The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10 is a collection of Roger Zelazny’s ten Chronicles of Amber novels (but not the short fiction). Back when I was a kid, when I joined the Science Fiction Book Club (it did not end well) I got a collection of the first five Chronicle of Amber novels as part of my introductory package; I read the other five… later. These are definitely books that you need to read if you want to understand how the fantasy genre developed post-Tolkien. They’re also, you know, good.
And so, adieu to Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories.
Moe-there are many reasons I enjoy your blog.
music, books, cooking
this time it was books.
Just ordered this for my grandson
Did anybody’s experience with The Science Fiction Book Club actually end well?
Asking for a friend.
(OK, it was much better than Columbia House. But…)
.
They’re extremely good. (I recall the first five blowing my tweenage mind. I didn’t discover the Merlin set until nearly a decade later.)
But I am forced to argue that they didn’t actually have much of a long-term impact on post-Tolkien fantasy. (More’s the pity.) Freewheeling imagination, deadly intrigue, convoluted backstory, nigh godlike characters, etc. didn’t really show up very often.
Instead we got lots of swords with a “truth” motif, character stereotypes, and much wandering without a readily-apparent purpose.
The first 5 books, maybe not. Books 5-10, maybe, especially if you think of them as urban fantasy. A mystery to be solved, a powerful main character, complicated romance…