Contents: Seven Tales in Amber • interior artwork by James Zimmerman 7 • Introduction (Seven Tales in Amber) • essay by Warren Lapine 13 • Prologue to Trumps of Doom • [Amber Stories] • short fiction by Roger Zelazny (variant of Prolog (Trumps of Doom) 1985) 17 • A Secret of Amber • [Amber Stories] • (2005) • short story by Ed Greenwood and Roger Zelazny 23 • Salesman's Tale • [Amber Stories] • short story by Roger Zelazny (variant of The Salesman's Tale 1994) 37 • Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains • [Amber Stories] • (1995) • short story by Roger Zelazny 43 • The Shroudling and the Guisel • [Amber Stories] • (1994) • short story by Roger Zelazny 57 • Coming to a Cord • [Amber Stories] • (1995) • short story by Roger Zelazny 65 • Hall of Mirrors • [Amber Stories] • (1996) • novelette by Roger Zelazny Amber is the one true world of which all others are but shadows. Collected here in one binding are seven tales of Amber. It was Zelazny's intent to use these short stories to tie up unfinished threads from his amazing Chronicles of Amber. This edition is sure to be a treat for the legion of Amber fans. "A storyteller without peer. He created worlds as colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen." —George R.R. Martin . . . his performance was never anything other than dazzling. —Robert Silverberg Roger Zelazny's work excited me. It was intoxicating and delightful and unique. And it was smart. —Neil Gaiman
Author
Roger Zelazny made his name with a group of novellas which demonstrated just how intense an emotional charge could be generated by the stock imagery of sf; the most famous of these is A Rose for Ecclesiastes in which a poet struggles to convince dying and sterile Martians that life is worth continuing. Zelazny continued to write excellent short stories throughout his career. Most of his novels deal, one way or another, with tricksters and mythology, often with rogues who become gods, like Sam in Lord of Light, who reinvents Buddhism as a vehicle for political subversion on a colony planet. The fantasy sequence The Amber Chronicles, which started with Nine Princes in Amber, deals with the ruling family of a Platonic realm at the metaphysical heart of things, who can slide, trickster-like through realities, and their wars with each other and the related ruling house of Chaos. Zelazny never entirely fulfilled his early promise—who could?—but he and his work were much loved, and a potent influence on such younger writers as George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman. He won the Nebula award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo award six times (out of 14 nominations). His papers are housed at the Albin O. Khun Library of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger\_Ze...
