Galaxy Science Fiction, June, 1967, Featuring “The Man Who Loved the Faioli” by Roger J. Zelazny [Gray Morrow]

The cover of the June, 1967 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, displays a painting by Gray Morrow inspired by a scene from Roger Zelazny’s “The Man Who Loved the Faioli”.

Yes, there are skeletons in the story, which is set upon a planet which is “the graveyard of the worlds”. Yes, there are robots in the tale (the scene takes place in the Valley of the Bones), but their appearance is left entirely undescribed. But they, like the valley, like the bones, really play an incidental role in the story, which features only two characters: Sythia, a Faioli, and, John Auden, the events being told through the eyes of Auden. And, the narrator.

The story – only seven pages long and the shortest tale in this issue of Galaxy – is unusual, and lies far more in the realm of fantasy than science fiction, with elements of the latter being incidental to the theme and plot. With that, while I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed the tale, neither can I deny its originality.