The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny

 I found this novel, the second instalment of the Amber Chronicles, as I believe they are called, quite as enjoyable as its predecessor. By now I’m used to Roger Zelazny’s deceptively Chandleresque prose, which is more poetic than it seems on first glance, and the fruitful admixture of fascinatingly imaginative fantasy worlds with hard-boiled reality. Here we have magical beasts, superbly sketched impossible worlds, and a sequence about gun smuggling in Brussels and end user certificates that could almost have come from a Frederick Forsyth novel if the prose were not far too good for that.

Just as good is the world itself, with the world building allowed to emerge naturally and organically from the skilfully constructed narrative. Various of the nine Amber brothers- especially Benedict- are sketched out some more, and I’m left eager to read the next novel.

I did have a criticism, that the ageless Corwin seemed to shag his seventeen year old great-niece, which is icky now to say the least and must have been so in 1972. But I’m relieved to see that all is hopefully not what it seems and that Corwin, and Amber, have a new and fascinating nemesis.

This is a superbly told and constructed tale, and I want to jump deeper into this universe. I’m hooked.