Nine Princes in Amber (The Chronicles of Amber, Book 1)

Nine Princes in Amber (The Chronicles of Amber, Book 1)
Roger Zelazny, 1970

Premise: Our main character awakens with no knowledge of who he is or where he's from, but soon he's on his way to challenge his brothers for control of the one true city of Amber.

The Amber books have been on my radar for an incredibly long time, and I've had a giant omnibus on my shelf for quite a few years without cracking it open. I finally read the first one, and... I'm not sure how I feel. This book was intriguing, but I have a lot on my to-read list. 

I really liked the beginning (despite its cliches) because it introduced us to the world in a surreal way without a ton of exposition. I was fascinated by Corwin's blend of insecurity and surety as he tried to navigate by his instincts in a dangerous situation. 

But then he does some magic to get his (incredibly long) memory back, and all his powers, and... it was suddenly much less interesting to me. 

The world is potentially very cool. The almost-immortal royalty of Amber seem to have the ability to shape the rest of the multiverse to their whims, and some of the mechanisms for that are nicely trippy. It does sort of make all the main characters gods on page one, though.

I think this might be the kind of series that either really pays off at the end or doesn't. Because by the end of this installment, after a dragging series of battles in the middle which was mostly the god-brothers throwing thousands upon thousands of sentient creatures from "shadow realms" (just like, but not at this time including, Earth) to their violent deaths, I wasn't sure if I cared one bit about who rules in Amber. 

It was short, and, as I said, intriguing, but time will tell whether I dip back in to Amber to find out more. 

3 Stars - A Good Book