• “A thing happens once that has never happened before. • Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. • He cannot tell others what he has seen.” - Sam (Mahasamatman) from his conversation about the nature of religion and enlightenment. • In Lord of Light, published in 1967, Roger Zelazny wrote about a swordfight between the Buddha and the God of Death where both combatants quote ancient scripture at each other while trying to achieve philosophical clarity through mutual annihilation. • Reminds me of social media sometimes… In the book, colonists from a dead Earth use technology to become the Hindu pantheon. • They control who gets reborn and as what, using a psych-probe that reads your entire mental history and a karma system that makes modern social credit scores look quaint.
Article Summaries:
- Roger Zelazny’s 1967 novel Lord of Light imagines colonists on a dead Earth who adopt Hindu deities, wielding technology as divine power and controlling rebirth through a karma‑based social credit system. The story blends mythic battles-such as a swordfight between Buddha and the God of Death-with early visions of AI and recommendation algorithms. The book earned a Hugo Award in 1968 and inspired concept art by Jack Kirby for a planned film adaptation. According to the review, the CIA allegedly appropriated the screenplay for the 1980s film Argo, using it as a cover to rescue diplomats during the Iranian hostage crisis, a claim that highlights the novel’s unexpected real‑world influence.
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