A review by cheezvshcrvst
Blood of Amber by Uf, Roger Zelazny

3.0

There's a lot of Amber-naysayers that methinks take these books far more seriously than they ought to. Insomuch as my humble opinion is seated (on a rock perhaps, pointed at a nice cloudless direction with lots of sunshine and mischievous mountains (this is all unnecessary)), this, the 2nd Merlin novel, is an excellent, if, as per usual with the series, brief adventure that does much by way of adding texture to the plot and pushing the story forward, even if it seems to neglect its characters a bit. Merlin, particularly, seems to carry himself with an almost unjustified sense of determination that we, the readers, seem to be not asked so much as told to just go with. This can easily be rectified if one takes into consideration the flashbacks that shine some light on Merlin's coming of age in the Courts of Chaos and (and to me this is the important thing) if one keeps in mind that Merlin is indeed the son of Corwin - meaning a high degree of self-confidence and willingness to plunge into the unknown, confident he is prepared enough to meet his end or else, preferably, overcome his obstacles. For me, this novel once made me immediately take more interest in Merlin's story and that was enough for me to enjoy the book (and, inevitably, the remainder of the Chronicles) and, upon this reread, has done so again.