Roger Zelzany's Amber Chronicles

[devilish]

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



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.

Argh --- multi-layer-obfuscations! Can you please remind me why the villain didn't
"negate" the ability. CoC is a bit fuzzy to me.

thnx!

 

[ShadowX]

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.

Did I miss something?

Spoiler

When was it revealed that Corwin created the universe the books begin in?

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Argh --- multi-layer-obfuscations! Can you please remind me why the villain didn't "negate" the ability. CoC is a bit fuzzy to me.

Because

Spoiler

Eric was only acting as regent of Amber during Oberon's absence, and only reluctantly took the crown when it looked like he might not return, and a strong leader was needed to guard against the redhead trio's plans. If he had killed Corwin to keep him out of the way, if Oberon did return, it would look like regicide- and Oberon, as Random revealed in a flashback, had a very, very dim view of regicide, and was not someone to be trifled with. According to Julian, Eric simply wanted to toss Corwin in a cell and be done with him, but Julian suggested blinding him, as unless they were able to neutralize Corwin- and again, killing him was not an option- then the other triumvirate (Brand et al) would continue to attempt to use him as a pawn in their plans.

 

[Lazybones]

I got the 10-book omnibus, and in hindsight my experience mirrored that of other posters here; first set of 5 good, next set not so good (in fact I got bogged down in book 9 and never finished the series). At the time I was only dimly aware that they had initially been released in two series of five books each, so I never really mentally made that distinction (I just went through the omnibus, reading one after another).

After reading this thread, if I decide to reread Amber I'll just read the first five and stop there.

 

[Fast Learner]

The second five are really excellent for revealing some of the underpinnings of the universe, and reading all the way through them will give you quite a lot of insight into the first five, including many family members' "real" motivations.

 

[reddist]

The Amber Chronicles were some of the first "adult" fiction I read, and they made me what I am today.... a sci-fi/fantasy gamer geek. Seriously. I enjoyed those books so much I was desparate to find anything else remotely like them, and they tainted my taste for fantastical fiction ever since.

If you enjoy the second bunch, Merlin's story, there is a series of short stories you MUST read... they appear in a relatively recent post-mortem release "Manna From Heaven," ... each story is a first-person veiw point (one of Zelazny's amazing strengths as a writer) but the character's whose head we're in taints the reader's perspective of the event they all describe. The notes describe the series of short stores as an "author's exercise" but I enjoyed them immensely.

Hope you do too

-Reddist

 

[Dakkareth]

I enjoyed the Amber books. There are weak spots, no doubt, but IMO the cool ideas and nice twists outweight them. Just don't approach them as 'serious' books - the light-hearted tone is part of the fun. FWIW I liked both the first and the second series, though for different reasons. In any case, the books are worth reading (at least) once, even if you lay them to rest after that.

 

[Thanee]

I'd set the first five among the very best in fantasy/sci-fi literature.

The second five are above average, but not much more. Still nice, if you really enjoyed the first, but maybe not for everyone.

Bye
Thanee