Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

If you are familiar with this series, do you have a favorite character? Mine is, and always was, Prince Julian.

[mirrille]

My favourite character was Ganelon. Until I found out who he really was. Then he was less cool. I felt so betrayed.
But Benedict is pretty cool. He's my favourite out of all the brothers. And Random has the coolest name.

[Legolas]

I liked Random from the beggining.
BTW, in the very beginnig of the "Nine princes in Amber" (the first book), Random is described a bit. In the Lithuanian version, it says: "he is a brute guy, mostly corresponding to his name ("rend" in English)" Is it so in the English version? Or is his name just "Random", not "rend+om"?

[ringbearer]

Originally posted by Legolas
I liked Random from the beggining.
BTW, in the very beginnig of the "Nine princes in Amber" (the first book), Random is described a bit. In the Lithuanian version, it says: "he is a brute guy, mostly corresponding to his name ("rend" in English)" Is it so in the English version? Or is his name just "Random", not "rend+om"?

Random. Do not remember him described like that...I have read it about 6 or 7 times.

P.S. I like Random, too! Have you read the second series (originaly not included in the book club version...which was titled "The Chronicles of Amber") there is a lot more about Random in the second part. One book(about $20.00, paperback)
called "The Great Book of Amber" has both parts! Find it here .

[ringbearer]

Originally posted by Sauron's Nagging Wife
If you are familiar with this series, do you have a favorite character? Mine is, and always was, Prince Julian.

Julian...yuck!(His Hell-hounds were cool though!)

My favorite character is Merlin(Corwin's son) whose exploits are told in part 2(mentioned in my previous post.

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

I liked Julian because he seemed so bad... and he was bad, but not as horrible as Corwin originally thought.

I remember Random being described as a sim, short little fella. I'm not home this weekend, so I haven't got the books on hand, but I can check on Monday.

[ringbearer]

Originally posted by mirrille
My favourite character was Ganelon. Until I found out who he really was. Then he was less cool. I felt so betrayed.
But Benedict is pretty cool. He's my favourite out of all the brothers. And Random has the coolest name.

Remember this...Corwin liked Ganelon, until Ganelon had to go back to being "Oberon", and Oberon admitted that Ganelon was close to his true self. Oberon, being King of Amber ,has to play the tough guy-jerk.

[ringbearer]

I have a trivia question for fellow Amber fans... Who is Corwin's grandmother? (asked it in another Amber thread, too. So no peeking!

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

Not sure... the Unicorn?

I remember some joke about Dworkin's "union" with the Unicorn

[ringbearer]

Thats it! The Unicorn is a Chaos being, so it is also a shapeshifter!

Got a question?

[mirrille]

Remember this...Corwin liked Ganelon, until Ganelon had to go back to being "Oberon", and Oberon admitted that Ganelon was close to his true self. Oberon, being King of Amber ,has to play the tough guy-jerk.

I know. I was just like Corwin. I liked him until he had to go back to being Oberon. And it was cool to have a shadowman who could be so smart. He did all these impressive things you wouldn't expect from an ordinary guy out of the shadows (a medieval type shadow, no less!) , like figuring out some of the quirks of the Pattern or guessing that Trumps might be bugged, or learning an Earth language really quick. But these things are less impressive when you know that he was just pretending to be ignorant. He was the king of Amber and he's lived longer and knows more than Ganelon ever could have, so it wasn't so impressive after all. It was too good to be true anyways.

[ringbearer]

Agreed. I was talking more about Ganelon's personality more than his abilities(sp?), though.

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

Q: How many children did Oberon have?

[ringbearer]

Whew...lots!

Benedict
Osric
Finndo
Eric
Corwin
Deidre
Fiona
Bleys
Brand
Llewella
Caine
Julian
Gerard
Flora
Coral
Random
Mirelle
Sand
Delwin
Dalt

That makes 20! Is that what you came up with?

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

Somewhere in the books, the number of all his children was given (and it was a lot) I have to find it myself!

[mirrille]

Bravo! I am so impressed.

I don't have anything to add to that. If you missed any, there's no way I'd be able to remember them.
My main problem when I was reading the first book was that I couldn't get all the brothers straight. there were too many. Imagine how impressed I was to realize there were illegitimates to worry about as well.
Amber is one inbred kingdom. Seems like everyone can trace themselves to the royal family somehow. Cousins keep popping up in the strangest places.

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

Oberon admits to having a total of 47 children. I'm going to find the chapter and exact quote when I have more time (probably this weekend).

[ringbearer]

My list above came from the family tree which is mapped out in the book "The Visual Guide To Castle Amber".

[Butterburr]

I just finished reading the Great Book of Amber. I liked the second half, with Merlin more than the first (it was good too), but came away wondering if Zelazny had really finished it. Does anyone know if he had been planning to continue the series before he died, or did he just like leaving the endings of his stories open?

[Sauron's Nagging Wife]

I really don't know. I'd have loved to read more (personally, I liked the Corwin novels better than the Merlin ones)

Okay, who said this:

"But the Logrus might claim this was in retaliation for the Day of the Broken Branches several centuries ago."