tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post383401880523093042..comments2024-03-21T19:03:19.133-04:00Comments on Where there had been darkness...: Roger Zelazny Book Review: The Courts of ChaosJugularjoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-29761548520703844692012-05-03T20:59:40.819-04:002012-05-03T20:59:40.819-04:00I have my moments, though they've been getting...I have my moments, though they've been getting fewer and farther between . . .Chris DeVitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13954514417222660623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-40239861430877074452012-04-27T06:59:02.302-04:002012-04-27T06:59:02.302-04:00I was just rereading some old posts and for some r...I was just rereading some old posts and for some reason I had failed to realize what a great series of observations you had made here.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-8306651198146405042011-04-27T01:00:37.113-04:002011-04-27T01:00:37.113-04:00Theodore Sturgeon and James Blish both placed the ...Theodore Sturgeon and James Blish both placed the Amber books in the sword & sorcery camp. In his review of Guns of Avalon, Sturgeon wrote: "The genre's very nature dictates that the sword-swinging protagonist must be the same person at the end of the story as he is at the beginning. [...] true suspense is impossible for me if the central character cannot develop, age, fail, die, or (as is too often the case) even learn. [...] now and again there arrives a book so colorful, whose language is so cadenced and precise and whose characters (for all their basic changelessness) are so dimensional that you have to love them anyhow. Such a novel is Zelazny's The Guns of Avalon." (Galaxy, March 1973, p. 155.)<br /><br />I disagree strongly that the characters in the Amber novels are "basically changeless." Even in the first two books Corwin is struggling with both his conscience and his expanding consciousness, and he certainly has his failures (sometimes spectacular, as in the first book) and learns as he goes along.<br /><br />Blish's review of Nine Princes in Amber is an interesting contrast to both the Lester del Rey review (which harshly criticized Nine Princes for its cliffhanger ending) and Sturgeon's later review. Blish wrote that 9PiA "is Zelazny's version of sword-and-sorcery, but not for addicts only. Zelazny has not borrowed the standard apparatus for this sort of thing, but has invented his own, and the result is an adventure story with real originality and zest. [...] the ending [...] leaves the door wide open for a sequel. I'll be looking for it." (F&SF, May 1971, p. 39.)<br /><br />Reading all five books back-to-back (as they really are a single multi-volume novel, and to hell with Oscar Wilde), I think it's undeniable that Corwin has learned and changed enormously over the course of this five-book novel -- he goes from a man who would do anything to become king (in the first book), to a man who rejects being king when it's offered to him (in the last book). I think that's a pretty big change. And of course that's just the most visible result of his transformation, the tip of the iceberg.<br /><br />(As a tangent, I wonder if Blish's positive review was somewhat politically motivated by the fact that 9PiA is a straightforward adventure novel. Blish had harshly panned Creatures of Light and Darkness a year earlier because of its experimental nature: "It is a flat failure. It is a failure in conception. [...] It is ignorant and inconsistent. [...] Stylistically, it is a hash. [...] Moreover, this is another of those recently multiplying novels of apparatus, told in bits and scraps, zigzagging among viewpoints and tenses, and dropping into quotations or verse for no reason beyond an apparent desire to seem experimental or impressive." [F&SF, April 1970, pp. 50-51.] Given Blish's obvious bias, he may just have been happy that 9PiA was a conventionally written adventure novel.)<br /><br />Anyways, I like this five-book novel a lot. And I regret having neglected it for so long . . . but I won't make that mistake again.<br /><br />--Chris DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-15021783656016096062011-04-19T13:45:00.168-04:002011-04-19T13:45:00.168-04:00Ha -- must be a generational thing.
--CDHa -- must be a generational thing. <br /><br />--CDAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-88876006758881197932011-04-19T09:57:02.280-04:002011-04-19T09:57:02.280-04:00Chris: Josh, I'm not sure why the talking rave...Chris: Josh, I'm not sure why the talking raven etc. evoke the 1970s for you.<br /><br />Honestly? Because it makes me think of H.R. Pufnstuf.Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-77581301455525538002011-04-17T05:33:20.594-04:002011-04-17T05:33:20.594-04:00Progressing through the first five Amber books, it...Progressing through the first five Amber books, it becomes more and more clear that they really are one extended five-part novel. Earlier tonight I finished reading Courts of Chaos (and for some reason immediately then started on Homer's Odyssey, the story of the grooviest blind cat ever, but that's not really relevant here).<br /><br />I'll try to throw out some more coherent thoughts about the other Amber books soon, but for now I'll just say that Courts is in some ways my favorite of the five books, for the same reason that Josh has his doubts. I like that it dispenses (mostly) with the intrigue and hugger-mugger of the early books, and consists mostly of a trippy journey through acid-etched weirdness. <br /><br />Josh, I'm not sure why the talking raven etc. evoke the 1970s for you; that decade was my formative years (I was born 1961), and my leftover subconscious mush of the '70s disturbs me nightly with Vietnam, Watergate, Nixon, gas shortages, Led Zep (especially "Kashmir"), punk rock, Saturday Night Live, Richard Pryor, Taxi Driver, women's lib, Billy Beer, Jimmy Carter's lustful peanut heart, and of course all the usual personal tragedies that color and crush a life. No talking trees.<br /><br />Here's maybe my favorite bit in the whole thing:<br /><br />"Hugi lowered his head.<br /><br />“ 'I'll see you eat crow first,' he said, and he chuckled.<br /><br />"I reached out quickly and twisted his head off, wishing that I had time to build a fire. Though he made it look like a sacrifice, it is difficult to say to whom the moral victory belonged, since I was planning on doing it anyway."<br /><br />I mean, what can you say to that? Hunger makes us do terrible and astonishing things.<br /><br />--Chris DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-54015668812643330692011-02-22T14:06:13.258-05:002011-02-22T14:06:13.258-05:00Crikey, the blogger's semi-coherent "anal...Crikey, the blogger's semi-coherent "analyses" go on longer than the stories. I gave up when I came to his Amber fan fiction -- Bad Writing 101. ("I did things with my own eyebrows." Double-crikey!) A definite "care wreck," as the blogger would put it. But thanks for the heads-up -- I got a few chuckles out of it.<br /><br />--DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-29614677285470537562011-02-22T11:20:06.096-05:002011-02-22T11:20:06.096-05:00If you're interested, there's another blog...If you're interested, there's another blog I follow, and right now he's looking at the short stories that follow the Merlin books and trying to figure out what Zelazny was trying to set up:<br /><br />http://stolenthunder.blogspot.com/Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-78484905013612540142011-02-20T14:29:25.757-05:002011-02-20T14:29:25.757-05:00No, it was a typical three-part serialization. Pa...No, it was a typical three-part serialization. Part I is Chapters 1 through 4; Part II is Chapters 5 through 9; Part III is Chapters 10 through 14.<br /><br />In the Galaxy serialization, the chapter numbers are Roman numerals; in the Doubleday hardcover, they're Arabic numerals.<br /><br />I haven't read the original Amber books since the '70s, and I've never read the second series. Few people seem to like the second series, but still, I'm looking forward to it.<br /><br />--DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-46128184876716420502011-02-20T10:02:52.938-05:002011-02-20T10:02:52.938-05:00That's interesting. Was it broken into four pa...That's interesting. Was it broken into four parts and two of those parts happened to appear in the same issue?Jugularjoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03768939120752611597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504598332261057441.post-51564880641524393362011-02-18T13:51:44.813-05:002011-02-18T13:51:44.813-05:00One small technical note: Although Courts was ser...One small technical note: Although Courts was serialized over 4 months in Galaxy, it was actually only three issues (i.e., the novel was serialized in 3 parts, not 4), as one was a combined issue: November 1977, Dec./Jan. 1978, and February 1978. Illustrated in a rather crude and unappealing style.<br /><br />--Chris DeVitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com