Doorways in the Sand

By: Roger Zelazny

Narrated by: Andrew J. Andersen

Can You Hear Me Fred?

Fred Cassidy leads an idyllic life. As long as he remains a full time college student without a degree, he is provided a very generous stipend from his uncle's estate.

But after thirteen years of happy undergrad existence everything is about to change.

Cassidy's home is broken into and ransacked. When he enters he is assaulted by a former professor wanting to know where the alien artifact known as the star stone is. Cassidy manages to escape, only to discover that he is also being pursued by hired criminals, Anglophile zealots, government agents, and aliens.

Cassidy has no idea where the star stone is but he realizes that unless he finds it, one of these factions will eventually catch up to him and most likely kill him.

Doorways in the Sand is fast paced, humorous, and has the most lyrical prose of any of Zelazny's novels. It's simply a joy to listen to, and was nominated for both a Hugo and Nebula Award for best novel.

©2020 Amber LTD (P)2024 Tantor

it gets better every time

like all Zelazny works, every time I listen to it I get something new. The narrator does a very good job in spite of missing some pronunciations. His inflections and timing are excellent.

twists and turns

Another great story by Zelazny. Twist and turns, sweet ans sour, but always a pleasure.

Great tale, merely adequate reading

In getting a reader to give us the science in the first-person tale of Fred Cassidy, polymath and doctorate-dodging perennial undergrad, it might have been wiser to find someone with the background to pronounce terms of science - 'riant' and 'tapetum' are a couple that come to mind - and even the occasional wincer like 'fassimilly' for 'facsimile', which is a fairly standard word. Fred's wit is sly and subtle; the reader is neither. He's probably good at most mainstream American popular literature that doesn't require much in the way of higher education, but this was a bad match.

Love that Roger Zelazny “voice”

This tale breathes and could have been written yesterday. Zelazny’s Ernest irreverence is always refreshing. Fun.

Great Hugo winning book.

This is a great book written in Zelazny’s classic style. Outstanding prose that left me with the word “doodlehum” (hoodlum) embedded in my mind for the decades since I first read it. Lots of action and humor.