Chronicles of Amber: "Nine Princes in Amber", "The Guns of Avalon", "Sign of the Unicorn", "The Hand of Oberon", "The Courts of Chaos" (Fantasy Masterworks) (Paperback)

Zelazny's epic work starts simply enough - a man awakes in hospital with amnesia. He discovers he is registered under a false name, and being drugged on the orders of a sister he cannot remember...

At this point, Zelazny could have turned this into a simple thriller. But nothing is as it seems in this series. Layer after layer of deception or illusion is peeled back in each book - revealing not only the truth of Corwin's car crash, our perceptions of which are turned on their head 3 times, but of successively deeper layers of reality itself. For as our hero Corwin discovers, true reality casts infinite shadows in which everything exists somewhere.

The universe created is infinitely rich, but the story revolves about the machivellian politics of the Royal House of Amber, of which Corwin discovers himself to be a part. These near-immortals can find anything they desire in the infinite Shadows, but are slowly discovering that they are not, after all, omnipotent. At stake in this power-struggle is the fate not just of one world, but all worlds and all realities...

Drawing on Jungian psychology, celtic myths, and a lyrical use of language, there is no way any review of mine can do justice to this. It is one of my 3 personal all-time favourite series. Try it, and be lost to the wonder of the One True City - Amber.

Coming back to Amber recently, in this edition, and reading it from cover to cover, I was struck by the brilliance of the prose. Because this book is written in the first person by a character with experience of many worlds it allows Zelazny to use modern slang and poetic language both in dialogue and description without a single jar that I can detect. Often a single, perfectly chosen word or phrase conjours up the required image - and this book is full of rich images and even richer characterisation.

The book - and it is really one book, not a sequence of five - can be read on many levels. When I was first introduced to it, as a teenager, I devoured a wonderful adventure story, and it remains thrill-a-minute stuff, but each time I read it I find more nuances contained in a highly complex plot that never condescends to the reader and never fails to surprise. Even bit-part characters have their own arc, though as they are always seen through Corwin's eyes our understanding of them is limited by his - which also, of course, increases as the book progresses. We are also left to ponder whether, indeed, the conclusion of this story is that, "people change" or whether it is Corwin, or his perceptions, that have changed.

So is the book about perception? About change? About immortality? About growing up?

Yes, and many other things.

There are not many fantasies around so different from Tolkien, so complex, or so well written. Highly recommended, to anyone from 10 to 100.

Zelazny does not patronise the reader by pointing out every hidden detail, nor do you find that you are able to second guess the next piece of action (unlike, for example, the constant series of betrayals in Terry Goodkind's "Stone of Tears"). You are left to notice or root out these hidden gems in your own time so that the story takes on added dimensions when you re-read it. Additionally, the names of the characters are distinguishable (Eric, Julian, Fiona...), unlike many other fantasies who go to extremes to give the main characters bizarre names (e.g. Karigan G'ladheon in "Green Rider").

This is a very fulfilling fantasy and something you'll want to return to, again and again.