Monday, March 05, 2012

Book #9 - Nine Princes of Amber by Roger Zelazny

This is one of those 'classics' of fantastic literature that I somehow never managed to read. It's not that I didn't know about it... it's just that I kinda kept forgetting about it, or forgetting to attempt to go find or something. It wasn't until a timely happenstance of a friend mentioning them and then my finding a huge tome of books 1-10 for a ridiculously cheap price that I decided to read this.

This is the story of the royal family of the city of Amber, as told by one of it's exiled princes, Corwin. The first person narrative is used very well here, since we first meet Corwin on waking from an accident and he remembers of nothing of who he is. So it's nice that Corwin gets caught up and tells the reader what the hell is going on as well.

I liked a lot of things about this book, I've always been fond of the 'this is the first world/city/whathave you reflected imperfectly in other worlds' idea. And the method of travelling to Amber is quite brilliant. (the whole drive Corwin takes with his brother Random was superb).

But there were times where I would get disgruntled with Zelazny's lack of description in some parts (mainly the battle to get to Amber) I appreciated why he did it (else most of this book would've been battle scenes), but it robbed the book of a lot of it's gravitas, especially as I never get the idea Corwin is truly in grave danger. In some ways I felt like I was reading Ernest Hemingway write a fantasy story (albeit with 70s jargon thrown in; I find it disconcerting to have my fantasy characters ask if I 'dig').

This one ends with Corwin escaping his long imprisonment from his brother with the help of someone even longer imprisoned. It asks some interesting questions and sets up things well. I'll continue on.

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