentine, borderline-nonsensical plot involving the CIA, the Vatican, and Brazilian revolutionaries. The fact that I forced myself to finish reading this dreck indicates that I, too, have a genetic gift, though mine seems to have something to do with masochism. Grade: F