Nine Princes in Amber

This one's a bit odd. There is some great epic story woven in it but it's buried under poor story telling and decent characterization.

I liked Corwin but the whole amnesia thing was ridiculous. Not knowing who he is, he bluffed his way half way through this book with some insanely high stakes - his own life. It was done to explain how the world works as it's usual for characters with amnesia. But couldn't it be the other way around somehow? Like he would pretend he has amnesia but he really remembers everything? Or something like that.

Then there are the vague shadows and magic system which make little sense. Basically stuff is possible or impossible based on plot requirements. There are deus ex machinas as well.

I'm reading SF Masterworks edition and there were quite a few typos in the book which is odd since the book is more than 50 years old. You'd think they would've fixed it by now. There were letters missing or words contained typos. Once there were two sentences that repeated themselves with unique third sentence following. As if the draft wasn't edited and author forgot to cross one out. I don't know. So weird to see them in a modern printing of such old story.

But despite that I was intrigued enough to continue in hopes that this series will improve. This book is short enough that I'm willing to invest more of my reading time to this series.

Characters were interesting, this family drama upon which fate of the universe potentially lies. All of the characters are flawed in some way though I don't fully understand why everyone is suppose to dislike Random. Corwin makes for a good flawed, charming and selfish protagonist and given what he's against and his found love of humanity it's easy to sympathize with him.

If this book was aimed at 13yo kids in the 70's then it had fulfilled its purpose well but for today's standards it's out of date. Especially for adults. Which leaves me wondering if it's the 60 and 70 year olds of today that still sing praises for this series because they grew up with it. I can't fathom anyone giving this more than 3* unless it's out of nostalgia.