The Guns of Avalon, chapter 1

Good morning! After a two-week hiatus, we return today to our readthrough of Roger Zelazny's fantasy series The Chronicles of Amber, the first five books of which were published from 1970–78. This is a reread, but it has been over 30 years since I last read them, and I remember next to nothing. So what you are reading is basically my first impression.

I paused at the end of the first book, Nine Princes in Amber, and we pick up the story again today with the second, The Guns of Avalon.

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

---

The story so far

A man wakes up in a private hospital after an automobile accident. He has amnesia. He learns he has been kept there against his will by his sister Flora, sedated, under the name Carl Corey. Escaping the hospital and going to Flora's house, his memories start to return. With the help of his brother Random, he travels to Amber, the real world of which ours is a mere shadow. There, in the undersea city of Rebma, he walks a replica of the Pattern, the magic labyrinth that gives his family the ability to manipulate reality and travel in Shadow; doing so restores his memories. He knows that he is Corwin, prince of Amber, and that he fought his brother Eric for the throne of Amber after the disappearance of their father Oberon. Eric banished him to sixteenth-century Earth, where Corwin survived the plague but his memory didn't, trapping him there for centuries.

Corwin uses the Pattern to teleport directly to the palace of Amber, where he steals a deck of tarot cards containing magical Trumps that enable the Amber royal family to communicate. He also confronts Eric and fights him before escaping. Using the Trumps, Corwin learns that Oberon, long missing and presumed dead, is actually alive. Oberon encourages him to take the throne of Amber from his brother, Eric, who is to be crowned in a few months. Corwin and his brother Bleys raise an army and march on the palace of Amber. Corwin alone reaches the palace gate, where he is captured. He is forced to crown Eric, and is then blinded and imprisoned.

Three years later, Corwin's regenerative powers have restored his eyes. He escapes his cell with the help of Dworkin, the madman who designed the Trumps and the Pattern, teleporting to the Lighthouse of Cabra. He befriends the lighthouse keeper and spends a time recuperating there, before sailing away to form another army and attempt to take Amber again.

The Guns of Avalon

The second novel in The Chronicles of Amber begins with Corwin making landfall somewhere in Shadow. He retrieves his silver sword, Grayswandir, in a hollow tree. After some walking through Shadow, looking for a place called Avalon, where he once ruled, he encounters a wounded knight named Lance and six bodies. Corwin gives the knight food and first aid and carries him to his desired destination, the Keep of Ganelon. En route they are attacked by two giant cats, whom Corwin defeats.

Corwin had cast Ganelon out of Avalon and into Shadow 600 years ago. However, due to Corwin's long beard and emaciated state from his imprisonment, Ganelon does not recognize him. Corwin also recognizes Lance as a shadow of the man he knew in Avalon. Using the alias Sir Corey of Cabra, he decides to stay at the Keep of Ganelon. Ganelon asks him to stay for a few weeks and train his troops.

Ganelon tells "Sir Corey" how he came to be exiled from Avalon. He also tells him about the "dark Circle" that had appeared in his world: a blackened area from which hostile creatures emerge to attack the surrounding land. The men Lance had been fighting came from this Circle. As they talk, a white bird with a message tied to its leg arrives. The message is "I am coming"—this is one of two messenger birds Corwin himself released at the end of Nine Princes in Amber. He interprets it as an offer of aid defeating the Circle, without revealing that he himself had sent it.

This book has another clever title. It's a pun on Alistair Maclean's 1957 war novel, The Guns of Navarone, which was made into a classic movie in 1961 starring Gregory Peck and David Niven. Avalon is the name of Corwin's past kingdom in Shadow. It was hinted at the close of the previous novel that his next assault on Amber would use guns: "With my own forces to back me up, I would do another thing Amber had never known. I didn't know how yet, but I promised myself that guns would blaze within the immortal city on the day of my return."

Ganelon remembers the Shadow Avalon quite fondly:

"Yes, I remember Avalon," he said, "a place of silver and shade and cool waters, where the stars shone like bonfires at night and the green of day was always the green of spring. Youth, love, beauty—I knew them in Avalon. Proud steeds, bright metal, soft lips, dark ale. Honor…" He shook his head.

He seems to remember the "sorceror Lord" Corwin's honour a little less fondly. Perhaps Corwin isn't quite as saintly a protagonist as his narrative has suggested thus far.

Corwin feigns secondhand familiarity with Avalon by reciting a song he claims to have heard from a wandering bard:

Beyond the River of the Blessed, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Avalon. Our swords were shattered in our hands and we hung our shields on the oak tree. The silver towers were fallen, into a sea of blood. How many miles to Avalon? None, I say, and all. The silver towers are fallen.

Compare that to Psalm 137 in the Bible:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps Upon the willows in the midst thereof.… Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; Who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. (Psalm 137:1–2, 7 King James Version)

Of course, Avalon is named after the mythical island paradise in Arthurian legend, where Excalibur was forged and King Arthur was taken to recover after being mortally wounded in his final battle.

Roger Zelazny plays with Arthurian legend a lot in this chapter. The previous ruler of Ganelon's realm was King Uther. Uther Pendragon was the father of King Arthur. Lance's real name is Lancelot du Lac, whose namesake is the most famous of the Knights of the Round Table. Lancelot is known for his failed quest for he Holy Grail and his adulterous love affair with Queen Guinevere, which led to civil war and Arthur s downfall.

Ganelon's namesake is not from Arthurian legend, but French:. He is the knight who betrays Charlemagne to the Saracens in the 11th-century poem Song of Roland, resulting in the Frankish defeat in an ambush at Roncevaux Pass. Similarly, Zelazny's Ganelon betrays Corwin after being passed over for a dukedom: he allows invaders into the realm instead of repelling them.

This chapter gives us a clearer picture of the nature of Shadow:

Amber casts an infinity of shadows. A child of Amber may walk among them, and such was my heritage. You may call them parallel worlds if you wish, alternate universes if you would, the products of a deranged mind if you care to. I call them shadows, as do all who possess the power to walk among them. We select a possibility and we walk until we reach it. So, in a sense, we create it. Let's leave it at that for now.

Only the children of Amber can walk in Shadow, which they do by moulding reality to the shape they want. Infinite shadows exist, because any world that can be imagined can be created. Hence Corwin can reach into a random hollow tree and draw out his own sword. It is there because he created a world in which it was there. Ganelon was carried by Corwin out of Avalon, but as a mere mortal without Corwin's power, neither Avalon nor a route to it exist in his world.

The "Circle" in Ganelon's world is described as darkened, with blackened vegetation, and inhabited by bats and other hostile things. It sounds very similar to the Vale of Garnath at the end of Nine Princes, turned dark and corrupt by Corwin's curse against Eric. Who or what caused the Circle? Is there a connection?

At the end of Nine Princes, Corwin sent out two messenger birds: a black one to Eric, vowing revenge, and a white one, bearing the message "I am coming," to an unknown destination. That bird delivers its message back to Corwin in this chapter. It seems clear he meant for this to happen, and for someone to see "Sir Corey" receive a note from Corwin of Amber. I don't get the impression he specifically intended that someone to be Ganelon; his run-in with Lance appeared unplanned. So what was his intent?

I'm happy to be continuing with this readthrough of The Chronicles of Amber. Once again, if I can keep up the pace of two chapters per week, the next one will drop this Sunday.