The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

The Amber Chronicles Book 4

 

I’ve been away from the pages of The Distractible Reader for far too long. I’d been away from the Amber Chronicles for too long as well. Luckily, Zelazny and Corwin of Amber, his narrator, are happy to recap and remind us of what has gone before as we plunge into the next volume.

 

There is no time lost, however, between the end of Sign of the Unicorn and the beginning of The Hand of Oberon. This installment in the adventure is just as packed with intrigue and action as the previous books. Corwin is still trying to figure out how to save his beloved homeland from terrorizing enemies arriving via a path known as the black road. Of course he also has to deal with the other members of his monumentally untrustworthy family, some of whom are plotting against him personally but also have much greater and more destructive plans. In addition to dangerous, life-threatening action complete with magic The Hand of Oberon also gives us (as well as the narrator) some valuable clues as to the nature of Amber, how it might have been created, and what its fate might be if the wrong people have access to that information.

While the structure, foundation and magic of Amber are, well, totally cool, the depth of the characters of the Amber Chronicles make it even more pleasurable reading. We see each character skewed at least slightly from Corwin’s point of view, but by this time in the series I for one have come to find Corwin an honest narrator if not exactly a model of trustworthiness to the other players in this big game. We are given almost enough information to draw our own conclusions about these colorful people, but are also guided in our analysis by the characters who give us their opinions without being allowed to forget that sometimes, the antagonists really are just insane.

I had put this book down for a while when I was about halfway through (no excuse, just distractible), so I feared I had missed something when I neared the end of the book and still did not know why it was given its title. It isn’t until just the end that its meaning became clear with a bit of a twist, although I’d bet that if I reread the book, I’d find a clue or two. The Hand of Oberon was yet another fun Amber book, and I think I’ll dive into Book Five as soon as I can.

You might also like Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny

Coming soon: Death Masks (Book 5 of the Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher

 

 

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