Deadboy Donner versus Alien Speedway

On Jan 29 2006, 4:13 pm, bob sullivan <bsull....DeleteThis@comcast.net> wrote:
> I have them, and I read them for the second time early last year. While
> they're clearly not Zelazny, I thought they had a decent plot, and I
> enjoyed them for what they were. I don't know that I would call them
> 'worth reading', but I would definitely not say they were 'worth
> avoiding'. If you can find them in the library, or if you can find
> copies at the used bookstore, I'd pick them up.
>
> One thing sort of cool is that I get the feeling they're set in the
> same venue as Zelazny's short story 'Deadboy Donner and the
> Fillstone Cup', which I enjoyed quite a lot.
>
> ~bob

Bob was referring to the "Roger Zelazny's Alien Speedway" series of
juvenile novels, and It turns out that Bob was right in a way.

I have the detailed outline that Zelazny wrote for Alien Speedway,
which was intended to be a 6-book series. The flavor of the outline
sounds a lot like his story "Deadboy Donner and the Filstone Cup" and
a lot of concepts and story suggestions in the outline appear in
"Deadboy." As well, the Alien Speedway outline begins with a quote
from author Damon Runyon, and the introduction to the short story
"Deadboy" in the GONE TO EARTH collection begins with a statement that
Zelazny wrote that story as a tribute of sorts to author Damon Runyon.

The outline and the short story were both written around 1987. I
think what may have happened is that Zelazny liked his outline so much
that he decided to write a story based on it anyway, and simply
changed some of the details of the setting and the type of racing
involved so that it wouldn't be so obviously competing with the Alien
Speedway series. In other words, it's Zelazny's own, shorter version
of Alien Speedway, and "Deadboy Donner and the Filstone Cup" is by far
a more enjoyable read than any of the Alien Speedway books.

Chris

mun dot ca not mac dot com to reply

On Jul 22, 7:55 am, "bchocobopatr...@gmail.com"
<bchocobopatr... DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Chris, where did you get a copy of the outline?

Zelazny's 22-page outline of Alien Speedway, in addition to associated
correspondence with the publisher and authors, draft illustrations,
Zelazny's introductions to the three volumes, and Jeffrey Carver's
draft manuscript of the first book, are all in the Zelazny archives at
Syracuse University. One bit of trivia, the assigned title of the
first book was CLYPSIS but Jeffrey Carver indicated to Zelazny and to
the publisher that he preferred that the title should be changed to
SPEEDWAY TO THE STARS. However, it remained as CLYPSIS.

Chris