One of the strengths of the Amber novels is the way in which Zelazny individualizes the members of the royal family of Amber. They are recognizably members of the same family, united by blood and mutual distrust, yet each is very much a unique individual, responding to the crises of the story in distinct ways. Corwin, the narrator and focus of the reader's attention, is in many respects the prototypical Zelazny hero — tough, resourceful, gifted with a sardonic wit and a cynical veneer that covers a growing sense of compassion and duty.

Like many of Zelazny's heroes, he has been shocked out of complacency into growth (by spending centuries as an exile, deprived of his memory, on our earth). He no longer kills gratuitously; he no longer denies the reality and the value of other lives. Corwin's growth is slow — often others are more aware than...