Corwin awakens in a hospital with no idea who he is or why he's there. He has some vague memory of an accident, but nothing more than that. What he does know for sure is that someone is keeping him doped up and in a hospital long after he needs to be, and he's determined to find out why. As it turns out, escaping the hospital is the easy part. Surviving his family while trying to discover who he is and why they're in contention with one another is by far the more difficult task. The alliances he makes are shaky at best, but he slowly regains his memory and returns to the place where it all began: Amber.
Impression:Nine Princes in Amber was a nice, fast read. It's a short book, but that doesn't make it simple. The settings are rich with detail, the characters well defined, the plot less straight forward than it would appear as the princes each try to outsmart one another. Corwin turns out to be no less ambitious, though one of the more likable characters. And there is so much that happens in so few pages that a reread is definitely going to be necessary to catch all the nuances of the story. There were a few lulls that I did have to kind of plow through, but the book is otherwise a very good read. Not one of my favorites, but definitely recommended.
