Dilvish, the Damned
core collection 1982 Dilvish, the Damned
Record
| First published | 1982 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | collection |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.81 (2,258 ratings, collected 2026-09-05) |
| Page count | 215 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780345306258 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Dilvish, the Damned, published in 1982, collects the short stories introducing Dilvish, a warrior of mixed elven and human descent who is turned to stone after attempting to stop the sorcerer Jelerak from completing a dark sacrificial ritual, and condemned to two hundred years of banishment in a hellish realm as punishment for his interference. The collection follows Dilvish's eventual escape from this ordeal and his subsequent adventures across a world reshaped by the centuries that passed while he was imprisoned, accompanied at times by Black, a demon bound into the semblance of a horse. Individual stories find Dilvish contending with sorcery, monstrous threats, and the lingering consequences of his long absence, establishing both his grim determination to eventually settle accounts with Jelerak and the episodic, sword-and-sorcery tone that defines the series.
Where it sits
- Universe: Dilvish, the Damned
- Series: Dilvish, the Damned core; position 1 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Roger Zelazny
Notes
- From the series record (Dilvish, the Damned): A sword-and-sorcery series about Dilvish, part-elf survivor of a curse laid by the sorcerer Jelerak. The eleven short stories collected as Dilvish, the Damned (1982) were originally published across various magazines from 1965 onward; the novel The Changing Land (1981) is the direct narrative sequel and was published in book form a year before its own predecessor stories were gathered into a collection, so publication year and story order diverge here (per this project's established handling of pulp-era serialized publication histories). A secondary claim that the collection was nominated for a 1982 Locus Award could not be corroborated against the award's own record in this session and is omitted rather than recorded unverified.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Dilvish, the Damned: position 2 of 2: previous The Changing Land (1981)
- Internal chronology, within Dilvish, the Damned: position 1 of 2: next The Changing Land (1981)
Sources
← Dilvish, the Damned dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.