Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

(pb; 1976: fourth novelette in The Chronicles of Amber quintology)

From the back cover


"Across the mysterious Black Road, demons swarm into Shadow. The ancient, secret source of the royal family's power is revealed, & an unholy pact between a prince of the realm & the forces of Chaos threaten all the known worlds with absolute obliteration. The hour of battle is at hand. Now Corwin and the remaining princes of Amber must call upon all their superhuman powers to defeat their brother-turned-traitor before he can walk the magical Pattern that created Amber and remake the universe in his own image."



Review



Having glimpsed the Courts of Chaos, Corwin continues sorting through the tangled motives and actions of his royal treacherous siblings and discovering how to defeat the Black Road, a dangerous path of Chaos.  Like its prequels, Oberon has little lag time between it and its prequel, Sign of the Unicorn, features a lot of dialogue, as well as barebones, fast-moving action and occurrences. In short: it keeps with the plot-propellant tone of previous Chronicle novelettes, with enough character-based twists to further make this an above-average fantasy read. Followed by The Courts of Chaos.

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