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Title | Nine Princes in Amber
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Author | Roger Zelazny
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Cover Art | Jean Pierre Targete
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Publisher | Avon Books - 1994
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First Printing | 1970
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Title | The Guns of Avalon
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Author | Roger Zelazny
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Cover Art | Ron Walotsky
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Publisher | Science Fiction Book Club - 1999
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First Printing | 1972
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Title | The Sign of the Unicorn
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Author | Roger Zelazny
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Cover Art | Ron Walotsky
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Publisher | Science Fiction Book Club - 1999
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First Printing | 1975
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Title | The Hand of Oberon
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Author | Roger Zelazny
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Cover Art | Jean Pierre Targete
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Publisher | Avon Books - 1994
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First Printing | 1976
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Title | The Courts of Chaos
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Author | Roger Zelazny
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Cover Art | Ron Walotsky
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Publisher | Science Fiction Book Club - 1999
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First Printing | 1978
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Category | Epic Fantasy
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Corwin, Eric, Random, Flora, Fiona, Deidre, Caine, Julian, Brand, Benedict, Bleys, Ganelon, Oberon, Dworkin, Dara, Merlin, Martin
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Main Elements | Wizards...sort of? Demons
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Website | ---
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 Nine Princes in Amber
The one true world. All others, including our Earth, are merely Shadows...
Exiled to the Shadows for centuries, a man more than mortal awakens in an Earth hospital with no memory of his past - and surrounded by enemies who hunger greedily for his destruction. For Corwin is of The Blood - the rightful successor to the throne of the real world. But to rule, he must first conquer impossible realities and demonic assassins...and survive the ruthless machinations of the most insidious malevolence imaginable: his own family.
The Guns of Avalon
In all the universe, there is only one world - Amber, the substance which is the root of all things. All other worlds - including Earth - are but Shadows...
A man awakens in an Earth hospital with no memory of his past or of his name. He has no idea that he is Prince Corwin, the rightful successor to the throne of Amber, nor does he understand the intrigue that surrounds him, the enemies who hunger for his destruction - members of his own royal family. For in the centuries of his exile on our Earth, his father has disappeared, leaving Amber's throne free for the taking.
Corwin, victim of a freak auto accident, knows none of these things - until his memory receives a series of jolts:
He meets a sister who speaks in riddles of plots and counterplots...and a brother who abruptly involves him in a life-and-death battle against pursuers from a fearful Shadow world.
He discovers a deck of tarot-like cards, bearing pictures of himself, his sisters and brothers. Only lingering amnesia keeps him from grasping their full significance: the cards are the Greater Trumps of Amber, used by his family to communicate across vast distances and to transport one another through Shadows in an instant.
Then comes the most shattering revelations of all...Corwin's confrontation with an intricate design created by a master manipulator of reality - the Pattern. By walking the Pattern, those of the blood royal gain the ability to control Shadows. But the slightest hesistation or misstep during the trial means death.
As Corwin sets foot upon that coldly glowing inscription, memories comes flooding back to him. And finally, knowing his true identity, he acknowledges his true ambition - and resolves that the crown of Amber will be his.
But unknown to Corwin, there are dark forces massing against Amber...and before too long he will discover just how great a burden a king's crown can be.
The Sign of the Unicorn
The Hand of Oberon
An ancient unspoken secret has been disastrously revealed, allowing demons to swarm across the mysterious Black Road and infiltrate Shadow. The dread forces of Chaos has been unleashed - and all the known worlds face total obliteration. The hour of ultimate battle is at hand. And it is Corwin who must rally together the last remaining Princes of the true realm - to halt a royal traitor who would corrupt the Pattern and remake the universe in his own evil image.
The Courts of Chaos
I've now read a few Zelazny books and have a general idea the way he writes and what makes his books interesting. These are not books for people that want all their loose ends wrapped up and all their questions answered. In fact these aren't books that always necessarily make sense, a little handwavig here and there as to explanations comes up at least one per book, including one kind of funky time loop/paradox...thing. But if you can get over that, I think it makes these books even more enjoyable, because as in real life, not everything does get explained. You don't understand quantum physics, well, you won't understand Shadows either, just accept it as a fact and move on.
Let's start with our narrator, Corwin. He is probably one of the most unreliably narrators out there. Firstly, we start off with him having amnesia and having no more clue as to what was going on or who anyone was than the reader. I thought that was fun, we don't jump into a story where everyone knows what's going on, Corwin is as baffled as we are. Now even when he gets his memory back, you have to remember he was exiled to a Shadow world for several hundred years (royalty in Amber are immortal...they also have some very interesting ancestry that doesn't go back more than two generations, something again Corwin oddly never wondered about as a kid, like "who is grandma?" but then his is not the most normal family...) so again, he has no clue as to the current state of things in Amber. He has to go on what everyone tells him, and frankly, I'm not sure any of his siblings are physically capable of telling a straight truth. So just as you (and Corwin) think we are understanding what's going on behind the scenes, well, turns out that even if the informant wasn't lying, they could be just plain wrong. It makes for a fun and frustarting adventure as you try to sort out all those woven webs of lies and half truths and messed up memories.
Next, we have Corwin's family. They are a messed up group, several have already been killed off even before the story starts. Their father is missing, presumed dead but no one is really sure, and frankly none of them would be surprised if he disappeared just to see if they would fight over the throne or not. Not exactly fatherly love here, more a survival of the fittest. Each brother has their strength and weaknesses and personalities (and apparently Benedict looks like Fabio, just check out the cover of The Hand of Oberon!), Corwin almost loves some of them, outright hates others, and doesn't trust the rest...in fact he doesn't trust the ones he loves either really. He's also got sisters but they play little part in the schemes such that I can't remember who was how, and who was allied with who. So if you're looking for strong female characters, they aren't to be found here, even Dara, who comes the closest to being an actual villain that isn't family (or is she?) doesn't do much in the grand scheme of things.
But the world, much as its workings are mostly left unexplained, is fascinating. See, there is Amber, the only "real" place in the universe. Everything else is just a Shadow, which the Princes can manipulate, in a sense travelling from world to world, though in some sense, not so much travelling as creating these worlds to meet their needs. It's an open question even for the characters if the worlds all exist all the time, or only when one of them creates a specific Shadow. Even our "Earth" is just yet another Shadow and no more real than say Avalon. There are a lot of British folklore references, with a few Norse mixed in, the names might be tweaked a little but they are obvious all the same, and yet not the same either since, well, if our world is not real, then our ideas of these "fantasy" places are probably a little off from the real thing too.
I'm not commenting much on the plot, since in a nutshell it's "Amber is threatened by the forces of Chaos" and that's about it. The rest is just Corwin figuring things out, but that more than makes up for the lack of a real battle (in fact the final battle with Chaos probably gets about a single page of actual coverage, a bit of a spoiler, but really, it's not what the story is about).
I read one book a month but I'd actually recommend reading them a little faster since there are lot of little details to keep track of. Also, even though the books are short, don't read them too fast, if you skim them you'll miss all kinds of key points that don't seem important at the time. So while I don't think this series is for everyone, I do highly recommend it, just to experience a fantasy classic that is a little different from the norm, something that makes you think and makes you fill in some of the holes, and where the holes are not really flaws. This is a world where gunpowder won't fire in Amber, but they still smoke cigarettes (it was written in the 70's, sometimes you can tell) so you have to wonder why one combustible works while another doesn't (gasoline is also a no go). Where Amber is the core of everything but they don't even seem to have electricity, let alone guns or cars, so in many ways is more backwards then the Shadows it projects. Lots of things to try to find explanations for yourself, since Zelazny just says "This is the way it is". It's even more fun to read with a group so you can work together to come up with plausiable explanations for the well, more often than not, inexplicable bits.
One can stop after the first 5 books, it has a solid and completed ending. But want more, and will read the next 5 next year (which is only 10 days away, yikes!)
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