Happy Easter from Bookmonkey

Hello all,

Just wanted to take a quick moment from the long weekend to say Happy Easter!

(What am I doing this long weekend - playing Dead Space 3, watching BBCs The White Queen, and reading Zelazny's Trumps of Doom, pretty great all around.

Your old pal,
Bookmonkey

Book Review: Nine Princes in Amber

Last month I began reading my latest Fantasy series, Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber (1970 - 1991), with the novel Nine Princes of Amber.

The story begins with a man waking in a long-term care ward of a hospital, unsure of his identity and trying desperately to figure out an escape.

For a series which begins with such a simple concept, it moves into high fantasy incredibly quickly.  Our main character, Corwin (who begins the novel not even sure of his own name) moves beyond his hospital bed into an adventure that gets bigger and bigger with each chapter.

Even though the story is nearly 35-years-old, I really want to stay away from spoilers as finding out exactly how Corwin's world works is a huge part of the enjoyment of the series.

If you've never tried the book, it is definitely worth a look, but be warned, once you start, it may be pretty hard to pull yourself away from discovering the rest of the series.

Following Fantasy Series

Over the years I've read a lot of Fantasy, whether part of a shared world (DragonLance), or of the stand-alone variety.  The problem is that very few fantasy books stop at just one title.  Case in point - I've just finished up reading Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker series, which is comprised of six books, but does hold out the promise of a seventh.  Following taht I'm currently going for my first run through Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber - which is such fun I'm likely to revisit it again in a few years.

Every month I try to make sure I read at least one book from each of my favourite genres; Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction (SF), but although Horror and SF both have plenty of series, Fantasy seems to be almost nothing but series.

On the positive side I can invest a lot more in the characters in a Fantasy series than I can those who only appear in a single novel, but at the same time, while I'm trying out a large number of different Horror and SF authors, I find that over the course of a year I'm reading as few as two or three Fantasy authors, as it takes me months and months to get through their series.

I don't really have a solution to the problem, because I love reading these series, but sometimes I wish I could just find a nice collection of Fantasy short stories, and that would be enough.