Lord of Light

Lord of Light is a science fantasy novel by the American writer Roger Zelazny, published in 1967. It won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novel and was also nominated for the Nebula, and two of its chapters appeared first as novelettes in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The planet was settled by the crew of a starship called the Star of India. Using chemical treatments, biofeedback and electronics, the crew remade their own minds and gave themselves Aspects, versions of themselves that can channel particular powers, and they developed a technique for transferring a person's atman into a new body. Immortality, reincarnation and a rigid caste system followed, with the former crew at the top and the descendants of the colonists below them.

The narrator, known as Sam, has spent a long time among ordinary people and has taught them to consider their own position. The gods who rule the Celestial City are his former shipmates, among them Kali, who was once his wife, and against that company he sets out to break up the arrangement they have made of the world.