On the 50th anniversary of its release Repeater is honoured to reissue John Boorman’s
novelization of his cult film Zardoz with a new introduction by the director. In a
post-apocalyptic 2393 society is split between an elite group of immortal Eternals and a
brutal underclass that live in the outlands and are controlled by the Exterminators. Zed an
Exterminator who has come to question his role and the exact nature of the world he inhabits
stows away in the flying head that descends to issue guns and sermons to the Exterminators and
enters the world of the Eternals: the Vortex. An ostensible paradise of rationality and order
the Vortex is revealed as a place which is itself full of division and intrigue. Has he come
here of his own free will? Or is he part of some larger competition among the Eternals? How has
the Vortex come about and what might come after? What is it in Zed that the Eternals lack and
is he there to bring them “the gift of death"? Expanding on and fleshing out the characters'
histories and the themes of his riotous psychedelic cult classic film Zardoz Boorman’s
novelization has become something of a cult itself a fully realised visionary sci-fi novel by
one of the most important directors of the twentieth century.
