Nine Princes in Amber: The Chronicles of Amber
By Roger Zelazny
Why this book?
This is the first of a ten-book series called The Chronicles of Amber. (There are two five-book cycles.) I started reading these mind-bending novels when I was a wee lad, in the 1970s, and I didn’t really understand them but I loved the vivid worldbuilding. The characters were real, and the plots of these books were a page-turning pleasure. In this series, Amber is the prime world and all the other versions of reality were shadows of the original. In Plato’s philosophy, he has this theory of forms, and in this world-view, he sees our reality as an imitation of the “real” or ideal world. Interestingly, a lot of fantasy that deals with the multiverse seems to have this idea at its heart. In this particular expression, only the royal family of Amber can move between realities, by physically travelling through the shadow worlds, or by using magical portals they call “trump cards.” The first five books, about the crown prince of Amber, Corwin, are still quite readable and slightly psychedelic.
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