Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Sign of Chaos by Roger Zelazny starting August 1, 2023.

I will probably start this tonight or tomorrow.

I'm having a hard time getting into this one. I'm about 4 or 5 chapters in. Other than Merlin once again repeating past mistakes, I'm not sure what's going on because I keep losing focus.

That sucks to hear. I’m a little behind in finishing up my current read so I likely can’t start until Thursday or Friday.

I'm making my way through. I reread chapter 5 and will pick up with chapter 6 later today.

Started today. I actually enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland bits in the first few Chapters--and Jabberwocky is one of my favorite poems; I've had it memorized since I was about 10... they managed to include almost all the lines in there in different bits.

Here's the text for Jabberwocky, if anyone wanted to see:
(view spoiler)[’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. (hide spoiler)]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

I had Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" playing in my head for most of the first few chapters. I'm now thinking of it as Merle's theme. Or maybe Luke's theme. If you don't know the song, check it out, it's so haunting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKZVU...

Through Chapter 4 now: (view spoiler)[Coral is reminding me a bit of Corwin's encounter with Dara. Waay too much trust there Merle! Haven't you learned not to go spouting your plans all over the place? (hide spoiler)]

Through Chapter 8--(view spoiler)[Finding the book more straightforward now that its out of the Alice forest--though again, like y'all said, here's Merle just repeating his and his fathers' old mistakes again... telling everything to strangers and nothing to the people who actually need to know....

I was facepalming so hard when Coral stepped out on to the Pattern. I'm not sure if it's Merle's arrogance or pure stupidity that he didn't even think of this. You're in Amber! None of these women are actually interested in you just for your looks and charm! Plus we've had random family members growing on trees lately. *sigh* Who knows if she's as innocent in her desires as she said...

I feel like there've been a lot of random little tidbits happening here and there--the sound of such-and-such animal, or a random visual cue of something that Merle ignores--that might come back into play later as important. But I've just been ignoring them.

So it seems.... Luke was drugged by Mask. Mask is helping Jurt by using the power in the Keep of Four Winds. We don't really know what Mask's goals are, but it seems to involve bugging Merle. Jurt is just an ass with a chip on his shoulder.

Then there's Dalt, leading an army I believe armed with guns with the special powder that works in Amber. He, for reasons yet unknown, has a beef with Luke and his mom.

Oh, and Luke's mom is a coatrack. And she used to rule in Kashfa, but has been absent and trying to gain power in the Keep of Four Winds, lost it, was coatrack'd, by Mask.

Meanwhile, Kashfa has Alcase-Lorraine style border issues with Begma, Random is working on getting a treaty with Kashfa's new gov't, and the ambassadorial party from Begma showed up to Amber early to try to mess things up. Coral's sister is offering to assassinate someone for Merlin for a smile. Don't trust it!

I think I've got my head on straight now... (hide spoiler)]

Reyna wrote: "hi everyone I would like to invite you to my book club for 10-14yr olds
if you are interested

https://www.goodreads.com/group/invit..."

Reyna, you might want to take a look at the rules for this group--spamming all the discussion threads with an invite to your other group is not the place to put this kind of information.

Nirkatze wrote: "Through Chapter 8--Finding the book more straightforward now that its out of the Alice forest--though again, like y'all said, here's Merle just repeating his and his fathers' old mistakes again... ..."

I am finishing Chapter 8 myself, and I greatly appreciate you breaking everything down because I was not following all of the threads - too many names - I had trouble keeping everyone straight.

And Merle really is an idiot (sometimes).

Reyna wrote: "it won't happen again."

No worries! Here! I found a thread that would be good for it--there's a "Self Promotions" folder in the main page for the group, and a thread at the top labeled "link your blog/vlog here"--that's a good place to start!

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I hope you get to join us for some reading in this group too!

Nyssa wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "Through Chapter 8--Finding the book more straightforward now that its out of the Alice forest--though again, like y'all said, here's Merle just repeating his and his fathers' old m..."

I was severely missing that nice recap we got in one of the books--I swear, I have to do a slowdown and what is going on? in each of these...

I think you can get rid of that (sometimes) without too much compunction. ^_^

Nirkatze wrote: "Reyna wrote: "it won't happen again."

No worries! Here! I found a thread that would be good for it--there's a "Self Promotions" folder in the main page for the group, and a thread at the top label..."

Thanks... I was about to do something like this... half the threads being posted in, weren't necessarily books likely to be read by 10-14 year olds, anyway :D

Altho, I liked the kneejerk thematic connection of 14

Nirkatze wrote: "I think you can get rid of that (sometimes) without too much compunction. ^_^."

LOL!

Finished! I feel the need to do another thought-orienting summary... (view spoiler)[So... Merle led his step-brother and Jasra to attack Mask & try to stop Jurt from transforming into a soulless teleporter. Oops! Too late. Fortunately, Jurt really is an idiot, and sucks at it all--or at least, Jasra could use her trick that she couldn't teach Merlin to foil Jurt. Merle defeats Mask, but not before Mask wakes up the other former coatrack. Jurt teleports out taking Mask--just as Mask is revealed to be none other than Julia, Merle's magic-obsessed ex. I'm guessing Jasra defeated coatrack man.

Also, Vitra is apparently a demon from Chaos, sent under some kind of compulsion to look out for Merlin. She can't tell Merlin who sent her, and anyone she tells can't tell him either. I guess that puts Merlin's mother back into play--though I think Corwin is also a possibility--what if he's absent because he's exploring the realms of Chaos, or the realms of the tree-pattern, and found Vitra (now Nayla) there?

Feel like I should've seen Nayla was Vitra when she offered to assassinate someone for Merlin--but when we heard she had been sick and made a recovery it was pretty much a given. I feel bad for Nayla--and her father though... one of his daughters turns out not to be his own biologically, and the other dead, and he doesn't know about either? That's two shocks coming his way soon... and what do you want to bet the books won't even come back to him at all? (hide spoiler)]

@Iain--lol, I didn't even think about how most of the books we're reading have pretty serious mature ratings.... or the coincidence of 14.

Nirkatze wrote: "Finished! I feel the need to do another thought-orienting summary... (view spoiler)"

Thanks (again).

I'm finishing up soon. I just started the last chapter.

This installment just wasn't for me.

Each book we get in, I keep wondering what is going to get tied up and what isn't... I believe Zelazny passed away before the Amber books were entirely done.. but I don't know if he finished the Merlin Cycle, and was just planning more, or if we're going to end on an unfinished note...

Up to Ch. 2... Totally Alice in Wonderland! Nirkatze, thank you so much for the Jabberwocky text! I can totally see how RZ incorporated it! And I love, LOVE The White Rabbit song!!!

I went to Karaoke on Friday, but they didn't have White Rabbit. I was very disappointed.

I got started really late on this one (yesterday) but I'm plowing through it. I should be done tomorrow.

I also found the first couple of chapters to be tough to follow (purposely written to be trippy). The action got much easier to follow after that though and I'm enjoying the intrigue.

That was a great summary through chapter 8, Nirkatze. Will definitely be a helpful refresher for the next book.

Glad you're still with us Christopher!

I think I'm the only one who really enjoyed the trippy chapters, lol.

Finished. That was really a fast-paced ending. Thanks again for the recap, Nirkatze.

(view spoiler)[ So we close one loose end (the identity of Mask) only to have several other loose ends piled on us (the "mystery" behind Nayla, Coral in trouble somewhere off in Shadow, the prospect of Corwin's return, among others...). (hide spoiler)]

I'll try to be on time for the next one so I can take part in more of the discussion. Only two more left!

Yeah, I'm just really hoping that the last two will tie off most, if not all, of the loose threads...

The writing is so amazing, but his purposeful vagueness and his intentional need to get us as confused as possible do get to be too much at times...

Haha yes! Hoping we have some decent closure w the last two books.

Nirkatze wrote: "Each book we get in, I keep wondering what is going to get tied up and what isn't... I believe Zelazny passed away before the Amber books were entirely done.. but I don't know if he finished the Me..."

Popped into this thread led me down a google rabbithole...

Merlin Cycle was completed in 1991... if you stop there, I think the series is in a mostly satisfactory state, with a few dangling plot threads... but if you continue to the short stories published in 1995, shortly before his death, you'll be left with more unresolved, since it was setting up the beginnings of a 3rd and possibly final Cycle...

And the Dawn of Amber series (prequel focused on Oberon), written by Betancourt in the 2000s, is complete rubbish, apparently, and unfinished when the publisher's owner died and went bankrupt...

I've definitely had enough after this 10 book set. I'm always a little skeptical on posthumous writings - they tend to be a bit of a let down and a cash grab. Even more so if there's a different author involved.

I agree. As much as I love Sanderson and appreciate his finishing WoT, I really wish Jordan had completed it! However, I appreciate the closure...

I’m actually just reading WOT now for the first time. About to start book 3. I wasn’t even thinking of that when I made my comment about posthumous writings and new authors coming in to finish the source material. I’m pretty sure that one would be the exception to the rule but I’ll know for sure in several months I guess.

I envy you for just starting it! A favorite series for sure! Some people complain about the pace of some of the books, but to me everything was necessary for the experience! It is immersion to the fullest! Despite the million characters, you don't forget or confuse them, and you care for or hate all the ones the author wanted you to do so... An amazing read!

I’m enjoying it so far. The pace was slow in Eye of the World but better in The Great Hung. And I know the payoff will be worth it.

most of the complaints are around book 6-10, when alot of plots take many books to play out... and 2 do the Game of Thrones book thing of splitting the cast in half across 2 books, because so much stuff is going on...

In general, the series timeline is pretty bonkers... I discussed this a bit a few months ago, when i popped into the finale book thread... from Eye of the World to the start of the last book is 2.5 years... and a fair bit of that is near the beginning of the series... the characters lose some time using that stone traveling system in Great Hunt, for example...

Much of the second half of the series can be pretty accurately measured in a 9 month stretch, because one character is pregnant...

Yeah , crazy tight timeline for such a massive series. And the characters go through so many changes... It is awesome!

re: Posthumous writings--I think it really makes a difference if it was planned/allowed or not. For Wheel of Time, Jordan saw he end coming and made a serious effort to leave enough behind that someone could finish his work. His wife was his editor before they married, and was just as much involved in the story as he was, and hand-picked Sanderson. That's one end of the spectrum.

When it comes to Zelazny though, his good friend and protégé Jane Lindskold has said that he was absolutely against anyone playing in his Sandbox. The publishers went against his explicit wishes in ordering more Amber books--so yeah. Avoid like plague.

@Iain--I didn't know about the shorts though. Will definitely avoid...