Re: [Misc] The Road Goes Ever On...

On Mon, 4 Sep 2006, Dreamer wrote:

> It was what I've seen called the 'mythological engineering' that
> was really impressive.  There did not seem to be any visible
> joints (to me, anyhow), where things didn't quite fit together.
>
> It's really difficult to put together a world and its history and
> mythology, say for SJ, that works that well.
>
> Also, don't forget that his LotR trilogy was well before the day
> of the mega trilogy that just about all fantasy authors seem to
> think is required, these days.

Granted, JRR was one of the early ones. Still, I must say that his stuff 
isn't really my cup of tea.

>> What bugs me a whole lot more is that Zelazny died before completing
>> Amber. :'(
>
> I only recently read 'Prince of Chaos' - do you think there were
> other books supposed to follow that?

Yes, definitely. IIRC there were even one or two short stories published 
after that (names elude me, I'd have to look them up, and I must admit I 
never read them). At the end of Prince of Chaos, Merl is the reluctant 
king of Chaos, but nothing really has been settled. The balance between 
Chaos and Amber is seriously out of whack (due to the two patterns AND the 
Serpent missing one eye).

Presumably (my guess) a third set of books would have dealt with restoring 
this balance.

Do you have access to the audio books, read by Zelazny himself? Really 
great stuff. Unfortunately I only was able to obtain the abridged 
versions. I'd love to have the unabridged ones (supposedly these do 
exist, and were sold for a while, but the publisher is long out of 
business).



- Nils