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Dan's Reviews > The First Chronicles of Amber
The First Chronicles of Amber (The Chronicles of Amber, #1-5)
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Nine Princes in Amber: Mr. Corey wakes up in a hospital after a car accident with no memory of who he is. After visiting his sister (and fooling her into thinking he still has his memory), he crosses dimensions with his brother Random and eventually regains his memory after walking the Pattern in the city of Rebma, the sister city of Amber. From there, he joins up with his brother Bleys and attacks Amber, intent on stopping his brother Eric from crowning himself king.
Nine Princes in Amber is really good, especially considering all of the background Zelazny manages to cram into less than 150 pages. The twists are unexpected and the machinations of the nine princes of Amber are fairly reallistic. Although I can tell it was inspired by the first book of the World of Tiers series, it's far from being a ripoff. Zelazny started with Farmer's concept of an amnesiac hero who's a member of a group of nigh-immortal lords and taken it into a different direction. I'm looking forward to Guns of Avalon.
Guns of Avalon:Corwin hatches a plan to take Amber with a force bearing automatic rifles along with Ganelon, an old enemy. Along the way he spends time with his brother Benedict and Benedict's great granddaughter Dara. However, he isn't the only one assaulting Amber...
Guns of Avalon was even better than Nine Princes in Amber. I'm really enjoying the court intrigue between Corwin and his siblings. I didn't really see the ending coming until it was too late. Zelazny really knows how to craft a tale.
Sign of the Unicorn: Another of Corwin's family is murdered, Brand is rescued, and more of what actually happened to Corwin prior to the first book is revealed.
The Amber books probably wouldn't work as well if Zelazny hadn't written them in the first person. The way they are, we learn things as Corwin does. The machinations of Corwin's family are the driving force of the story and we get to watch as Corwin peels away lair after lair.
The Hand of Oberon: I'm officially past the point where I can give a synopsis and not give away too many plot points. Suffice to say, Zelazny is quite a story teller and I'm approaching the final novel in this volume with a sense of anticipation I haven't felt since the last volume of The Dark Tower wound up in my mailbox years ago.
The Courts of Chaos: Who stabbed Corwin in the dark? Will Amber be destroyed by the forces of Chaos? Can the Pattern be repaired? Who will sit on the throne of Amber? All of these questions and more are answered in this, the final book of The First Chronicles of Amber.
Zelazny took the aspects of Farmer's World of Tiers he liked the most, namely the immortal family endlessly conspiring against one another and the amnesiac hero, and ran with it. Amber isn't so much a fantasy story as a huge multi-layered mystery. I thought I knew how it would end but I was wrong. I'm officially ranking Amber up there with Moorcock's Elric series (the first six or so) and Stephen King's Dark Tower as my favorite fantasy stories of all time.
Nine Princes in Amber is really good, especially considering all of the background Zelazny manages to cram into less than 150 pages. The twists are unexpected and the machinations of the nine princes of Amber are fairly reallistic. Although I can tell it was inspired by the first book of the World of Tiers series, it's far from being a ripoff. Zelazny started with Farmer's concept of an amnesiac hero who's a member of a group of nigh-immortal lords and taken it into a different direction. I'm looking forward to Guns of Avalon.
Guns of Avalon:Corwin hatches a plan to take Amber with a force bearing automatic rifles along with Ganelon, an old enemy. Along the way he spends time with his brother Benedict and Benedict's great granddaughter Dara. However, he isn't the only one assaulting Amber...
Guns of Avalon was even better than Nine Princes in Amber. I'm really enjoying the court intrigue between Corwin and his siblings. I didn't really see the ending coming until it was too late. Zelazny really knows how to craft a tale.
Sign of the Unicorn: Another of Corwin's family is murdered, Brand is rescued, and more of what actually happened to Corwin prior to the first book is revealed.
The Amber books probably wouldn't work as well if Zelazny hadn't written them in the first person. The way they are, we learn things as Corwin does. The machinations of Corwin's family are the driving force of the story and we get to watch as Corwin peels away lair after lair.
The Hand of Oberon: I'm officially past the point where I can give a synopsis and not give away too many plot points. Suffice to say, Zelazny is quite a story teller and I'm approaching the final novel in this volume with a sense of anticipation I haven't felt since the last volume of The Dark Tower wound up in my mailbox years ago.
The Courts of Chaos: Who stabbed Corwin in the dark? Will Amber be destroyed by the forces of Chaos? Can the Pattern be repaired? Who will sit on the throne of Amber? All of these questions and more are answered in this, the final book of The First Chronicles of Amber.
Zelazny took the aspects of Farmer's World of Tiers he liked the most, namely the immortal family endlessly conspiring against one another and the amnesiac hero, and ran with it. Amber isn't so much a fantasy story as a huge multi-layered mystery. I thought I knew how it would end but I was wrong. I'm officially ranking Amber up there with Moorcock's Elric series (the first six or so) and Stephen King's Dark Tower as my favorite fantasy stories of all time.
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Reading Progress
September 10, 2008
– Shelved
December 27, 2008
–
20.14%
"I just learned that a friend of a friend named his daughter Amber and nearly named his son Corwin because of his love for these books."
page
147
Started Reading
December 31, 2008
–
Finished Reading
April 28, 2009
– Shelved as:
zelazny
August 19, 2010
– Shelved as:
plan-on-rereading-one-day
January 27, 2011
– Shelved as:
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Nicky
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Sep 10, 2008 02:29PM
Ooh, Chronicles of Amber. This edition'd be the first five books? I liked them more than the last five.
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I'd heard that about the first five. That's why I opted for this one instead of the Great Big Honkin' Book of Amber or whatever it's called. Plus it looks a lot less intimidating on the unread pile.
Actually, even with the last five books as well, it doesn't take that long to read. I read the first three books in one day during a holiday (on Christmas Eve, in fact).The most irritating thing is that the story clearly isn't finished, at the end of ten books. There's still stuff meant to happen and it drives me dotty that I'll never know what. Huff.
Zelazny is definitely breezy. Jack of Shadows and Damnation Alley took about three hours each.What about those other Amber books that Betancourt gentleman wrote?
I haven't read those, but I seem to remember them not being very well received and possibly even being prequels.
I loved these, so much so that I whipped through them all in a week and now I have pretty much no memory of them at all, apart from the first one...
Stephen wrote: "I loved these, so much so that I whipped through them all in a week and now I have pretty much no memory of them at all, apart from the first one..."Now you have an excuse to re-read them. I'll definitely be picking them up again in the future.
True - and then this time I'll leave notes on Goodreads so that I don't forget them all over again! It was only reading your review that made me realise I hadn't read the second set of novels yet, so I've got those to look forward to as well...
I'm debating on whether or not to read the second set. On one hand, I hear they aren't as good. On the other, I want more Amber, damn it!
I prefered the second quintet...they seemed to be more obviously following a plan rather than randomly made up as he went along...I also feel diddled by life over not ever getting a third series.
I started on the second quintet last night. I'm digging it so far. I read somewhere that Zelanzy wrote the first five without notes or an outline. That's probably why parts of it seem random.
That's the impression I got from reading them.
watching u read these, i'm getting itchy to start them. i have the same book with the first 5 stories
Oooh, Amber - it's been a long, long, long time. I have the Visual Guide to Castle Amber, too, which is a fun addition. Hm, maybe I'll reread next month.
Tracey wrote: "Oooh, Amber - it's been a long, long, long time. I have the Visual Guide to Castle Amber, too, which is a fun addition. Hm, maybe I'll reread next month."The first five Amber books are on my re-read pile. Not so much with the second five.
This is an old favorite of mine. I really enjoyed it. Good review, thank you.
Curmudgeon wrote: "This is an old favorite of mine. I really enjoyed it. Good review, thank you."It's a favorite of mine too. I'll probably re-read it in a year or two.
Even though it wasn't the first book to go outside the norm, it was the first to introduce me to the idea of blended stories where fantasy and modern features co-exist. And I really liked the trumps.
Since this review has been resurrected, and since somebody mentioned children named after the book characters, I thought I'd mention that Steven Brust has a son named Corwin. We can all guess why. ;)
Contrarius wrote: "Since this review has been resurrected, and since somebody mentioned children named after the book characters, I thought I'd mention that Steven Brust has a son named Corwin. We can all guess why. ;)"That's awesome! I know a guy whose daughter's name is Amber and his son was almost named Corwin because of these books.
My Niece is named "Amber." ... anyone know a Merlin or a Brand?
Your review reminded me of when I started reading this series. Someone was reading the next installment of the 4th or 5th novel in serialized form and they were so eager for it that I had to ask. That's when I picked up Nine Princes in Amber and was hooked. Time for a re-read and reviews!
I read these years ago, and even played the Amber RPG for a while. I should reread them one of these days. I don't think I ever quite finished the second series.
Amber is in the top three for me. One of my favorite pieces of trivia: twenty years ago, I was reading World of Tiers and Amber at the same time and remember one of the Amber books was dedicated to Jadawin (can't remember which one). In the pre-internet days, this was a thrill for a young reader to see one author obliquely acknowledge another...and be in on the "joke."I also loved Zelazny's Dilvish the Damned books, though there are only a few. Embarrassed to say I had trouble getting into his Hugo/Nebula award winners. Lords of Light and Eye of Cat are inscrutable to me. Time to give 'em another shot, i guess. :)
I think it's the third or fourth book that's dedicated to Jadawin and Kickaha. I love that Zelazny started with one aspect of World of Tiers that he really liked and wrote a completely different saga from Farmer's.
