Kicking it Old School: The Guns of Avalon

Welcome to Kicking it Old School, your go-to spot for reviews of old-ass Sci-Fi and Fantasy books from the days of yore.  For my purposes, anything written before I could read, the year 1986, is considered "Old School". This is the latest in my Kicking it Old School series of reviews.  

I know I've been slipping lately, the blog hasn't been receiving as many updates as it should, and while all areas of the blog have suffered a bit, the Kicking it Old School feature has been sidelined for over a month, which is a god damned travesty. 

Though my posting regularity has slipped up, my reading hasn't. So when I found myself craving and oldie-but-a-goodie to read for this feature, I found myself drawn back to the world of Amber, and the adventures of Corwin of House Amber.  

For a quick recap: The throne of Amber, long sat upon by Oberon, the father of Corwin, and a bunch of other siblings, has been mysteriously vacated for centuries. While the old man is AWOL, the kids have been fighting over the rule of Amber.  Amber is the one true world, and all other worlds, there appears to be an infinite amount of them, (ours included) are mere shadows of Amber.  As things currently stand, Corwin's bro, Eric, an epic prick from what I've seen of him so far, is the big dog, and has taken the throne of Amber through sheer force of will and martial strength.  When we last saw Corwin, our "Hero", and narrator of these tales, he had failed in an attempt to seize Amber from Eric, and been blinded and chucked in a deep dark dungeon by Eric for the effort.  

Well, it is tough to keep a true son of Amber down. While imprisoned, and healing from his wounds, Corwin meets the long imprisoned, and widely regarded as hella-crazy court wizard Dworkin.  Dworkin works some magics and frees Corwin who instantly begins his plans to make another attempt at claiming the throne of Amber for his own.  The plan is to gather a substance called Jeweler's Rouge, which can be used as gunpowder in Amber, to create an army of gun-toting troops to take over Amber.  

Corwin's journey leads him to Lorraine where he meets up with an his former right-hand man, Ganelon, who appears to have no memory of Corwin.  The two dudes rekindle their long-lost bro ties and join forces to repel a horde of demonic creatures who have been threatening Ganelon's realm.  It turns out these dark forces come from the Courts of Chaos, a place that is, from what I can ascertain, the antithesis of Amber.  

Corwin and Ganelon defeat this dark force, and journey to Avalon where they discover more forces from Chaos. This time around, the forces have already been defeated by one of Corwin's brothers, Benedict.  Benedict lost his arm in the conflict, and while he leads his troops in a mopping up of the enemy, he sends Corwin off to his home to await his return.  

While there, Corwin meets, and sexes up Dara, a young woman claiming to be Benedict's great grand-daughter...kinda gross.  Thanks to her bloodline, Dara is anxious to learn about the pattern of Amber, which will allow her to travel through shadow.  Corwin tells her all about it in return for information. He then gathers his much needed Jeweler's Rouge and heads off to fuck shit up in Amber.  However, when he arrives on the scene, things aren't as he anticipated, and Dara has a surprising role to play in how things shake out.  

Whew, epic plot break-down...

As you can see, The Guns of Avalon is one busy little book, as a lot of things happen in the course of 213 pages.  It felt to me like this is a big set-up book as Zelazny introduces a major threat to Amber, and delivers some interesting twists that appear to have pretty severe ramifications down the road.  I was always a little bored with Corwin's quest to become the ruler of Amber, as I'm not totally convinced he's the right guy for the job.  Even though he is the "hero" of these books, and the narrator of the events, I can't really say I'm a huge fan of the guy.  He's basically an entitled prick...which makes him hard guy to root for.  His squabbles and sibling rivalries seem kinda trivial, however he's very willing to essentially commit genocide in order get what he wants.  The qualities of a Grade-A dick.  

Regardless of how I feel about Corwin, I'm glad the focus appears to be shifting away from Corwin's quest towards something more interesting. 

I get the sense all of this business with Corwin and his personality was deliberate on the part of Zelazny, sort of a "be careful what you wish for" type warning, as Corwin's actions certainly appear to have firmly backfired right in his face. It will be very interesting to see how things play out from here on out.  

Overall, I was quite impressed with The Guns of Avalon.  Zelazny has essentially created a fantasy multiverse where anything can go.  Want demonic goat-headed beasts? Machine gun wielding armies? Tarot card teleportation?  Yup, this series has it all.  It is a crazy, mixed up world that Zelazny has chosen to play around in and he has set things up to be incredibly unpredictable.  So far I really enjoy this unpredictability, and the fact that it leaves the door open to basically all types of craziness.

After reading The Guns of Avalon I'm further convinced that this is a series that should be on everyone fantasy reader's radar.  Zelazny is one creative and inventive writer, and I've been very impressed with the variety of cool and unique fantasy ideas he comes up with.  Needless to say, I am on board for more, and will be sure to get my old-school fix from this series before too long.  

Grade: 9 Cassette Singles

Kicking it Old School: Nine Princes in Amber

Welcome to Kicking it Old School, your go-to spot for reviews of old-ass Sci-Fi and Fantasy books from the days of yore.  For my purposes, anything written before I could read, the year 1986, is considered "Old School". This is the latest in my Kicking it Old School series of reviews.  


Up for review this time I've got the first in Roger Zelazny's epic Amber series, Nine Princes in Amber.

Maybe it's because he's well respected, or maybe it's because he's like, always the last name you see on the fantasy shelf at the bookstores, but Zelazny has always been on my radar, and I've always been intrigued by his Amber series.  A big turnoff for me though, is the sheer SIZE of the collected omnibus edition, which is practically the size of a phone book.

It wasn't until I moved to Seattle, the land of great used bookstores, that I discovered all the small pocket sized individual volumes that make up that great, epic sized Amber omnibus. There's ten dime sized books that make up the one ginormous omnibus, and they all have sweet old school cover art.  I saw them and knew I had to have them all.  The trouble was tracking down all ten, as each book store never had a complete set.  However, being the book bounty hunter that I am, I eventually completed the set.

Anyway, Nine Princes in Amber is where the whole dealie starts.  Right off the bat we meet Corwin, a guy who wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how he got there, or who he is.  However, from his narration of events, it is plain to see that there's something special about him.  Corwin seems to possess some supernatural healing abilities, and before too long he's making a daring escape from the hospital, and tracking down a woman who may know who he is.  Before too long, alongside Corwin, we discover some tid-bits about his past, who he is, and where he's from...which turns out to be a place called Amber, a parallel universe to our own, which is the one true universe.

Also, while investigating his own past, Corwin discovers a special tarot-like deck of cards, called the Trumps, which feature fully rendered paintings of his siblings, about whom details rush back into Corwin's head as he inspects the deck. As it turns out he and his eight other brothers are all princes of Amber, and they've all been struggling for the throne of that realm for quite some time.  Corwin's major injury and exile to our Earth were the result of an ill fated encounter with one of the other Princes.  Corwin hopes to return to Amber and make a push for the throne, but in order to do so, he needs the help of at least one of his many untrustworthy brothers.

I gotta say, I was pretty damn impressed with this one.  Zelazny is a pretty slick writer, as he describes both the mundane and fantastic well.  There's a lot of really cool fantasy elements at play here, mystical beasts, and underwater world, magical jewels, and more but for me the coolest of them all was the Trumps.  With the Trumps, the princes and their sisters can communicate with one another, attempt to force their will on, or control the mind of another, and also travel to where someone else is.  All these elements make the trumps an interesting and potentially dangerous element, and Zelazny uses that element of danger well.

As far as characters go, Zelazny does a pretty solid job.  Not every family member is introduced, but he gives the reader a sense of what each person is like, and how they factor into the strange family struggle for the throne.  While reading this, my gripe with the character development was that, outside of the nine princes and four princesses, the world/worlds, seemed pretty devoid of people.  Anyone else who gets mentioned is just sorta an empty husk that serves is basically an extra. There's random doctors, nurses, guards, soldiers, and what have you, but they don't seem all that real in comparison.  This serves to make Amber kinda feel like it's an empty place that is really beautiful that the family squabbles over.

However, looking back, I've realized that maybe I've just read too much epic fantasy, where practically every person, no matter how big or how small, gets a name and some character development.  That's probably not what Zelazny is trying to do here. It appears that the focus will stay on the various family members and their internal struggle.  Which, I guess is fine by me, since there seems to be some interesting folk in this family.  At the very least, the series will challenge my modern fantasy reading tendencies.

With the first of ten books under my belt, I can say that as far as opening salvos go, Nine Princes in Amber is a promising first volume.  It does the job of introducing the reader to the world, introducing characters, and giving some hints at future events so that the reader gets hooked for more, all while delivering some great fantasy elements, and some sweet sword fightin'.  Definitely worth a read.

Grade: 8.5 Reebok Pumps