Nine Princes in Amber - review

[watervole]

Putting books into Library Thing is having the ongoing effect of clearing out my bookshelf, as I find I'm cataloguing books that I no longer want ,at about the same rate as I'm buying new books that it recommends to me...

Does anyone want five Amber novels by Roger Zelazny?  Going free to a good home...

It's always disappointing when you go back to a book that you enjoyed when you were younger and realise that it hasn't stood the test of time.  The idea of walking in shadow between worlds is still a good one, but the characters lack depth and no longer hold my interest.  After 112 pages, I realised that I wasn't interested enough to find out what happened in the end, and stopped reading.

A good, modern alternative is Charles Stross's 'Merchant Princes' series.  It's a bit militaristic for my taste, but the characters are far better developed than Zelazny's. (and I'll be reading the latest one before very long)

Comments

[gaspodia.livejournal.com]

Any unwanted books would be welcome for use as the Free Books we are using to entice Collectormania fans into literary fandom. I'm happy to take them off your hands on the 18th :)

[blazingskies.livejournal.com]

Aww, beat me to it :(

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want it to read yourself, you get priority over someone who wants to give it to someone else. (On the grounds that you know you want to read it, and Gaspodia might not find a home for it)

I'm sure I can find another book for Gaspodia.

Tell me where to post them and they're yours.

[blazingskies.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you, my friend Sarah has been bugging me to read them for years. :)

Well, on the grounds of my not trusting my communal mailroom, best send them to my parents:

3 Manor Way
Bolton on Dearne
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S63 8NY

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Now posted. Let me know when they arrive and then I'll bin the certificate of posting.

Enjoy!

[gaspodia.livejournal.com]

Absolutely :) We'll take anything that isn't wanted elsewhere.

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

Are you going to be at Novacon? If so get in touch as we are currently not only pruneing out our SF library but also about to start going through murphys_lawyer's Mothers SF collection which has been in storage the last few years. There are two boxes of stuff already though that does include a few old TV tie-in and some incomplete fantasy series that we've decided we're never going to bother to find the missing parts of.

[gaspodia.livejournal.com]

Ooh - that sounds like a lovely collection of books for our Free Books table. I won't be at Novacon as we're off on holiday from that weekend, but several people who can take them off your hands will be there. The best thing to do is drop them off at the Odyssey or LX con tables and I'll make sure people are aware you will be doing this.

Thank You!

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'll give you another one for that purpose, then Becky can have Amber to read herself.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

Have you tried the second Amber series which features Corwin's son, Merlin?

IMO they're better because the first series does rather show signs of having been made up as he went along (and a couple of bits of ret-conning!), but I feel the second one holds together better.

Unfortunately it was building up to what would have, presumably, been a final series, but Roger Zelazny died leaving only a few tantalising hints such as The Salesman's Tale and a couple of other short stories to suggest what was to come :(

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Well, I would, but that would require re-reading the first series to remember the background and that would involve too much pain.

I'm now reading Elizabeth Moon's 'Speed of Dark' which is much better written.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

I think you're the first person ever who I've heard say that they think the second pentalogy is better than the first, and I spent quite a few years in Amber DRPG fandom...

Merlin is the Mary Sue of all Mary Sues. Over and over and over again he solves problems by suddenly out of the blue gaining a new nifty power that's even more powerful than the last one. Bleah.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

I can't agree that Merlin is a Mary Sue, it's not that he gains powers so much as he gets powers "bestowed upon him" by the various factions who are trying to manipulate him for their own gains.

He also has the opportunity to gain powers which he turns down eg he has the chance to use the Fount in the Keep of the Four Worlds but, having seen what it did to Brand and Jurt, he passes up on it.

Yes, he gets the Spikard, but at the cost of losing Frakir who tried to warn him about it. Also, unlike Corwin, who was offered the Throne of Amber, but declined it, Merlin doesn't want the Throne of Chaos, but ends up sitting on it anyway, which certainly wasn't his plan!

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I recall being bitterly disappointed when I re-read Nine Princes In Amber a while back. I still love the story, but the writing is shallow, the characters are cardboard, and I just can't make myself read it. I feel the same way about Anne McCaffrey, whose work was very important to me when I was a kid.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I suspect I'm going to find the same with several other writers. Heinlein and Clarke have passed the test, but I don't know if the Thomas Covenant novels will yet.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

I know what Telynor means about McCaffrey! I tend to describe it as "literary candy floss", looks pretty, tastes nice, but when you bite into it, there's nothing there!

Regarding your feelings on Amber, that sounds like my experience with Julian May's Saga of the Exiles/ Many Coloured Land stories. I got the books, read them and thought they were ok, then, some time later, came back to them, got about third of the way through the first book and thought "Gods, what a bunch of LOSERS!" and sold them to a friend.

As for Covenant, IMO it's still readable after several times, I just wish it had had a better editor (how many times can you use the word "crepuscular" in one book?!)

Oh, and, in the second Chronicles, just skip The One Tree! I've read the first book of the third Chronicles (Bones of the Earth) and at the start it has summaries of the previous stories which go on for several pages. The One Tree gets about two paragraphs...