Reply #18: Zelazny has his positives and his negatives.

[TheWraith]

The Amber series is the only thing of his that I've read beyond short fiction. I enjoy it, but it has it's faults too. If you scratch the surface, it has the feeling that he was kind of making it up as he went along. Obviously that's true of a lot of fiction, but I mean it more deeply here. He had difficulty keeping some of the mechanics of time flow straight, and the first part of the first book really doesn't have the same "feel" as the later books, like he was trying to nail down the style, and never went back to rewrite it once he got a firm grasp on the concept.

Still, it's adventurous and entertaining, particularly if you enjoy the snarkily witty commentary by the protagonist. In some ways the latter five books are better, since by then he had the style down, and seemed to have a better grasp on long-term storytelling. Although those books leave a few loose ends, since he intended to have a final five books to complete the story, but died before he could write them.