Book Thoughts: Amber 1-5
I wanted to switch it up for my next audiobook and tried to delve into some older fantasy. I remembered really enjoying "The Lord of Light" at some point in the last 2 decades, and pivoting off those vague positive memories grabbed the entire Amber series by the same author (Rodger Zelazny).
So far I've gotten through the first 5 books which covers the complete story of one protagonist. I figured I'd write my thoughts this far before continuing as it's a good breaking point.
Books 1-5 were penned in the 70s, and boy do they show it. The main character (Corwin) is written in that stupid hard-boiled-smartass archetype that permeates a lot of detective novels and old-school fantasy/sci-fi. A personality constructed primarily of wise-cracks, cigarettes, and blatant disregard for one's own safety. The kind who attract trouble like they attract fantasy women. Perhaps this was a new innovation in the 70's, but you could see every stupid remark coming from a mile away.
The blatant and frequent misogyny was another great 70's throwback that marred the titles for me. It's just not something you expect nowadays -- least of all from your protagonist. One scene sees him literally slapping his girlfriend for telling him about a dream she had. Then she cries and he goes along his business. This isn't some flaw to overcome or some kind of message from the author; just machismo.
"But these fabled Amber books inspired so many modern fantasy authors; surely there's some treasure to be had here, right?"
Well for one the premise is a bit neat. Here is a fantasy world in which our earth is merely a shadow cast by the "real" city of Amber. A city housing a royal family of cunning, plotting narcissists that can travel through said shadows to find any alternate universe they want -- yet they battle for control of the throne in the one and only true Amber.
Honestly the family politics and "magic" in the series was pretty good. Each of the brothers felt distinct (the sisters had next to zero distinguishing features or depth), and while the author played it pretty fast and loose with magic nothing felt too out of place. Zelazney set up some great reveals and the books move at a breakneck pace. Why write exposition when we can just go from zero-to-faithful-army in three pages?
It's refreshing and light, but can most definitely be disorienting at times. The fast-and-looseness definitely also leads to levels of deus ex machina that should make a modern author blush (by the way I have a magical sword I didn't mention till now). As long as the entire ordeal isn't being taken too seriously it was mostly good fun. Again, blatant 70's sexism aside.
What makes the mess decently good is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. It lets itself be handwavy or silly very frequently, the pacing is all over the place, half the characters are less than one-dimensional, there's plot/world-building holes you could drive a car through -- but much like a slightly drunk one-off D&D session with a very generous GM it's fun and has enough intrigue and random unexpected deep / introspective moments to get into it.
It wasn't great, and I don't know what parts of it were inspiring to the next generation of fantasy authors, but it wasn't terrible. We'll see where things go in the second half.