33
votes
Accepted
Is the D&D 5e magic item "Ioun stone" derived from the magic of Mandor from Zelazny's "Amber"?
Ioun stones are specifically derived from the later Dying Earth stories, featuring Rhialto the Marvelous, by Jack Vance. In the first two Rhialto stories, the IOUN Stones are merely powerful items ...
- 94.8k
25
votes
Accepted
Did Roger Zelazny ever read The Lord of the Rings?
In a 1973 interview with Zelazny reprinted in the Roger Zelazny book from the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series, and partly available on google books here, he is asked to name masters of SF/...
- 56.1k
21
votes
Accepted
Short story about alien creatures fleeing their home planet to terraform another
This sounds very much like "The Keys to December", a short story by Roger Zelazny.
The alien race are genetically engineered humans that resemble ocelots. The protagonist, Jarry (so, close ...
- 60.3k
14
votes
Is the D&D 5e magic item "Ioun stone" derived from the magic of Mandor from Zelazny's "Amber"?
It's highly unlikely. Ioun Stones (in D&D) date from at least as early as 1979, in the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, while the first of the second set of Amber ...
- 115k
11
votes
Accepted
Why not to simply take some guns from the Shadow Earth and kill Eric?
The short answer is, Read And Find Out - you're only on the first book of a 10 book series.
The longer answer...
Yuuuge spoiler:
However, in the 2nd book in the series, as summarized by Wikipedia:
...
- 25.5k
8
votes
Accepted
Time span in Lord of Light by Zelazny - age of Yama
Warning. May contain spoilers!
I was intrigued by this question, so I tried to look into the book to see if I could find some clues or discrepancies. I even constructed a mindmap for some of the ...
- 1,331
7
votes
Is the D&D 5e magic item "Ioun stone" derived from the magic of Mandor from Zelazny's "Amber"?
Ioun Stones are likely sourced from Jack Vance's fiction
The Ioun Stone comes from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, which is where the "fire and forget" spell casting of D&D came from ...
- 213k
6
votes
Accepted
How exactly do shadows work in The Chronicles of Amber?
Shadows are cast by the Pattern (emphasis mine):
...but of Shadow I have this to say: there is Shadow and there is
Substance, and this is the root of all things. Of Substance, there is
only ...
- 25.5k
5
votes
Accepted
What is the name of the place where ghost/clone Corwin bested ghost/clone (chaos lord swordsmaster) Berel?
TL;DR - Merlin went to a land "which lies between the shadows", inaccessible to the Pattern and the Logrus, but not their higher-order (or higher-chaos) progenitors, the Unicorn and the Serpent. The ...
- 25.5k
5
votes
What did the Pattern of Amber look like?
As far as I know, Roger only drew the barest hint of the pattern once. I have a cocktail napkin with a partial sketch of the pattern (and Roger's home address at the time) on it. It is such a ...
- 51
5
votes
What did the Pattern of Amber look like?
The Illustrated Roger Zelazny contains this rather disappointing depiction of the Pattern:
(sorry for bad scan but you are not missing much).
IDK how much involvement or input Zelazny had to this ...
- 49.6k
5
votes
Accepted
What was Jack's plan after acquiring the Hellflame?
It is not ever spelled out explicitly, but the implication is that Jack believes his fortress is wherever he happens to be. All the other powers on the dark side of the planet have specific domains ...
- 94.8k
4
votes
Demystifying Zelazny's "Lord of Light"
What I love about this novel is how the author either inadvertently or quite knowingly has created a modern religious epic, tempting the reader to recognize the thin veneer of all religious works and ...
4
votes
Is the Archangel Corwin passage a reference?
In Nine Princes, Corwin remarks that any of The Blood can find shadows in which they are worshipped as gods. Clearly, this is one of those shadows for Corwin. Lightning upon his breast is the Jewel ...
- 41
4
votes
What happened to Corwin's Avalon?
Never described, but we can assume the names and Arthurian allusions indicate that something similar to the fall of Camelot transpired, with a bit of the Song of Roland thrown in, in the betrayal by ...
- 502
2
votes
Did Zelazny give a reason for using the name "Amber"?
There is also the metaphysical contrast of chaos and order, where ultimate chaos is frenetic, dynamic, and eternally inconsistent while ultimate order is unchanging as if it were frozen in amber.
...
- 2,382
1
vote
What else, if anything, do we know about Delwin and Sand?
Blood of Amber:
Depicted on Luke's cards:
...another of a slim, russethaired man in brown and black, and one of
a woman who resembled this man so closely it would seem they must be
related.
«Okay. ...
- 11.5k
1
vote
What is the name of the place where ghost/clone Corwin bested ghost/clone (chaos lord swordsmaster) Berel?
Are you thinking of the place of the second pattern that Corwin scribed out in the wild shadows in Courts of Chaos? While Corwin is taking the Jewel of Judgment to the Courts of Chaos, Oberon is ...
- 6,326
1
vote
Accepted
What is the nature of the Keye?
It is NOT mentioned in Zelazny's books.
It is only mentioned in Book 3 "To Rule in Amber" of Betancourt's prequels.
“It is tied to the Keye – ”
“The what?”
“The Keye…” She hesitated. “It is ...
- 341k
1
vote
Did Zelazny give a reason for using the name "Amber"?
Zelazny stated explicitly that he began Nine Princes in Amber with absolutely no idea where the story would go: no concept of the cosmology, or the family, or pretty much anything. Everything was ...
- 94.8k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible