The Chronicles of Amber

Rarely in my experience has an addition from the Gollancz masterwork range been a bad read, so with the Amber book I eagerly delved into Roger Zelaznys world. Compromising 5 books written in the 70’s the first Chronicles of Amber follows the trials and tribulations of Corwin, a man who has lost his memory on Shadow earth and seeks to discover more about his forgotten past.

From there Corwin gets plunged into a breathless medley of dysfunctional family life and otherworldly parallel travel as he retraces his steps back to Amber, and the answers that await him there. The first few books set off at a manic pace, and the fast paced start is in a way sustained by the partial ignorance of Corwin, and as the action fades and the intrigue begins, Corwin’s brothers and sisters begin to come more into play, and the story widens into many diverging rivulets of deception and knowledge.

The first few books in the sequence roll along at quite a breakneck speed; the plot is nothing too amazing. In the latter books the writing becomes more fluent and the imaginings more large scale. A real feeling of layers and back story infuses everything, and the heroic fantasy tone is more evened out by the Machiavellian antics of the Royal Amberites. It’s not perfect in places, the writing stalls occasionally, and sometimes I became weary of the inter dimension travelling parts, but overall nothing could seriously detract from the exploits Corwin relates to us throughout.

For any lovers of fast paced Heroic Fantasy, this is perfect, in that it also comes with a heavy dose of intrigue and other serious tropes, which shine against the fantasy background to great effect.

The Chronicles of Amber - 8 / 10

Kafka on the Shore

Sometimes a book comes along that completely blows your mind, Kafka on the Shore changed me and it went about it an utterly enchanting, and charming way. It initially got brought to my attention by winning the World Fantasy Award last year, the book is a great deal of things, it is at once openly simple, yet the more submerged you become the more dark and complex it becomes. This is a magic realist novel, apparently … or whatever you want to call it, yet it’s got so many fantastical and mythical elements to it, to widely appeal to any reader of speculative fiction.

The book is a veritable cauldron of themes, tricks, riddles and emotions, one thing sticks out though, and that is that it’s very weird. Wacky happenings abound, possible UFO’s, talking cats, falling fish from the sky, a Bermuda Triangle Forest, plus what seems to be strictly a modern retelling of a Greek Tragedy, in the story of Oedipus. The book also contains many popular and classical culture references, too music especially, as a song plays a pivotal role in one of the characters Kafka associates with.

But the plot itself simply and essentially consists of two quests, one involving Kafka Tamura, a protagonist who seems to get erections all the time, and runs away from home to become the ‘toughest 15 year old in the world’. The second strand follows that of an old man that can talk to cats, and how he seeks resolution from an event that happened to him when he was younger, he then wanders off and the two threads merge, metaphysically of course.

The protagonists dalliances got very emotional and personnel in parts, and I could safely identify with lots of the tribulations Haruki Murakami was writing about, not really the sexual deviancy of 15 yr old Kafka, but lots of the other facets in his character. The people Murakami writes about are really of the quiet kind, very contemplative and relaxed, something which I really warmed too, Kafka the young boy, takes his time saying things, he thinks about what he wants to say, and means them also. And so it is with Murakami, his work demands and deserves that special attention, of thinking and carefully reading what is before you.

Kafka on the Shore – 9 / 10