Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny

I seem to be getting through this series rather quickly, and I’ll admit that it’s all somewhat addictive. This third book is the most unputdownable yet, making good use of all the patient world building and character development of the first two instalments to spin us a tale of political skulduggery and, well, games of thrones between the royals of Amber. It’s a cracking read.

And yet, at the same time, it’s more substantial than that. Zelazny’s prose is still reminiscent of Raymond Chandler for the most part, hard-boiled and lightly cynical. There’s even a nicely metatextual bit near the end as Corwin’s friend Bill from the “shadow” Earth says he feels somewhat like a minor character in a novel who never gets to know what’s really going on. Yet the prose is capable of leaping into more than that when needed, and Zelazny is quite trippily poetic when describing those moments where the doors of perception get weird.

Even more excitingly, the whodunit side is now explained. But what of Dworkin, the nature of the trap for Oberon, the hinted-at origins of the black road? Much still lies to be explained, and then the novel ends with the big revelation that there is another, “real” Amber.

This both is and is not unlike anything I’ve read before. I’m enjoying it immensely.