Knight of Shadows

I read the Chronicles of Amber years ago, both the 5 Corwin books and the 5 Merlin books. I remembered being blown away by the first 5, and less than enthused by the latter 5.

I guess I’m older and crankier now. The first 5 are still great works. The latter 5, well…suck.

I’d forgotten that the Merlin series is based entirely on his naivety to move the story along. On inexplicable bad decisions, and the convenient “oh we’re not as hostile as first made out” responses of the “villains” which accommodated those terrible decisions.

But, I gutted it out. Until this one. At which point I found myself wanting to just skip through multiple pages at a time just to get it over with. At which point I figured…why bother? And put it down.

He’d been struggling with the plot up until this point. Then…he entirely gave up on it and put out this filler book. It reads like a sub-adventure in the life of Merlin. It has nothing to do with the three books that came before it. At least, that was the case 55% of the way in, at which point I just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

Do yourselves a favor. Read the first 5 Amber novels and then ignore the second 5.

Roger Zelazny’s 1989 novel ”

Chronicles of Amber, Book 09: Knight of Shadows

” is the 4th book in the Merlin sub-series of the Chronicles of Amber. Finally, Merlin has started acting like a player instead of a passive idiot. He still makes mistakes, but at least he’s thinking and choosing. Also, in this entry in the series, Zelazny throws in a bit of a twist regarding the Pattern and the Logrus. So, overall, a pretty good book. If I could, I’d rate it at 3-1/2 stars. But, since I’m limited to integers, I’m going with a Good 3 stars out of 5.

Its too bad such a great book and author get treated so horribly in this e translation. There are so many mis spelled and incorrect words its embarrassing. Its obvious no one proofread or edited this before it was put out. At least no one with anything more than a kindergarten education. ZELAZNY has such great writing and many subtle nuances that cannot be appreciated or understood if the words are incorrect, missing or misspelled. He and we deserve better than this.

I was not able to read this book because of the horrible condition I received it in.
Im only adding this photo to 1. Let people know this is what used/ very good condition looks like.
2. I was unable to upload a photo to my comments to the company whom sold this book to me.
3. I personally would not gift this book to anyone, let alone donated in the condition its in.

I just ordered the Kindle version of this novel; a long time coming. This is the weakest of all ten great Amber books, but it serves as a bridge to the brilliant Prince of Chaos.