Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) and Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) are among the world's most famous and certainly best-loved science fiction writers. By the time they collaborated on “The Story of the Red Demon,” Sheckley had already written “The Immortality Corporation,” “Coordinates of Miracles,” “The First Sacrifice,” and more than a hundred stories, and Zelazny had created “Jack of the Shadow,” “The Prince of Light,” and “ Chronicles of Amber. A love of mythology, a humorous view of the world, a reverent attitude to detail - they had too much in common for their creative tandem to fail! The confrontation between the forces of Light and Darkness is like a giant chessboard on which angels and demons make their moves, using pawns and kings of famous mythological or historical characters. Quite young by the standards of Hell, but the enthusiastic demon Azzi is absolutely seething with new, unconventional ideas that can bring the power of the Dark Ones closer to the arena of world history, and push Azzi himself up the career ladder. The only trouble is that minor problems and shortcomings, unaccounted for nuances and annoying paradoxes, directly related to the character of the gambling and frivolous demon, fall on him every time like a snowball. After all, the almighty Ananke, who guards Order, does not allow the slightest manifestation of entropy in the Universe!