If you were, like me, a haunter of the science fiction and fantasy shelves of used bookstores in the 1980s, Roger Zelazny and his Amber novels were a frequent resident of his shelves, though I never took the final step of pulling it down and asking my mother to buy this one or that one for me (she would have if I asked, but I always made other choices).
When poor old Borders was going out of business, I often looked at the Great Book of Amber, a collection of, shall we say, the ten canonical Amber novels. But I always waited for the prices to go down just a little bit more and when they did finally go down ‘enough,’ the copies were gone.
C’est la vie.
And it all worked out anyway, because I saw a used copy for ten dollars at trusty old Capitol Hill Books.
The first book, Nine Princes in Amber, breezed by quickly and pleasurably, so much so that I was about a quarter of the way into the second book before I stopped to ask where I was.
The hero, Corwin, is definitely a post-Michael Moorcock, specifically, a post-Elric, hero. Elric was conceived as a sort of a fantasy new wave version of the redoubtable Conan. The difference is not in intelligence (Conan was written as an intelligent and well-read character) nor in moral ambiguity (Conan rarely acted in a truly heroic manner, except in some of the stories where he has become a king), but rather in introspection and retrospection, something Conan was not known for. But Elric – and Corwin – frequently ponder their current ideas and ideals and their past actions.
But, onto the book itself…
The opening is blockbuster. Really great. Fantastic. A brilliant, noirish nailbiter. Naturally, the rest of the book cannot live up to it.
Corwin awakens in a hospital room, where he is both recovering from an accident (car accident, as it turns out) and being held against his will. And he has little or no memory, including his own name. The tale of how he escapes, which is partly by the threat of physical violence, but mostly by bluffing his way around his memory loss to hide it from those encounters, is great. Clearly, he is someone important and clearly part of some conflict or conspiracy or… something. It’s written from the first person perspective, so we learn who he is (one of the nine Princes of Amber referenced in the title, in case you hadn’t guessed), but by the time we’ve learned everything important there is to know, well, it’s become a much more prosaic (though still very, very good) fantasy novel.
One cool thing: Corwin’s sword is called Grayswandir – surely a reference Graywand, as Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser’s inimitable companion in crime and adventure, always names his broadsword.
And, again, I find myself committed to some multi-volume fantasy series. I’ll be dead before I finish all these, I fear.
The Onion asked, ‘Where to start with fantasy overlord Michael Moorcock?‘
The unsurprising answer were his Elric stories.
As a youthful fantasy nerd, Elric was one of the shibboleths used by my fellow travelers. To be totally honest, I actually discovered him because he was written up in a 1st edition Dungeone & Dragons rulebook entitled Deities & Demigods. But that was how things were done. In the absence of the internet, such things seeped into the brain by different means.
And, in the mid eighties through the early nineties (roughly my Moorcock period), those books were damn hard to find. Naturally, once I’d succeeded in tracking down the books, one at at time (mostly from used bookstores), they became popular and were reasonably widely published.
That’s one of the things that rarely gets mentioned when talking about liking something before it was cool. Before something is cool, you can’t freaking find it. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle when you have to buy pieces one at a time. And you’re buying the pieces from guys who like they live in their moms’ basements and you try to not ask yourself if that’s your future, too.
I haven’t read the Elric stories for a long time and one wonders what it would be like to read a deliberate attempt to read a Conan novel written for a David Bowie, counter-culture world – which is pretty much what we’re talking about.
Well, not yours exactly. Not unless you want me to be. And even then, I’d have to run it by my lady friend and I can’t see her agreeing to it.
But I’m someone’s dungeon master! But not my lady friend’s because, well anyway, what I mean is, that I’m trying to run my own Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
One hundred percent from the ground up. I’m kind of proud. I’ve only done it once and that was semi-successful, but we’re up again next weekend, in our secret space (actually a large meeting room above a bar in Alexandria, just outside of DC). And my three companions have been patient with my learning curve (which has been relatively steep). And they have graciously consented to let me continue on.
I’ve never written fan fiction, but part of me relates the process to what I suspect the process of composing fan fiction to be like. The characters were created by someone else (in my case, by the people you play the game with) and the plotting is driven by many nearly oulipian level restrictions that make for what can be a satisfying game (or fan fiction story), but which is rarely of publication worthy quality – but which can still be (I hope) useful in learning how to plot (especially because one’s fellow gamers and, I suspect, the fan fiction community, can be tough critics of one’s failures).
Maybe later I’ll tell you what it’s all about. But not for a few more sessions…
I bought this book a while ago (I’m not sure exactly how long ago, but the restaurant receipt that I was using for a book mark was dated to January, 2012) but just finished it today.
Because I am a bit of a sci fi and fantasy junkie, it would probably surprise a lot of folks that I went so long without finishing this widely acknowledged classic of twentieth century science fiction. I first remember encountering this book (though not beginning to read it at the time) at the Dunedin Public Library. At that time, there was no widely available internet with no top ten or top one hundred lists floating ’round it. Knowledge of the books one ought to read were passed around by word of mouth like samizdats.
Canticle is a compelling book, despite lacking a consistent cast of characters on account of covering more than a millenium’s worth of future human history. In short, after a devastating nuclear war that cost humankind almost all of our scientific knowledge, a small monastery keeps alive the memory of the non-canonized Saint Leibowitz, who was apparently a scientist working on a nuclear weapons program who, after the ‘Great Fire,’ went out to try to keep scientific knowledge alive.
Well, he eventually gets canonized and the Order of Leibowitz becomes both a spiritual and technological center for mankind. Later, as science is rediscovered and advances, the Order becomes an advocate for moderating scientific advancement with wisdom.
Throughout, the Order’s role as a Catholic institution is respected (by the author, I mean) and sometimes, it appears that Saint Leibowitz himself is still walking the earth in some form, keeping an eye on us. Other events which might be miracles (the author does not allow for it to be known definitively) occur, as well.
Anyway. It’s a great freaking book. Should have read it years ago.
Today would have been Ray Bradbury’s ninety-second birthday. He came very close, but I can’t imagine he’s disappointed at what he accomplished.
I’ll have to re-read my favorite, A Sound of Thunder. My mother was a big Bradbury fan and gave me a collection of Bradbury stories featuring dinosaurs when I was child containing that one. And we’ll just pretend that heinous movie never, ever happened. I don’t even know what you’re talking about if you mention the movie. I may even have you committed to an institution on account of your crazy delusions.
Fans of Jean-Luc Picard will know what I’m talking about.
the coffee philosopher 