| To Die in Italbar | |
|---|---|
1973 original hardcover edition |
|
| Author(s) | Roger Zelazny |
| Cover artist | Margo Herr |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Publication date | 1973 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 182 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0385020201 (first edition); ISBN 0-7434-4536-8 (Paperback reprint) |
| OCLC Number | 666882 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.5/4 |
| LC Classification | PZ4.Z456 To PS3576.E43 |
| Preceded by | Isle of the Dead |
To Die in Italbar (1973) is a science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny. To Die in Italbar follows Mr. H, a man who needs only to touch someone to heal or hurt them, during a deadly galactic pandemic.
The novel contains a cameo by Francis Sandow, the protagonist of Isle of the Dead, but it is not a sequel. Zelazny originally wrote this book hastily to fulfill a contract when he became a full-time writer in May 1969, and the publisher declined to publish it then. [1] He revisited the manuscript in 1972 and added about 25% new material, including the cameo of Sandow to "jazz up" the novel. [2] It was finally released in 1973. He bemoaned the book ever after, calling it his "worst novel" and noting, “If I could kill off one book it would be To Die in Italbar. I wrote that in a hurry to make some money after I quit my job.” [3]
Sidney Coleman, writing in F&SF, found the novel greatly inferior to Zelazny's previous novels, although he acknowledged that if evaluated simply as "preposterous adventure," it was a well-written "superior specimen" marked by "fast action," "strong emotion", "colorful characters," and its author's "fertile imagination."[4]