Roger Zelazny- Nine Princes in Amber 1970- Book Review

 Roger Zelazny-  Nine Princes in Amber 1970

This was my first time reading Zelazny, and this proved to be every bit of the essential classic that it is oft referred to as.  This would be up there with Jack Vance as far as formative Appendix N literature.  It introduces Corwin, and the city of Amber which is the setting and the main desire of Corwin and the other Princes who vie for control and make and break alliances in an attempt to gain control over Amber.  As stated I have not read any of the series before, so I am along for the ride as far as the big picture of the whole Amber series, but this first book is an easy quick read that really gets the series going and still maintains the qualities of a self contained story.  It begins with Corwin awakening on our Earth circa late 60s from an accident.  He cannot remember his princely heritage nor Amber, but he begins to reacquaint himself with his true nature and meets one of his fellow prince brothers.  They navigate the magical pathway back to Amber and find out the state of the other princes and their power struggles.  The crafty brother Eric has become leader of Amber, and Crowin assembles allies and a massive army to confront him.  There is a lack of heavy description in the battles and progression of the war that keeps the plot to a feverish pace and leaves the imagery up to the reader.  The description of the  magical Shadow, which one must pass through to reach Amber was vivid and eerie, as were the magical Trump cards, one with an image of each prince, that allows communication and teleportation among the princes.  These concepts clearly had a lot of impact on some of the fantastical elements of D&D.  I am excited to see how the remainder of this series plays out, it has a great sort of 70s vibe to it. There’s some lingo from that era embedded, and some social commentary of the period, for example Zelazny references radio DJs and their ability to enrapture teens in comparison to a magical effect that occurs in the story.  I also noticed and appreciated how fantasy of that era was more apt to connect the fantasy story and characters to the real world.  Much like early stories like Lost Horizons, there's a connection. The characters in the fantasy world come from our real known world, and you can actually get to the fantasy world from our world.  Maybe authors of earlier fiction felt a stronger sense to connect their characters to the real world for empathy to the reader, whereas now authors and readers are more willing to just immerse themselves in a separate fantasy world.  I‘m not sure if there’s any significance there, I do remember however that some of those early D&D games also had that concept, that the PCs were the actual players and the stats of those PCs were an approximation of the users personal stats and they were playing as if they personally were transported to a fantasy realm.  Certainly a cool concept and one that could be explored again at one's own gaming table.  In summation, I’m definitely late to the game on this one, Zelazny is one of the few Appendix N authors I never really investigated despite being a longtime fan of pulpy sword and sorcery fiction.  Perhaps I just never made it to Z at the used bookstore, but I am definitely thankful to have begun reading him later in life.  I look forward to the remainder of the series.