About book Roger Zelazny's The Dawn Of Amber (2002)
I discovered Zelazny's Amber series in my teens and devoured it. The cosmology was interesting, the characters were well-drawn (although sometimes a little lacking in depth), and the plot was engaging. I enjoyed the later Merlin novels, although perhaps not quite as much as the original Corwin series.I was interested in seeing what Betancourt had done with the franchise after Zelazny's death. Overall, I'm pretty disappointed. The characters don't have much depth; where Zelazny may have done that with the supporting cast Betancourt does it with the main characters. I found the prose repetitive, particularly in its descriptions of the Courts of Chaos. The first three books sped along, carried on a reasonable but unremarkable plot that draws to a close in the third novel. The fact they're such quick reads and a sense of nostalgia are the main reasons why I finished the first three novel.I picked up the fourth book hoping it would improve, that Betancourt would find some balance between nostalgia and orginal work and perhaps find his own voice in the series. To my great disappointment, it got much, much worse. The same characters are even more two-dimensional. One wonders how the main character actually manages to survive to the Corwin series based on his apparent lack of forethought in anything he does. But fear not, for every time a problem arises an unlikely solution surfaces no more than a few pages later to resolve the issue. We get carried through a few locations from the original series that Betancourt hadn't yet visited, and the result is totally unsatisfying. The whisper-thin characters and lack of plot (compelling or otherwise) reduce it to nothing more than window-dressing on earlier The Visual Guide to Castle Amber.Fans of the original series may enjoy the first three novels for nostalgia. If that's the case feel free to indulge, but I recommend stopping there.
As I read the first pages of this book, I was struck by how much of a copy it was of Zelazny's own work. Yes, that is the point of having another author write "extensions" to a an existing series (or even a single stellar book - see my review of "Spade and Archer"). But in this case it was not a warm feeling about how well the author had immersed themselves into the world of the creator. Instead, I was thinking that is was a poor echo of one of the originals. Specifically where Corwin is an amnesiac and only slowly learns about his true nature and his lovely family.I'm not saying that this is a horrible book (not the triple star rating), but after a long absence and extremely fond memories of the original five novels, I was just not enraptured by this book. To be fair, the constraints of creating a pre-history that doesn't immediately make readers sit up and howl cannot have been an easy task. And, as far as the ideas and family lineage of this book go, they are pretty ok. Enough so that I'll have to hunt around for the other volumes in this first "pretrilogy".Among my dislikes are the length (the specific volume needed to be longer so that it could be more detailed) and the fact that it was planned to be the first in a trilogy, so be sure to keep things very loose so that the reader will get that next book. Neither of these can be listed as a crime against humanity, but I think they do not serve the series nor RZ very well. For all I know, Mr. Betancourt might be an excellent writer and under other circumstances might have created a truly impressive addition to the Amber canon.If you have read all of Zelazny's novels and hunger for more, then this is the only game in town. It will get you more of the Amber universe and Dworkin's family and perhaps that is all we can ever expect. Read it and judge for yourself. Despite the flaws it is a definite "3".
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It saddens me to have to write this review. Zelazney's Amber is one of the series' that truly cemented my love of the genre. With that said, I have two points to make about this book.1. The editing. There does not appear to have been any. I cannot speak for the print edition, but the ebook is so filled with typographical errors as to be almost laughable. It is not just misspelled words or improper punctuation. There are places where the author clearly changed words without altering the sentence they appear in to fit the change. The whole manuscript looks like a first-pass revision.2. More important are the issues I have with plot and characterization. Very little happens in this book. what does happen seems to have been lifted from the first Amber novel with only the names changed to protect the innocent. As for characterization, again, there is none. The author seems to base each of his characters on one of those from Zelazney's work. The reader is expected to use their knowledge of those previous characters to provide the substance that is lacking in the characters from this story. We don't know them. We don't care about them. Neither do the other characters.All in all, the book is shallow and lacks any substance. A disappointment where I was hoping to find a gem. As much as I love Amber, I will not be reading the next in this series.
—Patrick Bran
The Zelazny Amber series is by far my favorite set of sci-fi/fantasy books. When I read Dawn of Amber my hope was to revisit the settings and concepts that I loved so much in Amber. This book didn't disappoint. Don't look for a literary masterpiece, this, like Zelaznys originals, is a pulp fantasy book. It's dialog driven and the plot moves quickly. Getting to know Oberon was enjoyable. As expected, Shadows, Trumps and the Logrus were just as much fun this go around as before. If you like Amber and have been putting off reading these prequels because they're not Zelazny and you're afraid you'll be disappointed, I think you can safely start reading now.
—Mike Ebbert
The very first thing that strikes me as I read this is that this is NOT Roger Zelazny writing. In fact, if it were not for the fact that I recognize Betancourt's name, I would wonder if this was even a professional writer -- the opening chapter came across as very amateurish. Lot's of telling, and no "showing" -- no making us feel a part of the action.While that sense of "low" writing never entirely vanished, I did become more engrossed in the story itself. Even there, however, I knew that I wasn't reading Zelazny. Zelazny could weave a story with intricate threads of characters and sub-plots and story lines. And if Zelazny was a master weaver, producing a solitary fine work of excellent quality, Betancourt is a machine producing a cheap replica that might satisfy those who can't tell the difference.In general, I also dislike any series which requires one to purchase multiple books to get a sense of the story. Each book should be able to stand on it's own as a book. I don't believe this one accomplishes that.I may read the others in the trilogy, but only because I'm curious about the story. I will most certainly seek out library books or used copies.
—Daniel
