Sometimes it didn’t and it fell rather flat. Sometimes my mind produced those dimensions and Nine Princes was very gripping. He and his fellow characters feel lightly sketched you can get a sense of bigger dimensions, but they’re less on the page and more hinted at in the hope they spring from your mind. He also has a rather colloquial voice that at times jars a little with the sense of dimension hopping sci-fantasy madness, although it mostly works well. Corwin, the book’s protagonist and narrator, has a risk-taking go-getting personality and a tendency to smoothly summarise the passing of time. I enjoyed Nine Princes because it’s a fast-moving book full of action and wonder. That or they found it on their dad’s bookshelf. I might argue the smart thing to do is forget the author’s reputation and focus solely on how it reads but, given that this book is over fifty years old, I think anyone picking it up today probably is reading it at least a little due to reputation. The crux of my dilemma is working out just how much I enjoyed Nine Princes, and just how good it is, and balancing it against Zelazny’s reputation. Still, the point of a review is details, isn’t it? Let’s dive into details. Which I suppose in a lot of ways covers it. I can also tell you that now that I have, I enjoyed it. See, I’d been reading plenty about Zelazny’s influence and legacy, but I’d never finished one of his books. I can tell you this is the second time I picked it up because I was reading a book that some similar concepts that brought Nine Princes to mind, and also because Zelazny was much on my mind. I can tell you it’s a story about a power struggle for an ancient realm of magic across many worlds. By way of introductory remarks, I’d like to state I’m not really sure what I’m going to say about Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber today.

Nine princes