Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best Zelazny fantasy ever, 6 Sep 2001
By A Customer
I started reading the Amber series books in the early 1980s, and was instantly hooked. The image of the world as a shadow, among infinitely many others, of the archetypal Amber was and is a wonderful concept. While the impression is initially that Zelazny had no clear picture of where he was going with the story in the earliest books, the reader is carried along with his own enthusiasm to find out. The characters are well drawn and, despite their foibles, generally pretty likeable (Random was always my favourite after Corwin, the central character of the first five books, himself) and even Eric, the apparent "bad guy", resolves into a more complex and human character than one would initially expect.The second series revolves around Merlin, Corwin's son, and I bought each title as it became available, hungry as I was for more. The second series has a quite different feel to the first, but is more intricately plotted and the detail of the Courts of Chaos (the other major "bad guy" of the first series) provides yet more depth and intrigue. I have read the entire series several times now, and find more to delight me every time. Zelazny was a genuine master of his craft; sadly, he died too soon for the sequels to the second series he almost certainly intended to materialise, but I can heartily recommend this title to any F&SF enthusiast seeking good reading material: Amber is solid gold!
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You lucky lucky bast..., 7 Feb 2005
I'll admit I came to Amber via a backward road. I'm a roleplayer. And about 11 years ago I played a game called Amber Diceless which was set in Zelazny's Amber. Eager to get more information on the background of this world I looked for the books. They were at that time sadly out of print, I had to hunt round second hand bookshops all over Glasgow to get the first series. The second series at that time didn't appeal to me.Corwin has become one of my favorite characters in fiction, along with Rogi Remillard of Julian May's Intervention he's one of life's survivors, caught up in events, though he's more an action figure than Rogi they have that similiar roguish mentality. Zelazny's writing, imagination, style and flow are second-to-none, the new amber books don't compare. Amber the archetypal city peopled by archetypes caught up in an archetypal war of Order vs Chaos, the book itself is deeper and richer than any archetype. Thanks to this book I also read finally the second series, Merlin may not be Corwin but he's a good lead. My only complaint with the second series was hiding Corwin away until the last few pages and even then he doesn't come across so richly as he did in his own books. For the follow ups do a search on Amber Shorts written by Zelazny prior to his death beginning with A Salesman's Tale.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece. Recommended., 5 Dec 2005
I read the first 5 books about 10 years ago, however, I didn't like them.
A few month ago, I gave it another try and I just could not put the book down. I guess I was not ready for the The Great Book of Amber 10 years ago. Some of my friends kept on telling me that only the first 5 are interesting and then only the first 2 books, the rest are boring, especially the 5 last books. I must totally disagree with them. I enjoyed equally throughout all 10 books with a slight disappointment in a book 9 (I had a feeling like I am reading a book written after a PC quest game). Otherwise the series are great. I wish Roger Zelazny was still with us and could write a sequence, because even when you are done with 10th book, there is a feeling that there are a lot more to tell us...this is a reason why I would give it 9 of 10 stars and not all 10.
Who knows, maybe one day some genius will accomplish such an feat.
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