Started: March 27, 2021
Finished: April 21, 2021
This is the 4th book in the Chronicles of Amber series. For my reviews of the previous 3 books, see: Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon and Sign of the Unicorn.
I'm 4 books into the series now, so I'm going to dispense with general comments about the character or tone of these books. The tone and style of this series remains consistent, so it would be a repeat of things I already said in my - previous - reviews.
The only thing left to do is to just comment on the plot developments in this particular novel. So ***SPOILER ALERT***. Also, this might not might coherent sense to someone who's not read the book. You've been warned.
The Review
Plot Twists
This is the penultimate book in the series (*1), so this is the point in the series in which the plot twists start coming in. And there are a lot of plot twists in this book. Pretty much all of which caught me by surprise. (*2) Although after I finished the book, I went back and read the first few pages again, and upon re-reading, there is indeed plenty of foreshadowing the big twist at the end--that is, there is plenty of evidence that there is more to Ganelon than meets the eye.
Also, credit to Roger Zelazny for hiding a lot of the key plot points in throwaway lines early in the series. In the first book, when it was mentioned in an off-handed way that Random had a son in Rebma, I had no idea that it would turn into such a major plot point later in the series.
That being said, I'm not sure all of the plot twists entirely make sense. In this book, we now find out that Fiona is the one trying to protect Amber, and Brand is the one trying to destroy it--which was the opposite of the way things looked at the end of the previous book. But it also raises the question of why Fiona didn't tell Corwin everything at the time. Why didn't Fiona tell all of the family about Brand before they tried to rescue him? Who was she trying to hide the information from? Brand was the only one she was worried about, right? Why did she play coy and try blame the stabbing on Julian.
In the second book, the creatures refer to Corwin as "the opener", indicating that Corwin was responsible for the black circle. Now we find out that Brand is responsible. (To be fair, there is some sort of attempt to explain this away in the text--Corwin surmises that his curse was a secondary cause of the black road. But this revised explanation struck me as seeming like a retcon instead of something that was planned out from the beginning.)
I don't know... I'll have to wait to see how everything resolves itself in the last book before I make a final judgement.
Strange New Lands
The Chronicles of Amber series has always been a mix of Game-of-Thrones style scheming, backstabbing, and politicking, combined with journeys to really strange and trippy fantasy lands.
The really strange fantasy lands are a big appeal of the book, and yet, I often find Roger Zelazny's descriptions hard to absorb (a complaint I've been making throughout this whole series). This book was heavy on plot and relatively light on the strange new worlds. (Again, I think because it's the penultimate book, and there's a lot of plot reveals to get through.)
The only new land we see is The Courts of Chaos. It is, like all of the strange lands in this series, wonderfully imaginative. And yet, when the action shifted there, I was initially slightly frustrated, because it meant I had to slow down the pace at which I was reading, and really concentrate on Zelazny's descriptions in order to visualize the place. (*3)
(During the plot heavy sections of the book, I had been making a pretty good pace, but I find during the travelling-to-strange-lands sections, I really have to adjust my level of concentration, and focus a lot more in on deciphering the exact meaning of the sentences. I realize I'm describing my personal limitations as a reader, but nevertheless it's an adjustment I have to make as I read which does interfere with using these books purely as relaxation.)
There was also at the beginning of Chapter 10 a 3-page description of Corwin travelling through shadow.
The travelling-through-shadow sections are a standard part of this series. The characters are able to gradually shift elements of the reality around them as a way of travelling through parallel universes. It's all done in Zelazny's rather vague and minimalist prose, which I find hard to concentrate on for much more than a paragraph at a time--3 pages is pushing it. To quote from a small section of these 3 pages:
Downward. ... The land drops away at either hand....Darkness below. ... Moving along the top an infinitely high, curved, wall, the way itself bright with moonlight.... The trail buckles, folds, grows transparent.... Soon it drifts, gauzy, filamentous, stars beneath as well as above.... Stars below on either side.... There is no land.... There is only the night, night and the thin translucent trail I had to try to ride, to learn how it felt, against some future use.... (From the beginning of Chapter X, pages 592-593 in my edition, ellipses in the original)
These "travelling-through-shadow" sections are a staple of the series (at least one or two of these sections has popped up in every book so far). So on the one hand, it didn't at all surprise me to see it again in book four.
But on the other hand, part of me feels that by book 4 it's already been established what travelling through shadow is like. Couldn't we start skipping these descriptions now?
The Catch-Up
The beginning of chapter 2 (pages 506-513) was just the main character summarizing all the important plot developments that had happened in the story so far, presumably to catch the reader up on all the important information they need to remember.
I was a bit surprised to see this here, because the previous books have never worried to much about catching the reader up. But maybe by book 4, Zelazny (or his publishers) thought the reader could use a refresher.
Spoilers On the Cover Art
For my started post, I spent some time searching Google Images to try to find the most visually interesting representation of this book. (In the 40 years since it's been published, it's apparently been through numerous editions, because there are a lot of different cover art choices on Google.)
Eventually I decided on this image , which is the cover art for the audiobook CD--(A):
I initially didn't even notice the small text in the picture, but once I did notice it, I realized it was a major spoiler:
Brand, renegade prince of Amber, now controls the Jewel of Judgement, and must be stopped before he can reshape the universe to his whim.At the end of the previous book, Brand appeared to be one of the good guys. Going in to this book, I had no idea that Brand would become the antagonist. Or that he would get the Jewel of Judgement. Or that he wanted to reshape the universe.
I know, I know, it's my own fault for searching around on the Internet for media related to this book. If you want to avoid spoilers, best to stay off the Internet completely.
But still... this is the cover art for the audiobook. You don't expect to see major spoilers on the cover, do you? I mean, if someone buys the audiobook, this is the first thing they see before they even start listening to the story.
In fact, the plot twist that Brand was going to be the antagonist didn't happen until after the halfway point. And the revelation that he had the Jewel of Judgement didn't come till near the end of the book. So it's spoiling some major reveals that are supposed to be kept in suspense until the end.
Fortunately, this is only one of many plot twists in this book, so there were still plenty of other plot developments to keep me on my toes even with this part spoiled.
On to Book 5
I can't wait to see how this all concludes. On to the fifth and final book next!
Footnotes (docs, pub)
(*1) the penultimate book in the series: by "series" here I mean the first story in the Chronicles of Amber--the Corwin Cycle. I'm not counting the sequel series here.
(*2) on the plot twists catching me by surprise: Although plot twists usually catch me by surprise, partly because I'm a passive reader who rarely tries to guess where the plot is going. I had a friend in high school who was always hyper-analytical of all the movies he watched or stories he read, and who was great at not only spotting plot holes, but also spotting plot twists before they happened. That was never me though. I usually just let the story carry me along without thinking too much about it, and then I'm always surprised when the plot twists come.
(*3) On having trouble focusing on the strange new lands: I suppose I should quote an excerpt to give a flavor.
Where? The senses are such uncertain things, and now mine were strained beyond their limits. The rock on which I stood... If I attempted to fix my gaze upon it, it took on the aspect of a pavement on a hot afternoon. It seemed to shift and waver, though my footing was undisturbed. And it was undecided as to the portion of the spectrum it might call home. It pulsated and flashed like the skin of an iguana. Looking upward, I beheld a sky such as I had never before set eyes upon. At the moment, it was split down the middle-half of it of deepest night-black, and the stars danced within it. When I say danced, I do not mean twinkled; they cavorted and they shifted magnitudes; they darted and they circled; they flared to nova brilliance, then faded to nothing. It was a frightening spectacle to behold, and my stomach tightened within me as I experienced a profound acrophobia. Yet, shifting my gaze did little to improve the situation. The other half of the sky was like a bottle of colored sands, continuously shaken; belts of orange, yellow, red, blue, brown, and purple turned and twisted; patches of green, mauve, gray,
and dead white came and went, sometimes snaking into belthood, replacing or joining the other writhing entities. And these, too, shimmered and wavered, creating impossible sensations of distance and nearness. At times, some or all seemed literally sky-high, and then again they came to fill the air before me, gauzy, transparent mists, translucent swaths or solid tentacles of color. It was not until later that I realized that the line which separated the black from the color was advancing slowly from my right while retreating to my left. It was as if the entire celestial mandala were rotating about a point directly overhead. As to the light source of the brighter half, it simply could not be determined. Standing there, I looked down upon what at first seemed a valley filled with countless explosions of color; but when the advancing darkness faced this display away the stars danced and burned within its depths as well as above, giving them the impression of a bottomless chasm.
From the beginning of chapter 6, page 551 in my edition.
Weekly Reading Vlogs:
March 28, 2021 The Hand of Oberon p.512-536
April 4, 2021 The Hand of Oberon p.536-540
April 11, 2021 The Hand of Oberon p.540-580
April 18, 2021 The Hand of Oberon p.580-614
April 25, 2021 The Hand of Oberon p.614-640 (finished) started second reading
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
Video Review HERE and embedded below.
...yet another video in which I ramble on too long and get abruptly cut off by the automatic 30 minute time limit on my camera. Sorry about the abrupt ending.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - One Human Language
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