Chaos and Amber
By John DeNardo |
Wednesday, November 12th, 2003 at
9:03 pm
Anyone read Zelazny’s Amber books? Are they any good?
There’s a new Amber series…check out the SF Site Review of Chaos and Amber. The reviewer says “If you haven’t read the original Amber series, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Filed under: Books
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I’ve read most of them. The first series was pretty good. I remember the second series running out of steam. But, that was a long time ago. I’d definately recommend picking them up (if you don’t already have them in a box somewhere John…) and reading them. Heck, I’d be up for re-reading the whole shebang. I don’t remember too much…
As a matter of fact, I do have the Complete Amber Chronicles (10 books in 1 Great Big Volume!). And, yes, it is sitting in a box somewhere.
I like the first Amber series a lot. I liked the second amber series almost as much.
But as for the new series, written by John Betancourt…Like the Michael Kurland books in Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy series…or David Kyle’s books set in “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series–Your Mileage May Vary. Some will love them, some will think they are very poor and pale imitations of a true original.
Unfortunately, I’m of the second opinion. The Betancourt books are OK, but they are no where as good as Zelazny’s original books!
The
That’s the same reason I haven’t read any of the new Foundation books. I just don’t think they’ll live up to the originals. Heck, the later Foundation books by Asimov himself didn’t live up to the original 3 (yes I know they were actually novellas/shortish stories bound together. Thanks for bringing it up though John.). I did try Psychohistorical Crisis by Kingsbury and found it wanting. It really didn’t have a Foundation feel (which is ok since its a re-imagining of the Foundation universe) and the supposed action parts weren’t that compelling. The really good parts where the discussions about how psychohistory would work as a model of human actions.
I liked the Amber stuff too – but I read it when I was much younger and feel that it is written towards a younger audience.