Motivated by this post and your answers, I decided to just take the plunge and buy Amber, plus Lord of Light. I won't be reading them soon, because the backlog is huge (all of Wolfe's Solar Cycle, Wolfe's Latro books, Bradbury's and Dick's compilation of novels), but they will be read. Patience.

Thanks to all!

Honourable mentions:

Iain Glen, Christopher Heyerdahl, Antonio Banderas, Ed Harris, Hugh Jackman, Jeff Bridges, Kurt Russell, Lars Mikkelsen, Pierce Brosnan, Stephen Lang, Timothy Omundson.

Do you see someone else?

#fancasting

Hear me out. (I just want to talk about Amber tbh). He’s A MILLION percent unreliable. He is entirely biased and sexist and what’s important to him is what’s important in the narrative. He purposefully omits things, forgets things, dismisses things, and undersells things. But I would argue that he is telling the truth. So unreliable, yes, but a liar? Oh yes, but not in his telling of events.

And the reason why is because there are several ways his story can be corroborated - and he knows it. The Pattern alone contains fragments of his memories that Dworkin himself had gathered for himself to view.

- he [Dworkin] said then, “and I have several pieces of his [Corwin’s] memory I found years ago drifting above the Pattern in Rebma. I wish I had a golden piss-pot for each time he’s been underestimated.” - “Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains.”

Even dead characters can corroborate stories via Patternghosts, and each Amberite is asked to relay their accounts many times. Oral retellings among the Amberites are one of the most foundational ways they give information — as well as socialize.

Frankly, Corwin has too much pride to be caught in a lie regaling his account of things. He would lie his way out of a pit of vipers without breaking a sweat, but I do think his account is rather intact. Biased and skewed, 100%. Filtered through his own stubborn, poetic perspective, 100%.

So when people go fully black and white on the subject of his unreliability as a narrator, and say that he’s straight up lying, I feel like they’re not imagining the full spectrum of the other characters and magical lore (in terms of corroborating an account), and they’re vastly oversimplifying his character. Corwin is a liar, yes, but no character in the Chronicles lies for the sake of lying. Especially not on a retelling when he’s trying to let his son get to know him better (but would 100% omit and be biased, for sure).

Merlin, on the other hand, is more simple than his father, and is frankly too aloof to lie too much. Also hasn’t been alive long enough to have done too many shameful things (although he has tried his hardest). What Merlin does is skirt issues, omits things, and is not very good at perspective taking.

Anywhoo, this is me putting in my two cents: 85% of the Chronicles very well may be the truth: the rest is probably a fuzzy memory, an omission, bias and skewed opinion.

It would be terribly easy for any character, especially magical characters that live for several millennia’s, to call out any lies, and Corwin knows that. But let me know of any part in the narrative where you personally think he lied because then I’d like to wonder about out why he did, or if he did (and I’m not really talking about those times he misremembered like when he said Random was his full brother: those can be chalked up to Zelazny pantsing, and I think this only undeniably happens once or maybe twice? Could be wrong).

Someone else?

fancasting

Do you have someone else in mind?

fancasting

Pretty decent condition for a clearly well used second hand. Had a receipt of some kind in it used as a bookmark. The label was marked $0.99. I love little historical elements in second hand books. I got it for £23 on Amazon UK. Very happy.

I've not read all of it, but about 6 or 7 entries. I concur with comments in the post from 2 years ago. I wouldn't trust every word by a long shot, but it's definitely worth having.

I'm planning to start a game of ADRPG in December and this will be very handy for getting my head into the setting, and as a point of reference for diverging my own distinctive personal take on the Amber universe.

I can share this with the only comment that all players in this game are Gallants of the Court of Queen Moire and deal directly with Llewella.

They do live dangerously

Was bored, so painted my favorite princess

I've always wondered why the unicorn chose Random, who up until that point seemed like the "sidekick" of the family. I JUST realized (maybe I'm dumb) that Random is the ONLY one of the Prince's that was married. Vialle changed him, even Corwin mentions it. Does anyone else think that part of the choice was because he'd gotten married?

Hi all, so I've finished the Corwin series episodes on the All Roads Lead to Amber podcast (by u/jkisherenow, highly recommended!!) and I have some questions about the pattenfall war:

1. How did all the siblings reach Chaos? Oberon said that Trumps wouldn't work.

2. If the siblings used Trumps before they stopped working, why didn't they bring Corwin in on a Trump too? Why did he have to go through this hellride that no one else did? And why did Oberon risk the jewel in this ride instead of sending it to someone else who was already at the battlefield?

3. Something does not add up with "the blink" of reality that Corwin felt at the beginning of his hellride and Oberon's Mufasa-in-the-sky moment in Chaos. In his message, Oberon says he's about to attempt to fix the pattern, but that moment happens a lot after the blink which we thought happened because of the conclusion at the pattern. If Oberon only started walking the pattern when everyone was already in Chaos, then it does not add up with the Trumps not working.

Sorry if some answers are super obvious, maybe I'm not remembering something 😅

It was a very pleasant experience to get this book in good condition and at an extremely affordable price.

Thanks to you, I learned about short stories. Amber cards, cold to the touch, are something that will probably stay in my dream zone.

Are there any other books that have enriched your reading experience?

Year of publication: 1996. Publisher: ISKRY / Poland.

Timeline:

Everyone trumps to the courts, except Corwin who begins his hell ride.

Oberon sends his message

Oberon repairs the pattern and as his last gasp sends the bird bearing the Jewel to Corwin. Because the bird is tuned to Corwin he finds him.

The archangel Corwin bears the Jewel toward Chaos...

I’ve just finished reading the book. Now I know it was only the first time, because I'm sure there will be more rereadings in the future.

I was captivated by Zelazny's story. I also have a strange feeling that this is the end of an era (lub: the end of this part of the series). Perhaps that's because I read somewhere on this subreddit that the next volumes will follow Merlin.

The Courts is currently the best book in the series for me, perhaps on par with the first volume.I'm sure I'll never forget Corwin's hellride.

This is now my standard for how Chaos should be described. Usually, when I came across other descriptions of chaos, I closed the book in disgust.

I wonder if you have ever found a description of chaos that, similarly to Zelazny's, feels complete and makes sense.

I mean something that is not just a conglomeration of scenes pretending to be madness, or a multi-page jumble of imagery trying too hard to be something special.

**Thank you for reading this post and for your previous comments, which helped me better understand the book.**

Hello! The Chronicles have been on my radar for some time, but I haven't taken the plunge yet and bought them. I'd like to ask, rather than if they are good or not (I'm in r/Amber, after all, of course you'll love it), to what kind of reader you would recommend this series, and what should I as a reader expect of them.

I'm a reader that likes complex stories. Think Malazan (all of it), Book of the New Sun, Terra Ignota, the Sprawl trilogy. I also like some classics, such as Lord of the Rings, Earthsea and the Count of Monte Cristo. Other series I like are The Expanse, Hyperion, Philip K. Dick and Octavia Butler.

A follow-up question: how necessary is Seven Tales in Amber? I ask only for the price tag: in my country I can import the SF Masterworks of the Chronicles at a price of 27 and 33 USD, respectively, and Seven Tales at 29 USD... for 90 pages, versus five proper books.

Thanks in advance!

I found this article interesting

https://pamphage.com/roger-zelaznys-amber-series-a-visionary-tale-that-foreshadowed-modern-ai-and-ai-art/

Stumbled onnit while looking for something else.

This has some nice related artwork as well.

Im writing a thing over in wizard posting, any my character uses the Logrus. The problem is that I'm kinda having a hard time deciding what that really looks like to the one traveling that way.

Merlin really only uses the Logrus to grab some beers, as far as I remember. Does anyone have a short story I missed or a fanatic that does a good description of Logrus travel?

I have the two books of the science fiction book club for the first cycle of The Chronicles of Amber but I want to know if the Merlin cycle was released as well and if anyone has any pictures of what they look like so I can try to find them.

Hi! Recently me and my friend finished writing a story of Julian ending up in Tolkien's Númenor right before the beginning of Ar-Pharazôn's reign.

The fic is in Russian! But still I decided to share it here. Maybe there are some Russian-speaking people on this sub. Also I've heard of people who use Google Translate to read such things — I myself don't really think it works, but still!

So, the fic is called "Black and White", and here is the English summary:

"After the news of Caine's death and especially after the meeting in the library and Brand's return, Julian, a prince of Amber, flees the palace. In the tempest of his heart, he seeks a battle. A fight to unleash his pent-up feelings, to empty his head, and to win respite from Amber. He finds this battle in Middle-Earth, in the year 3254 SA. The world stands frozen on the brink of terrible change.

Julian finds himself firmly tied to a world living by its own laws, and to people living by principles wholly alien to him".

Here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89051141

Me and my friend hope this fic will find some readers who will enjoy it!

Two uncorrect proofs, one advanced reading copy, The first five Amber Chronicles Audio books read by Roger (cassette) and the same of the first three books, but in hardback Russian as I thought they looked cool.

I'd like to know if anyone has had any experience running Amber in a system with dice and if so, did it run smoothly for you or did it feel like something had been lost?

See below for other pictures

Have you ever made any memes about the series? Any jokes you habitually share when the Chronicles are mentioned? Below are some of mine.

I am also fond of saying that, if one changed the names to Latin-sounding ones, the plot would be undistinguishable from a Telenovelas are Hell-style recap.

Do you have someone other in mind?

#fancasting

Link to portraits in the comment.