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Zardoz
Novelization of John Boorman's 1974 film of the same name, a post-apocalyptic science fiction piece set in the 24th century. According to the director's film commentary, the 'Zardoz world' was on a collision course with an "effete" eternal society, which it accomplished, and in the story must reconcile with a more natural human nature. Boorman collaborated with Bill Stair on the novelization.
130 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 1974
About the author
John Boorman
44 books12 followersJohn Boorman is an English filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
June 14, 2018
The gun is good. The penis is evil. This book has a tremendous lot to say about almost everything. A kaleidoscope of book comparisons reeled through my head in compelling wonder of this multifaceted touchstone.
I enjoyed the rare pleasure of listening to the guerilla audiobook before seeing the movie. Needless to say, a mustachioed Connery was not the hero I imagined.
It uses one of my favorite tropes, a two tiered post apocalyptic future comparison, where those who are doing badly--maybe aren't--and those well off, might be worse off. This book will produce adverse effects in many readers because it points out that life is problematic, whether you have eternal life or not. Most people want to live at any cost so they will reject the books conclusion, but on a deeper level, it implies that primitive life is as good as it gets, if you can accept it.
A deep and varied book for intellectuals. If you haven't digested the great questions of: mortality, civilization, overpopulation, elitism, life, the universe, and everything, you might find this book a worthy challenge.
I enjoyed the rare pleasure of listening to the guerilla audiobook before seeing the movie. Needless to say, a mustachioed Connery was not the hero I imagined.
It uses one of my favorite tropes, a two tiered post apocalyptic future comparison, where those who are doing badly--maybe aren't--and those well off, might be worse off. This book will produce adverse effects in many readers because it points out that life is problematic, whether you have eternal life or not. Most people want to live at any cost so they will reject the books conclusion, but on a deeper level, it implies that primitive life is as good as it gets, if you can accept it.
A deep and varied book for intellectuals. If you haven't digested the great questions of: mortality, civilization, overpopulation, elitism, life, the universe, and everything, you might find this book a worthy challenge.
July 3, 2015
I actually enjoyed the movie; it's a crazy weird movie with some good visuals and a dodgy philosophical message that make it a staple of a bad movie night.
I was hoping that the book would be something that would fill in the gaps and be a good stand-alone science fiction story. Nope. It's bad.
In the author's preface, John Boorman explains that Zardoz was originally a novel that became a screenplay and then spun off a novelization. This book is that novelization. I was hoping that it would be the first early cut of the story but instead you get something that's pretty much just a description of the things happening on screen.
It's also a fairly poor description; while the movie had some fun visuals, the book fails to actually paint any word pictures. The giant flying stone head is reduced to a few sentences. The action sequences are stripped of all emotion and suspense. At only around 120 pages, you can probably read this faster than watching the movie because the scenes are cut down to their bare minimum descriptions.
Boorman's writing style is an atrocity. His sentence structure has no variety and the entire thing feels juvenile. The majority of the book follows the style of "He runs. He jumps over the rock. He looks around. He runs faster." It's awful. I could possibly be convinced that Boorman was trying to emphasize the simple intellect of the Brutals when writing in this style, but honestly, I think the book was just being rushed out before the movie's release.
On the plus side, the reader does get a little more background on Zed and the Tabernacle. The general plot is also presented a little more plainly than the film adaptation.
So basically, if you like bad movies, watch Zardoz. It's fun. You'll enjoy it. The book isn't fun and there's nothing here that makes it a good standalone science fiction novel.
I was hoping that the book would be something that would fill in the gaps and be a good stand-alone science fiction story. Nope. It's bad.
In the author's preface, John Boorman explains that Zardoz was originally a novel that became a screenplay and then spun off a novelization. This book is that novelization. I was hoping that it would be the first early cut of the story but instead you get something that's pretty much just a description of the things happening on screen.
It's also a fairly poor description; while the movie had some fun visuals, the book fails to actually paint any word pictures. The giant flying stone head is reduced to a few sentences. The action sequences are stripped of all emotion and suspense. At only around 120 pages, you can probably read this faster than watching the movie because the scenes are cut down to their bare minimum descriptions.
Boorman's writing style is an atrocity. His sentence structure has no variety and the entire thing feels juvenile. The majority of the book follows the style of "He runs. He jumps over the rock. He looks around. He runs faster." It's awful. I could possibly be convinced that Boorman was trying to emphasize the simple intellect of the Brutals when writing in this style, but honestly, I think the book was just being rushed out before the movie's release.
On the plus side, the reader does get a little more background on Zed and the Tabernacle. The general plot is also presented a little more plainly than the film adaptation.
So basically, if you like bad movies, watch Zardoz. It's fun. You'll enjoy it. The book isn't fun and there's nothing here that makes it a good standalone science fiction novel.
September 16, 2021
I was hiking up Galtymore with my dad and he said the landscape reminded him of the film. A few days later I was looking for something on a bookshelf and came across this, so I had to read it. There's some fun here for the imagination and the theme of death as essential to life is a worthy one. The author is however a bit too entranced by his own wordplay and neglects his characters and settings. The narrative also often feels rushed along, and the protagonist came off to me as basically just the author's adolescent superman fantasy. I don't regret reading it though.
March 30, 2020
An enlightening companion to the film. To be honest, I've had this paperback for at least six years having never gotten around to read it. In that time it apparently has quadrupled in value according to Amazon. At least from what I paid for it at the time, which I considered a princely sum for a relatively worn paperback. It was certain better than L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth.
What I'd always though of as an ultra-violent, probably misogynistic and completely fucking absurd science-fiction fantasy story was really, in fact, an ultra-violent, misogynistic and completely fucking absurd science-fiction fantasy story. And I still love it. The book actually makes a lot of the plot much more clear than the film was capable of with the clumsy, psychedelic, self-indulgent, early 70's art film style could ever possibly have been able to communicate. I suppose the Kent cigarette company's money was well-spent on those ads for the crisp, clean taste of menthols that appear about halfway through this budget edition paperback.
What I'd always though of as an ultra-violent, probably misogynistic and completely fucking absurd science-fiction fantasy story was really, in fact, an ultra-violent, misogynistic and completely fucking absurd science-fiction fantasy story. And I still love it. The book actually makes a lot of the plot much more clear than the film was capable of with the clumsy, psychedelic, self-indulgent, early 70's art film style could ever possibly have been able to communicate. I suppose the Kent cigarette company's money was well-spent on those ads for the crisp, clean taste of menthols that appear about halfway through this budget edition paperback.
September 8, 2016
If you haven't seen the hilariously inscrutably confusedly so awful that it's wonderful, I highly recommend it. a high budget 70's Plan 9 from outer space fronted by Sean Connery. As for the book, I expected to guffaw my way through its wooden prose and impossibly grandiose ideas... but I actually liked it. It's poorly written on one hand, yet certainly helps the movie make more sense on the other. Most of all, it deals with one of the most difficult topics of all: how death gives life meaning, and it does it in a way that steers completely clear of the Terms (or should I say "Tears") Of Endearment ethos.
October 23, 2014
This is a book based on a movie, I think. If the book came first, I've never seen it. The movie starred Sean Connery & was good, but it's dated. I give it 4 stars because it came up with some original stuff for the time, including quantum computing & cloning.
August 11, 2012
This is without a doubt the WORST book I have ever read. It makes Battlefield Earth look like Shakespeare, and it's only redeeming quality is its brevity. Well, and the fact I bought it for 60 cents.
July 8, 2009
I just remember this as a really fun book to read, and I had liked the movie of it quite a bit. I saw the movie first. It's a short, easy read but enjoyable.
December 28, 2012
Zardoz is full of ideas, as Boorman says on the film version's audio commentary. It's crazy and I love it.
February 23, 2013
If you are going to watch the movie then I suggest reading the novel as well. It will give you a better context in which to view it.
February 13, 2016
Actually explains parts in the movie.
April 15, 2019
What I’m reading this week: “Zardoz,” by John Boorman. 👽📚 A gigantic stone head levitates over a futuristic grass-covered landscape, spewing guns from its cavernous mouth to its bloodthirsty followers below. Sean Connery (a.k.a. the original James Bond) is among them as Zed the Exterminator. He’s bare-chested in a red loincloth, and sports a black ponytail and 1970s handlebar moustache. A dazzling menage of bizarre scenes unfolds from there, complete with freaky caves, macrame-clad “Eternals,” psychic probes, and trippy kaleidoscopic interludes. Through it all, the gargantuan stone head floats, god-like, in and out of the action to say and do terrible things.
I picked up a pristine original pulp copy of this sci-fi oddity at Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree. I was drawn to it like a Brutal to a cache of corn and fleeces. Upon reading it, I was delighted to find that Zardoz the novel is as wonderfully weird and non-sequitur as the film is. The novel was written by the screenwriter and based on the cult classic film.
Zardoz the film is a corpulent tour de force that encapsulates everything wrong with 1970s-era filmmaking, and somehow everything that is awesome about it at the same time. The prose in Zardoz the book is just as, ahem, imaginative as the film. A seminal work from a truly strange place and time in pop culture.
🎞📚
I picked up a pristine original pulp copy of this sci-fi oddity at Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree. I was drawn to it like a Brutal to a cache of corn and fleeces. Upon reading it, I was delighted to find that Zardoz the novel is as wonderfully weird and non-sequitur as the film is. The novel was written by the screenwriter and based on the cult classic film.
Zardoz the film is a corpulent tour de force that encapsulates everything wrong with 1970s-era filmmaking, and somehow everything that is awesome about it at the same time. The prose in Zardoz the book is just as, ahem, imaginative as the film. A seminal work from a truly strange place and time in pop culture.
🎞📚
July 31, 2020
"Want to watch the movie!? Read the BOOK first!"
Said parental figures who didn't want to shell out for constant whines of a young brat for movie rentals... Which is GOOD advice. I legit went to the library, used bookstore and read lots of awesome sauce sci-fi and fantasy.
Literally I read "Zardoz" before I saw the movie...!
I liked it. I think it's a novelization based on the movie but is a neat engaging read. Mind you this is "Thinker" science fiction where it brings things into question versus "Man transported to other world, becomes heroic warrior, gets alien princess, etc." adventure scifi. I like both, but want both. Zardoz is pretty neat (though can be disturbing/depressing) thinker variety.
Now if we had a scale of 1-10 I'd give this a six. That's good, really - IMO I'd only give guys like Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany 10 range... I'm giving it 4 because for mass market generic stuff it's good writing and author seemed to try to make a good novel versus (well there's a parody of a Novelization of the Lord of the Rings movie that gets Tolkien fans screaming...) Most generic "Novelization" is 4 star - that is solid plot and descriptive but not engaging since it's an aspiring writer doing cheap work for a few $. Hope Boorman was paid decent, this was good. Not epic, for the ages, but did justice to the movie!
Said parental figures who didn't want to shell out for constant whines of a young brat for movie rentals... Which is GOOD advice. I legit went to the library, used bookstore and read lots of awesome sauce sci-fi and fantasy.
Literally I read "Zardoz" before I saw the movie...!
I liked it. I think it's a novelization based on the movie but is a neat engaging read. Mind you this is "Thinker" science fiction where it brings things into question versus "Man transported to other world, becomes heroic warrior, gets alien princess, etc." adventure scifi. I like both, but want both. Zardoz is pretty neat (though can be disturbing/depressing) thinker variety.
Now if we had a scale of 1-10 I'd give this a six. That's good, really - IMO I'd only give guys like Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany 10 range... I'm giving it 4 because for mass market generic stuff it's good writing and author seemed to try to make a good novel versus (well there's a parody of a Novelization of the Lord of the Rings movie that gets Tolkien fans screaming...) Most generic "Novelization" is 4 star - that is solid plot and descriptive but not engaging since it's an aspiring writer doing cheap work for a few $. Hope Boorman was paid decent, this was good. Not epic, for the ages, but did justice to the movie!
February 5, 2022
I was surprised that film critics did not get it then. There goes the limitations of un creative rent-a-quotes. Even my neighbourhood mates got it four decades ago, and they were on their late teens, two or three years my seniors; bear in mind that in your teens a couple of years are to be measured like dog years, but I digress.
I did not see the movie, until after reading this -lucky to found it in the cheapest Cusco fleamarket- and now rereading once more.
The premise of class struggle is firmly standing in the story background. What astounds first is the use of religion as a means of control, oppression and privileges preservation. That's what the Eternal Arthur Frayn piloting the Zardoz floating head had as means of exchange for the sustenance of the Vortex 4, guns for crops, and religious fear for the controlled people.
But, alas, eternity can be a boring chore that begat both Renegades and Apathetics disrupting paradise and taking advantage of the infiltrate Brutal the hero Zed, also bringing tension in the May and Consuella matriarchy -the egalitarian closed society based on the exploitation of the majorities, ring a bell?
Very interesting
I did not see the movie, until after reading this -lucky to found it in the cheapest Cusco fleamarket- and now rereading once more.
The premise of class struggle is firmly standing in the story background. What astounds first is the use of religion as a means of control, oppression and privileges preservation. That's what the Eternal Arthur Frayn piloting the Zardoz floating head had as means of exchange for the sustenance of the Vortex 4, guns for crops, and religious fear for the controlled people.
But, alas, eternity can be a boring chore that begat both Renegades and Apathetics disrupting paradise and taking advantage of the infiltrate Brutal the hero Zed, also bringing tension in the May and Consuella matriarchy -the egalitarian closed society based on the exploitation of the majorities, ring a bell?
Very interesting
November 28, 2021
Messy, confused, and clumsily executed. Having seen the film several times, I find I can't judge the book on its own merits, so I may be doing it a disservice, but I doubt it. The book follows the same storyline as the film, so the final third gives more insight into philosophy of the Vortex and so on. But it's not very well written, so it's not a good read, and it lacks the trashy/sensational aspects of exploitation fiction, a route it could have taken but didn't. So it's boring.
December 9, 2021
This is a surprisingly good way to flesh out the movie. I can't say if you should read the book first or watch the movie first, but the two together will make the whole thing make a lot more sense. The book goes into the thinking of the various characters, some background on the world and what happened, and the technology used. It's definitely with the effort to read if you want more from the movie.
September 29, 2017
Novelizations are a weird not this nor that creature. This is the kind shorn version of the story. A good amount of the utter weirdness of the movie is gone. Its a pity they took such a buggy thing and tried to write a straight laced novel from it.
Read
April 20, 2020The novelization of the bizarre Sean Connery film where he brings death to a decadent but immortal society. Fun, fun, fun!!!
January 17, 2021
Barbarian discovers the truth about his world. Some of the movie must have been fun if you were high on something.
May 12, 2021
A decent enough novelization of the cult classic movie. It was interesting to see how the book presented Zed's inner thought as the events of the movie unfolded but otherwise felt like a transcript.
October 20, 2011
I found this book years ago at a thrift store and just had to have it. When I was a projectionist in college we used to show the movie every year, so it had even more of a cult status with me and my friends than almost any other cult movie. I finally dared myself to read it. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great. It doesn't really add anything to the experience of the film. One of the things that I enjoy about the film is its visual aspect, and if you're reading this without reference to the film it would probably be very bland indeed. But it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Want to read
August 18, 2008This is the novelization of the film, Zardoz. I can only imagine that it's the literary equivalent of Sean Connery in a banana hammock. A friend of mine gave me this book years ago, and I've never actually been brave enough to read it.
October 9, 2011
A painful read. Not nearly as good as I imagined it would be.
May 23, 2015
See also the film starring Sean Connery. Compare to the film version of The Time Machine and Brave New World.
December 30, 2016
¿Qué fue primero, la película o el libro? No sé, pero esta versión lo tiene al Connery en cueros y colorines en la tapa.
June 8, 2016
Meh? It's very out there and I get the feeling there were lots of drugs involved with this story. It's weird, and it feels like they tried really hard. It is entertaining at least.
July 7, 2013
Second reading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVId...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVId...
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews