Lord of Light - Zelazny

Quick review part, I loved this book and thought it was great. The idea behind it is clever. The main character is fun. Before the Hugo project, I'd never heard of this book and I'm very glad that I read it.
Now that I've said that, SPOILERS follow, ok? It takes a bit to unpack what's happening in 'Lord of Light'. The story resembles a series of legendary encounters involving a conflict between various Hindu gods and the Buddha. Only later do we find out that this is a planet that was settled by a colony ship. The original crew had a process whereby they could transplant their consciousness into a new body after death, much like reincarnation. They also developed technology to mirror their chosen god personas.
But not everyone was happy. In order to keep their god-like position, the pantheon needed to keep the populace at a low tech. If a region tried to develop, they would declare a holy war and reduce them. This approach offended a crew member named Sam. He decided to combat them by positioning himself as the Buddha.
The great thing about Sam is that he's a rogue. Each chapter deals with him balancing between his assumed persona and his need for cleverness. All of this is told in an heroic style which would be too heavy if it wasn't so much fun.
A great book.