Roger Zelzany's Amber Chronicles

[Thotas]

All this praise for the Amber series. OP says it's all over Amazon, we see so much here, and I've heard it for about 3 decades personally.

I hereby claim the honor of being the voice of dissent.

I didn't get into the first book, but when we come to the end! Someone above says that in the second five, characters miss the obvious for plot reasons ... you mean it actually gets WORSE ???

Because that's exactly how the plot resolves in book 1. I won't get specific so as not to spoil anything in case you decide to go with the other recommendations, but in a nutshell: Villian puts Hero in a bad situation. Not that bad, though, Hero has a special ability that gets around it. But it is bad, because Villian knows all about special ability. He can negate the solution easily. But he doesn't. And when he fails to do so, the Hero (who has been telling you all about his ability for the whole book in first person) also over looks the circumstances that negate what Villian has done to him. So when the complete obvious happens, it's a big shock to both of them. Even though to a reader paying even the most casual attention, the only mystery is why no one's been talking about it a lot sooner. Mind you, it's not like it happens real fast and anyone fails to react quickly enough. The bad situation actually persists for weeks .

It's kinda like that awful Supergirl movie, where as bad as everything is up til the end, we have the scene where SG flies to the villianess's window, and demands the doohickey. Villianess, having seen how SG got there and having noted the flight earlier in the movie, tries to stop her by ... making the floor tiles wobble back and forth. You think, "wow, that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen!", at which point SG climbs out of the window and struggles to walk across the floor. And then you think, "wow, that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen!"

Admittedly, the friends of mine who told me to read the great, classic Amber series told me, when I presented my objections, swore to me that if I read the books that follow, the discrepancy will be explained. Yeah, well, I'm not reading them or seeing any Supergirl sequels had there been any. I'm not sold.

 

[Fast Learner]

Except that you're completely ignoring an absolutely essential tenet of the story: they are all family, which makes motivation much more complicated, and actions much more understandable. Dig a little bit into character motivations and it all makes perfect sense. In addition, Corwin has as secret that none of his family know about until towards the end of the series, a secret that makes all the difference in the "villains'" perceptions of what will happen.

Read at least the first five. Truly outstanding fantasy, with both swords and sorcery, but in a form unlike any other.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I've read the first 5, and I liked the first 2-3 better than the later ones. I've started some of the sedond series, but didn't like what I read of it.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Well, it generally seems to be that the consensus is that they are good books. The only form I could get it in near were I live is in the big ten book version. So, if I do get it, it will be in that format.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Because that's exactly how the plot resolves in book 1. I won't get specific so as not to spoil anything in case you decide to go with the other recommendations, but in a nutshell: Villian puts Hero in a bad situation. Not that bad, though, Hero has a special ability that gets around it. But it is bad, because Villian knows all about special ability. He can negate the solution easily. But he doesn't. And when he fails to do so, the Hero (who has been telling you all about his ability for the whole book in first person) also over looks the circumstances that negate what Villian has done to him. So when the complete obvious happens, it's a big shock to both of them. Even though to a reader paying even the most casual attention, the only mystery is why no one's been talking about it a lot sooner. Mind you, it's not like it happens real fast and anyone fails to react quickly enough. The bad situation actually persists for weeks .

Wow- maybe I'm just not understanding what it is you are saying here, but your description of the plot of "Nine Princes in Amber" (book one) doesn't sound *anything* like the plot I remember... and I just reread the book for the third of fourth time a couple of weeks ago.

Not trying to dismiss your opinion or anything, mind- I've seen a couple of people who share it, actually (and in many of the threads on this topic that have been posted on these forums, there are some). I just am not quite following what you are describing as taking place.

*Edit* Now that I think about it- I think I do know what you are referring to, and if it's what I think it is, the reason no one knows about it is because neither the villain nor the hero (in fact no one) has ever done or even heard of anyone having done this thing before. And as someone else points out, there is a Very Good Reason *TM* that the Villain does not negate the problem in as decisive a manner as he could. Some things just aren't worth the price of admission.

 

[shadowlight]

This series is definitly a must-read for any Sci-Fi/Fantasy buff. It's one of my favorite series of all time. In fact, I named my son Random after a character in the novels.

 

[devilish]

Wow- maybe I'm just not understanding what it is you are saying here, but your description of the plot of "Nine Princes in Amber" (book one) doesn't sound *anything* like the plot I remember... and I just reread the book for the third of fourth time a couple of weeks ago.

Not trying to dismiss your opinion or anything, mind- I've seen a couple of people who share it, actually (and in many of the threads on this topic that have been posted on these forums, there are some). I just am not quite following what you are describing as taking place.

*Edit* Now that I think about it- I think I do know what you are referring to, and if it's what I think it is, the reason no one knows about it is because neither the villain nor the hero (in fact no one) has ever done or even heard of anyone having done this thing before. And as someone else points out, there is a Very Good Reason *TM* that the Villain does not negate the problem in as decisive a manner as he could. Some things just aren't worth the price of admission.

Argh! All this obfuscation is driving me nuts. Please use spoiler tags - it's why God
made them.

Are you referring to :

Spoiler

Their ability to walk the Pattern and fix Corwin's memory

?
If so, what could the Villain do to negate the problem?

(It's been a while since I've read them...)

 

[Fast Learner]

It's also quite worthy of not that "villain" is a very subjective term in these books. Pretty much everyone is working exclusively for themselves and all claims of working for the good of Amber are equally specious (and valid). History told by the winners and all that. Zelazny does an amazing job of obfuscating people's true intentions. Spoilered,

Spoiler

after the first read-through of the first 5 books, there's little doubt that Corwin is the hero, but after you read the second 5 and re-read the first 5 (maybe a few times if necessary), I think it becomes clear that we only see Corwin as a hero because the story is told from his perspective, and that people like Eric or even Brand are no more villainous than Corwin -- they all just disagree on the best way of going about it all

.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Argh! All this obfuscation is driving me nuts. Please use spoiler tags - it's why God made them.

Mwahaha... we have ways of driving you insane!! We are the Lords of Madness!!!

Are you referring to :

Spoiler

Their ability to walk the Pattern and fix Corwin's memory

? If so, what could the Villain do to negate the problem?

I wasn't sure what Thota meant at first either, but after thinking about it, I think he was referring to

Spoiler

Corwin's regenerative abilities, and the fact that he regrew his eyes after several years- not weeks- in the dungeons underneath Amber. Eric could have "negated" this regeneration ability by killing Corwin, rather than allowing him time to heal. But as I noted, there are definite reasons Eric didn't/couldn't/wouldn't do this- as we learn in later books (the Courts of Chaos, to be specific) and there is the fact that no one, not even Corwin, was sure that he could regenerate his eyes. Corwin suspected- having suffered some neural tissue damage before- but knew it would take a long time, if ever, and no one else had ever suffered damage on that scale before, so it wasn't quite as "obvious" a solution as Thotas claimed.

Of course, I may be wrong about what Thotas was referring to, because of the higher order obfuscation techniques of the Lords of Madness, of which I am only a junior member.

 

[devilish]

It's also quite worthy of not that "villain" is a very subjective term in these books. Pretty much everyone is working exclusively for themselves and all claims of working for the good of Amber are equally specious (and valid). History told by the winners and all that. Zelazny does an amazing job of obfuscating people's true intentions. Spoilered,

Spoiler

after the first read-through of the first 5 books, there's little doubt that Corwin is the hero, but after you read the second 5 and re-read the first 5 (maybe a few times if necessary), I think it becomes clear that we only see Corwin as a hero because the story is told from his perspective, and that people like Eric or even Brand are no more villainous than Corwin -- they all just disagree on the best way of going about it all

.

Absolutely, 100% correct!! Later, Zelazny wrote about this in a choose-your-own-destiny book {remember those?}
In it

Spoiler

you play Eric's son who feels wronged by his father's death and Corwin's
"ascension." You go throughout all of Amber meeting with everyone, getting clues, etc. and
in the end find out that Corwin was the hero *because* history is told by him and, as
important, he walked the Pattern and *made* the reality as it is, twisting it from
a possiblity where Eric was a good guy/hero and making him a villain.

Pretty intense -- and very good for me, a member of the Needs-to-have-twisty-plots-pointed-out-to-him-Society.