AT LAST! THE FINAL AMBER SAGA TOME!

I seem to have spent years waiting for Zelazny. The first volume of what turned out to be the complex, multi-tome Amber saga appeared as far back as 1970, and there has been a more or less steady stream of books on the subject ever since.

The latest, which is at the same time the final and concluding volume of the set, is Prince of Chaos.

The existence of Merlin, son of Prince Corwin of Amber and Princess Dara of the Courts of Chaos, was revealed at the conclusion of the first five volumes of Amberiana, paving the way for the second cycle where the ambivalent heritage of young Merlin becomes a pivot.

It is the choices which this young Prince is forced to make that provide the impetus for volumes 6 - 10, choices that involve no less than the struggle for his soul by the forces of Chaos and Amber.

If you know the series, no doubt you will have been, like myself, haunting the science fiction shelves of your local bookstpre for the last two years waiting for this particular book. If you have yet to encounter Roger Zelazny, I genuinely envy you the experience of reading the Amber saga for the first time; go back to Nine princes in Amber, beginning a whole new experience. The Amber series is classic fantasy of the first water, although it is a true original that owes nothing to anything other than itself.

If I seem to be spending a lot of time talking about the nine books which have preceded the one currently under review, well, I am, but that's only because the entire set forms such a complete and seamless whole. Each book will begin where the last left off, even to the extent that the first five volumes form a complete circle which can, if you so desire, send you right back to the first word of the first book as finish the last paragraph of book five, Courts of Chaos.

Prince of Chaos completes the whole saga, which means that some lucky person who has not read this before will be able to read the whole thing at a sitting and will be spared the torture of waiting a year or two between tomes to find out just how the characters come off the cliff-edge which Zelazny invariably manages to leave them dangling from at the conclusion of every book.

It's the end of waiting - Zelazny has delivered. Go buy this, lock your door, and slip into a different world. Highly recommended.