05 February 2007

Book Banter -- The Hand of Oberon


Title: The Hand of Oberon
Author: Roger Zelazny
Length: 181 pages
Genre: sci-fi
Plot Basics: Corwin of Amber has fallen deeper into the political machinations of his family that could threaten to destroy Amber. It’s clear there is a traitor among Corwin’s siblings, but who the traitor is and what his or her ultimate aims are remain unclear. Determined to save Amber, Corwin works to untangle the mesh of back-stabbing and sibling infighting to figure out who’s got it in for Amber and along the way, starts to reveal what happened to their father, Oberon, who mysteriously vanished.
Banter Points: More swashbuckling and psychological fun. It’s this combination that Word Nerd enjoys in these books. Zelazny keeps things moving with both sword fights and conversations.
While Word Nerd doesn’t normally like info-dumps in books, Zelazny expertly dropped a synopsis of the first three books into the second chapter. Even for a reader like Word Nerd who’s read the books in quick succession, rather than the years between their original release dates, it was still nice to have the quick refresher.
Bummer Points: In the other reviews of the Amber chronicles, has Word Nerd mentioned that Zelazny only writes cliff-hangers?
Word Nerd recommendation: Good stuff. And Word Nerd’ll be sorry when she’s read the entire Chronicles because good sci-fi is hard to come by.

No comments: