Zelazny By The Numbers: Nine

Nine Princes in Amber

 Amber! There was something there, something electrical and potent!

I was a prince of Amber. It was true. There had been fifteen brothers and six were dead. There had been eight Sisters, and two were dead, possibly four. We had spent much of our time in wandering in Shadow, or in our own universes. It is an academic, though valid philosophical question, as to whether one with power over Shadow could create his own universe. Whatever the ultimate answer, from a practical point we could.


There is something talismanic about the title. Would it have become the genre-defining series it is without that title, with its fairy tale overtones and hints of something grand and majestic just out of reach? I don’t think so. At the very least, I picked up the book in my high school library based on the power of the title. The prose kept me reading, but it was those words that drew me close initially.