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In this book, tenth of Amber and the last of the Merlin cycle, I felt that Zelazny finally got his mojo back; instead of all the waffling around in hyperspace (*ahem, sorry in Shadow), we have a plot with focus again. The Luke / Rinaldo character becomes less annoying and actually seems to develop a purpose in the narrative, even a fairly important and interesting purpose. Merlin is still a dumb bunny, but he does take a bot of control of his own life and develops some autonomy and direction.

We get to see a lot more of Chaos finally, and it is as though Zelazny suddenly realised he could have FUN writing Chaos and throws himself into the impossibility of it. In this book he finally gives us some guidance unto what the courts are, how they operate and I love his Escher like descriptions of how things stick together. The characters that had seemed to be no more than cardboard cutouts become three dimensional at last; Dara (invisible since the Corwin cycle) suddenly emerges as a strong actor in Merlin's destiny. Jurt, from a meaninglessly homicidal plot advancement tactic, become real (perhaps too fast to be entirely believable) and Merlin and he ally - this would not be especially believable after their long history of violence, but I have always found Merlin an idiot when it came to trusting people.

I especially liked Mandor's character arc; instead of the Dues Ex Machina I suspected Zelazny to be turning him into, he became a more complex character, with a depth to his goals.

I was glad that Zelazny pulled himself together for the final book in the cycle. I did not enjoy the Merlin books as much as I had expected to, certainly not as much as the Corwin books, I m pretty sure Zelazny did not enjoy them that much either. Certainly the early ones seemed to lack focus and I am not sure he had any idea where he wanted to take them. That said - I still like his writing, even at it's worst, better than many other writers and this series is vastly improved by reading it continually, in whole and in sequence. I had never actually done that before, I had never had the whole set at once.

(view spoiler)[ And Merlin becomes ruler of Chaos, but in a believable way that I quite enjoyed. He makes it more on luck and help than on his own merit, but I wish him luck as ruler. With Ghostwheel and his other allies he might do a decent job.

And he released Corwin, who is not dead. Just that little bit alone was enough to make the whole series worth while. I still adore Corwin disproportionally. (hide spoiler)]