{"id":217,"date":"2008-12-17T03:57:03","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T03:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=217"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:22:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:22:57","slug":"nine-princes-in-amber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"Nine Princes in Amber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine Princes in Amber<\/em> by Roger Zelazny<\/h3>\n

Thirteen people attended this meeting at A. T.\u2019s home, including one first time visitor. Our topic was Nine Princes in Amber<\/em>, the classic fantasy adventure by Roger Zelazny. All of us had read Zelazny before. Four were reading this book for the first time, and most of the rest had initially read it many years ago.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s clever narrative hook (a man waking up with no memory in a hospital) worked well for most of us. That got us reading, and Zelazny\u2019s clever storytelling got many of us through this relatively short book rather quickly.<\/p>\n

Many of us thought the book was a good swashbuckler. We liked the dysfunctional royal family with superpowers. We thought the complicated magic system was interesting, and particularly liked interdimensional travel through playing cards.<\/p>\n

One reader had mixed feelings about the book. He thought there were flashes of good writing and action. He felt that hardboiled\/noir fiction was an influence on the storytelling. He appreciated that the book does not follow standard fantasy templates. He felt all the characters were arrogant and selfish, with the protagonist, Corwin, only slightly less so than his siblings. This reader felt the book\u2019s ending was disappointing, since Corwin doesn\u2019t really accomplish any of his goals, other than staying alive and escaping.<\/p>\n

Some remembered the book fondly, but did not think the book wore well upon rereading. One person did not like the book\u2019s depiction of women as \u201chelpless sisterly things,\u201d and would prefer a modern version where \u201cwomen kicked butt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of us had such fond memories about the book that we found it hard to discuss critically. One had read the novel many times and just found it to be a \u201cripping yarn\u201d.\u00a0 This book was another\u2019s first Zelazny novel; he\u2019d enjoyed it so much that he later read most of the author\u2019s work and became a big Zelazny fan. He enjoyed Zelazny\u2019s imagination, terse storytelling, and use of words. He particularly enjoyed reading Zelazny\u2019s descriptions of Corwin\u2019s transitions between worlds.<\/p>\n

A few people just did not enjoy the book. They felt the book was just a bunch of pointing fighting and running around the countryside, and did not like the main character.<\/p>\n

Several of us noted that this book was clearly an influence on current writers, particularly Charles Stross in his Merchant Princes series.
\nNear the end, several people suggested who we might cast as Corwin in a movie adaptation. Suggestions included Michael Caine, Humphrey Bogart, Clive Owen, Patrick McGoohan, and Sean Connery.<\/p>\n

Overall we generally liked the book, and were glad to read another classic in our group. After the meeting, several of us had a nice dinner at Opal Divine\u2019s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

— A.T. Campbell, III<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny Thirteen people attended this meeting at A. T.\u2019s home, including one first time visitor. Our topic was Nine Princes in Amber, the classic fantasy adventure by Roger Zelazny. All of us had read Zelazny before. Four were reading this book for the first time, and most of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}