Larian Studios Forums General Suggestions Recommedation: Potential idea for the setting in Larian's next cRPG - Roger Zelazny's LORD of LIGHT

In the 1960s, Roger Zelazny dazzled the SF world with what seemed to be inexhaustible talent & inventiveness. Lord of Light, his 3rd novel, is his finest a science fantasy in which the intricate, colorful mechanisms of Hindu religion, capricious gods & repeated reincarnations are wittily underpinned by technology. "For six days he had offered many kilowatts of prayer, but the static kept him from being heard On High." The gods are a starship crew who subdued a colony world; developed godlike--tho often machine-enhanced--powers during successive lifetimes of mind transfer to new, cloned bodies; & now lord it over descendants of the ship's mere passengers. Their tyranny is opposed by retired god Sam, who mocks the Celestial City, introduces Buddhism to subvert Hindu dogma, allies himself with the planet's native "demons" against Heaven, fights pyrotechnic battles with bizarre troops & weapons, plays dirty with politics & poison, & dies horribly but won't stay dead. It's a huge, lumbering, magical story, told largely in flashback, full of wonderfully ornate language & one unforgivable pun that builds up the luminous myth of trickster Sam, Lord of Light. Essential SF reading.--David Langford

In 1979 it was announced that Lord of Light would be made into a 50 million dollar film. It was planned that the sets for the movie would be made permanent and become the core of a science fiction theme park to be built in Aurora, Colorado. Comic book artist Jack Kirby was contracted to produce artwork for set design. Due to legal problems the project was never completed.

Parts of the unmade film project—the script and Kirby's set designs—were subsequently acquired by the CIA as cover for the "Canadian Caper": the exfiltration of six US diplomatic staff trapped by the Iranian hostage crisis (in Tehran but outside the embassy compound). The rescue team pretended to be scouting a location in Iran for shooting a Hollywood film from the script, which they had renamed Argo. The story of the rescue effort was later adapted into the 2012 film Argo.