I just finished reading (for the first time in more than a decade) The Chronicles of Amber, a fantasy series written by Roger Zelazny. The first book, Nine Princes in Amber, was written in 1970, and the tenth and final, Prince of Chaos, in 1991. In the books, Amber is a real place and everything else (including the earth we know) is a “shadow” of Amber, of which there are an infinite number and variety. The royal family of Amber is able to travel through these shadows. The royal family is also largely dysfunctional, conniving, and murderous.
The first five books are told from the point of view of Corwin, who awakens in a hospital in England, realizes he’s being unnecessarily drugged, escapes, but doesn’t know who he is. This is a gem of a series - very clever and inventive, with satisfying character growth and lots of intrigue. Very enjoyable and highly recommended.
The second five books are told from the point of view of Merlin, Corwin’s son. These are much more flawed. The main issues I had with them are:
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The magic in the Corwin books is pretty limited (though really interesting), and so Corwin has to solve his problems by figuring out clever solutions and working with people. In the Merlin books, all sorts of magic is available, and Merlin uses it liberally, which often feels contrived.
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Corwin is a seasoned veteran, suspicious of most everyone, and that’s reasonably satisfying in a main character. Merlin is significantly younger, and so it makes sense that Zelazny draws him as much more naive and easily manipulated, but those are frustrating qualities in a main character.
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It almost felt like Zelazny just wanted to get through the story. There are characters who pop up to move the plot along, and then are never heard from again. Characters who spent their lives doing one thing suddenly have a change of heart.
The books are all fairly short - just barely long enough to qualify as novels, not novellas - so the time investment for each is small. If you read the first five and enjoy them, it’s worth reading the rest to see how things turn out. They’re honestly entertaining enough, just not to the level of the first five.
Yeah, I was at 71 or 72 books in 2025. 16 books so far this year.
I like the Mielville books, but I have to space them out because they’re often kind of soul crushing. Tchaikovsky is my favorite contemporary for sure. I made a post about him a while back. I haven’t read Strife yet, but I’ve read an awful lot of his other works. He’s honestly brilliant, though some of his books seem like he spent a lot more energy on them than others.
I used to prefer physical books, but started with ebooks when I was traveling for work and didn’t want to deal with the weight and mass. Two things have made me a convert. One is that I love, love, love being able to long-press on a word and have the dictionary come up. The other is that I like reading in bed before sleeping with the lights off and the screen in dark mode. With physical books I have to have a light on, and it’s much less conducive to sleeping.
Yep both of those great reasons for e-books. And yes AT has been my favorite contemporary author for the last few years, just discovered Mielville in 2025 and been absolutely blown away by the prose and scope of his works. Embassytown still impacts my thinking and haunts me daily.
I started reading AT’s Final Architecture after I read The Expanse for the second time about 5 years ago and that was my first foray into his work. He’s so damn prolific and wide ranging. I still prefer FA and Dogs of War series to Children of Time, but that may be me pushing against the popularity of it.
Shroud, Cage of Souls, Doors of Eden are my favorite novels and novellas Ogres…spacing out the 2 or 3 that really stand out. He’s an international treasure for sure.
I think Children of time was the first thing of his that I read. I had fleshed out my reading list by adding all of the Hugo and Nebula nominees that sounded interesting to me, but I didn’t know anything else about it. I was blown away and devoured the series. I think it’s one of the all-time great SF series. I read Dogs of War recently, and liked it very well. Shroud is amazing. His fantasy stuff is pretty great, too.
Children of Time is how a multitude of people discovered AT and I’m stoked for that. He deserves the praise and accolades without question. I read it after Final Architecture and just kept going, looking for the next book by him. It can be a multi year endeavor to read his entire catalogue.
The only one that didn’t grab me was the first book of Tyrant Philosopher series so I dnf’d. I’ll comeback to it one day.
The other novellas I adore are The Hungry Gods and Elder Race.
Good reading and chatting my friend. Oh and my absolute favorite thing about e-books is being able to peruse the library and finding something instantaneously to read. Amazing.