book review: The Hand of Oberon

by : Roger Zelazny

Apt Title.

Clever ending.

Just the right amount of foreshadowing.

Good cover for the slowly piling coincidences.

I really like the way Zelazny did his world building here.  Just the right amount of carrot and stick.  I mean, you really don’t get much at all to start with – and even by this point you’re still mostly just hanging on projections of rather solid clues – but it feels more solid at least.

This series is also great example of a consistent and thought out magic system (like Sanderson always talks about) that is then expanded and explored in an internally logical manner.  It’s kind of fascinating in the sense that often you read books where no one questions the system, they just roll with it and I, as a reader, find myself mentally yelling at them “Why didn’t you try X?  Why does Y work?  Z should as well!”   Here you have some parties (sadly, the villains) who have finally done that.  Which, hopefully triggers the MC (Corwin) to do a little of that himself.

I forget if they ever get to the actual nature of the Unicorn, but you find a huge clue here and its… a bit odd.  Then again, not particularly odd given the nature of things here.

Another interesting point: the scene of the final conflict is literally a scene that Corwin is forced to watch and not interact with.  I find this fascinating from a writer’s perspective – I wonder how often something like this happens?  I can’t think of any other examples.  I find it a bit refreshing – it’s nice to see that the world doesn’t revolve around the MC doing everything.  Even though the Amber world is ostensibly an ensemble production, the fact that the books thus far revolve around Corwin has placed him squarely in the center of things – his siblings have definitely taken actions of their own (most of them), but there was still a feeling like Corwin was/is the actor.  In the finale to Hand, we have Corwin as the audience in two separate ways (as the observer of the action and as one acted upon in a way very similar to how a skilled actor manipulates the emotions of her/his observers).  I dug it.

As usual, I can’t wait until the next book.  Gives me a reason to look forward to a bus ride…

THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Because I plowed through in one day, two sittings.

And here’s the full version of my cover, just because I found it: