Appendix N Review: The Guns of Avalon

Released two years after Nine Princes in Amber, 1972's The Guns of Avalon (which is a stellar title, by the way) picks up where the first book left off. Corwin, recently escaped from brutal captivity in the dungeons of Amber, travels through shadow worlds to find his lost domain, Avalon. Or at least something close enough to it. Corwing needs two things to conquer Amber: an army, and guns that will work in Amber's magical environment.

He arrives in the land of Lorraine, a medieval kingdom close to Avalon and once ruled by a shadow of Corwin (just go with it, it can get complicated). He rescues a version of Lancelot from weird cat demons, and then finds a castle run by Ganelon, a man who used to be one of Corwin's chief lieutenants in Avalon until he betrayed his lord and was exiled. Recovering his strength in Lorraine, he meets and forms a relationship with a woman named Lorraine, earns Ganelon's trust, and helps lead their armies against hideous demons who are pouring out of an expanding zone of Chaos. This is Corwin's fault, because of the heavy curse he laid on his brother Eric in the first book.

Lorraine (the realm) is saved, but Lorraine (the woman) is lost, and Corwin avenges her in a brief but moving scene, then he and Ganelon travel to Avalon, only to find Corwin's long-lost and presumed dead brother Benedict acting as its protector against a Chaos incursion. The brothers are cordial, but Benedict wants no upheaval in Amber, so Corwin watches what he says around him. Corwin also meets Dara, a beautiful young woman who identifies herself as Benedict's granddaughter who takes an intimate interest in Corwin.

Corwin gets his army and his arsenal, and travels back to Amber, only to find it under siege from the forces of Chaos.

The book starts out extremely strong by dialing things back to Corwin getting involved in a smaller-scale conflict. It helps his conscience grow more and gives the reader glimpses into his more tyrannical past. Ganelon did him wrong, but his punishment was enormously petty. The doomed relationship with the camp follower/seer Lorraine is also touching, and Corwin swinging his silver sword Grayswandir against weird goat-headed demons never gets old.

Then it slows down a lot after the reunion with Benedict. Dara is interesting and mysterious, but its mostly talking, then Corwin walking through shadows until he gets to a couple places he needs to go. Shadow walking is cool, but it doesn't need to be described in detail every single time.

Then it picks right back up again when Corwin and Ganelon leave Avalon and are chased by a righteously furious Benedict. Benedict is the Master of Arms of Amber, and even with an amputated hand, he's still the best swordsman in the family and Corwin is absolutely terrified of having to fight him. From there, its a rocket ride to the finish, where Corwin's feud with Eric takes an abrupt turn and Dara turns out to be more than just a granddaughter.

The prose remains solid, but I felt the middle of the book dragged itself down. However, the beginning and ending are as strong as anything in Nine Princes, maybe even more so with the climax. If you've read the first book, I recommend the second.

Appendix N Review: Nine Princes in Amber

A man wakes up in a hospital bed with his legs in a cast and he is repeatedly sedated. He has vague memories of a car accident and nothing else. Discovering his body has healed from whatever injury it sustained, he escapes from the private clinic and seeks out the only lead he has to rediscovering his identity, his sister in New York City.

He is Corwin, son of Oberon, and prince and heir to the fantastic city and kingdom known as Amber. Amber is the city at the heart of all reality, the greatest prize for any conqueror. As Corwin begins to remember his past, he also begins looking to the future. He is a Prince of Amber, and he will fight to claim his birthright.

This is the premise for Roger Zelazny's 1970 novel Nine Princes in Amber. Zelazny used to be a huge name in SF/F during the New Wave era. Winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards (back when that meant something) and was a longtime friend of current SF/F elder statesman George R. R. Martin. Zelazny was hugely talented and popular in his lifetime, but after his death in 1995, he dropped immediately from the public consciousness. In his hometown of Euclid, Ohio, the suburb of Cleveland I live in, he's effectively unknown.

That's a damn shame, because Zelazny is outstanding.

Without getting too deep into spoilers because here especially the journey is as important as the destination, Corwin (and the audience) discovers that he's part of a mostly-immortal dysfunctional family with powers that can affect and shape reality the further away from Amber they get. Each has their area of expertise. Julian is a master huntsman. Bleys is a tactician. Ransom is a rascally gambler. And so on and so on. They're all pretty much arrogant bastards, including Corwin himself before his amnesia, but Eric is the worst, and seizes the throne for himself, despite Corwin's best efforts.

Taken as a whole, the book is very much a product of the early 1970s. Dialogue is snappy and full of slang peppered with Shakespearean references while everyone who matters smokes cigarettes. Its Groovy for lack of a better descriptor.

There's a car ride through different realities that takes Corwin and Ransom to the outskirts of Amber. An undersea reflection of Amber called Rebma (get it?????) where Corwin reclaims his memories by walking the Pattern (a Magical/Mathematical Maze) and has a romantic interlude with its green-haired queen. There's a grand military campaign to take Amber from Eric that nearly ends in disaster multiple times (and with staggering casualties) that also nearly succeeds. There is a coronation sequence that displays Corwin at his most defiantly heroic before several years' tortuous imprisonment.

Its only 175 pages long, but it spans years and easily outpaces anything from A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of political intrigue, backstabbing family members, outrageous magic, swordfights, and grand conflict. The squabbles of the Princes of Amber are downright Olympian in their scope, and the prose flows beautifully off the pages.

The rulers of Amber are assholes, but they are magnificent ones, and Corwin, who was once one of the biggest assholes of the family, is given a fresh start and the hints of the beginning of a redemption arc for his character.

The only major nitpick I can put down is that they nameless, effectively faceless grunts that get recruited into Corwin's war are glossed over so much that its hard to feel anything about them dying in droves. They don't matter outside of Corwin occasionally feeling sympathy for their purpose in his ambitions.

Other than that, its a wildly imaginative, colorful, and trippy journey though space and time. Zelazny must have had access to the good acid. Absolutely recommended.