The Guns of Avalon

I had said that I’d take a break from Amber after reading the first book in this series, but I couldn’t resist and read The Guns of Avalon next. In this second installment, Corwin’s story gets stranger and his road into the shadow realm more circuitous. There’s plenty of action and intrigue and plot twists to keep readers engaged and guessing until the end.

The way Zelazny imbues the princes of Amber with both godlike and very petty, human characteristics is particularly interesting and satisfying for me. I’ve read plenty of epic fantasy where the heroes are noble and their cause righteous, so it’s fun to read an antihero whose motives are less pure. In this way, Corwin reminds me a bit of that other antihero, Elric. I guess by the 70s there was enough going on in science fiction and fantasy that we got some revolutionary kinds of stories like this that turned the heroic story on its head. Though, it should also be said that the selfish and sometimes cruel behavior of Corwin and his family is very much in line with plenty of Greek, Norse and other mythologies, where gods behave at their own whims, to the detriment of almost everyone around them.

You want Corwin to succeed in his return to Amber–mostly, anyway. Zelazny sets him up in circumstances so dire that it’s hard not to wish him success in his attempted revenge against his brother. But the cost of this revenge is disastrous indeed; the curse he utters threatens to destroy the world he claims to love above everything, so Corwin’s account of his exploits is more than a bit self-serving, in my view. But his story is engaging and worth the journey.

Of course, there are plenty of neat creatures in this book, monsters and concealed demons, treacherous family members and a land itself that is intent on destroying everyone. Zelazny’s use of trump cards that enable the royal family to communicate and teleport, as well as the idea of the pattern itself, that road on which those with royal blood may enhance their power and enter myriad worlds–are what really make this series unique, I think. These concepts, combined with Zelazny’s use of mythology, make the whole story feel like it has some psychic weight to it. I also continue to find his mix of the mythological and the everyday and modern a lot of fun.

This time I think I really may take a break before continuing the saga. There are so many great things to read, and so little time.

Nine Princes in Amber

This isn’t exactly a review of Nine Prince in Amber. On my blog I talk about books I am reading, and that I love, and my personal experiences with these works. So what follows are my brief impressions of a weekend encounter with a book that I think is going to stay with me for a very long time.

Many years ago, when I was a college Freshman, a good friend told me of Roger Zelazny, and I dutifully picked up Nine Prince in Amber. At the time, I was looking for fantasy in the Tolkienian vein and somehow I couldn’t get into Corwin’s saga. It felt too strange for me, out of time and place, antiheroic, weird, and at that time, when I was still a teenager, I didn’t know what to make of it. I set it aside for more traditional heroic exploits like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, the kind of fantasy I understood better.

Thirty years later, I saw George RR Martin speaking reverently of his good friend and mentor, Roger Zelazny, and giving high praise to his work. If George loved his stuff so much, I figured I’d better listen.

So I picked up Nine Princes in Amber again a couple of days ago. Weird? Yes. Anti heroic? You bet. But I guess in the intervening decades I’d changed just a tad, read widely, and could appreciate this aesthetic. I still had a difficult time envisioning shadow earth, as well as the incredible longevity of prince Corwin, and the great city of cities, Amber, of which all other realities are mere reflections or shadows. This central theme of the ideal city, and its shadow realities, seems to me now the amazing charm of this book, part of its greatness. The idea of a kind of a Platonic ideal of a realm, nearly unattainable, but to which the hero is questing back to try and win for himself, really resonated with me on some subconscious level. The archetypal folks helping Corwin and hindering him along the way, his mythological, mischievous and murderous family, all of it was mixed together so expertly, in such a convincing way, that I felt it and enjoyed it very deeply. My criticisms of it aren’t criticisms, really, more matters of taste. As a person who loves mammoth fantasies and intricate detail in battles, I was a little chagrined by the very brief descriptions Zelazny used to describe massive, epic combat, or raising an army of a quarter million men and an armada of enormous size. But it works for this book, and if you want that kind of detail, plenty of other writers will provide it. Besides, there are nine more books in this story, so there is plenty more of Amber to explore.

I also loved the noirish feel to this, the mysterious story of this man who wakes from a coma not knowing who or what he is, but knowing he’s destined for something, that he better protect himself, he better get going and get some allies and start fighting before it’s too late. This guy is a godly prince, but he doesn’t know it yet. But this impetus to get on with it, to strive and fight for every inch, because nothing is guaranteed, this is the stuff of myth as well as noir. I loved the way Zelazny mixed high speech and low speech, high epic battles with lowly grimy hand to hand combat, old and new, mythological and familiar everyday things. What a perceptive, brilliant, erudite, gifted writer. Wonderful stuff, in my humble estimation. I guess I’d even say I loved this book.

I enjoyed it so much I read it in just a couple of sittings and was sad it was over, and I am eager to go back to Amber and walk the pattern again. I may need a break first though. This is heavy stuff, to me, not a typical fantasy realm of dragons and orcs, though I like those very much, as well.

So if my old pal out there is reading this, thanks good buddy for the recommendation. I’m also glad George RR Martin is out there promoting is friend’s work. It is so worth visiting, my friends. See you in Amber.