Nine Princes in Amber

I read this a looooong time ago (sometime between 1980 and 1990 maybe). The only way I am sure that I read it is that I remember a couple of the plot devices, perhaps the most iconic one is the Deck of Trumps which is like a Tarot deck but each card has the likeness of one of the nine Princes (and some other royal family members) and can be used to both communicate with and transport the Princes to one another. They are the Princes of Amber which is the eternal most perfect most real city (or Kingdom I think really). Anyway that’s as good a place to start as any with this book.

Our protagonist wakes up in a hospital in upstate New York (or maybe New Jersey) and is told he is recovering from a traffic accident. In fact in addition to healing fractures he has almost total amnesia to the point where is he doesn’t even know is own name. But he knows something isn’t right and because he is just the coolest, sharpest cat. And he manages to escape from the hospital having bluffed his way into knowing that his name is Carl Corey, that his “sister” is paying for his stay in that process he acquires $100 from hospital petty cash and a gun. Thus equipped he makes his way to NYC where he barges in on his “sister” in her mansion(?) bluffing her just like he did the hospital goons to determine that his name is really Corwin and that someone he knows arranged for the accident and on it goes with his sister until cousin Random shows up on the lamb from ‘the bad guys’ who followed him on a flight from California.

Cousin Random is actually a brother and together they are going home (again Corwin doesn’t know where home is - he’s bluffing). Their mode of transport: a convertible Jaguar that slowly, over days of travel, as the terrain becomes more magical and arbitrary in its challenges, is transmogrified into a really pimped out carriage pulled by white horses. And this is evidence that they have crossed out of “shadow world” Earth; almost home in Amber. After a minor side quest and some negotiations Corwin successfully walks the magical pattern which returns all his memories (another plot device I seem to remember.)

With his memories back, Corwin enters Amber where begins the struggle with brother Eric who is about to take over as the King of Amber, while of course the noble, proud Corwin thinks his bad-ass self should be King. Its all a big soap opera/power struggle/war that seems to be modelled on a very conflicted royal dynasty (the Plantagenets possibly?). This is only the first book in the series and its ancient so (minor spoiler) Corwin doesn’t become King in this one, he actually spends time in a dungeon, but by the end he has escaped and is ready for eight more books of struggle for power and glory.

There are a ton of Shakespeare quotes and references e.g. the patriarch of the clan is named “Oberon” (The King of the faeries in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and really the Princes of Amber are effectively demigods) This book was published in 1970 and so Shakespearean magical medieval power struggle comes through a very late sixties vibe/slang/non-pc filter: Corwin, who has been on earth since the black death, is a cigarette addict and luckily somehow while in Amber he is able to acquire cartons of Marlboros(!?). Corwin refers to one of his opponents as a “fink” (“fink” wasn’t commonly used in the vernacular in the 70s California.) Corwin and an ally recruit armies out of other (not Earth) shadow worlds and blithely contemplate how many thousands of their “cannon fodder” worshippers will die in their war for Amber. Quibble, quibble quibble…

But, hey this book was (Hugo and Nebula winner) Zelazny’s most popular creation and even if it is over 50 years old, I would say it holds up really well.