Nine Princes in Amber

An interesting but mixed bag. It's imaginative and unusual – I've not read anything quite like it – but it ultimately feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. The book is at its strongest in the first half, where, like the protagonist Corwin, we're fumbling to get to grips with the setting and stakes. Amber is an intriguing world and the magic is exciting, though it all feels a bit made up on the fly.

I struggled with the writing style the most. There are multiple layers of anachronism to contend with: the of-its-time voice of Corwin's narration, speaking of digging stuff and getting creamed; his relative antiquatedness when in the modern world; and his equally alien modernity when in the magical world. I'm sure there's a degree to which the use of slang and language is intended to be jarring, and sometimes it works in fun, pulpy way, but it often goes a few degrees beyond that, just leaving me a bit baffled as to the book's desired tone.

I admire Zelazny for gunning for an epic scale while briskly avoiding an epic page-count, but the snappy length comes at the expense of rounded characters and a defined world. I'm curious to read more Amber because I have so many unanswered questions, but if the writing style remains much the same, I'm not sure I'll be sold on the series.