I read voraciously. There is a bookshelf in every room in my house. I come from a family of readers. I have read hundreds of fantasy books. It is my favorite genre and I keep going back to it. I even write some of my own stories.

I speak in superlatives. Everything is my favorite this or my favorite that. I have 50 favorite movies and thousands of favorites songs.

But I can say that hands down the Amber series by Roger Zelazny is my favorite books series ever. To get a favorite anything from me is headline news. But I have always said and will always say that Amber is so amazingly well written and enthralling that I can say, with conviction, that I love it above all other books in the world.

Just don't ask me to tell you which Amber book is my favorite...

A lot of Amber readers vastly prefer the first five books to the second five. I enjoy them both. The first five books are written by Corwin, a fallen Prince of Amber. The second five are written by his son, Merlin, and have a much wilder tone to them. The first five are very tense, and truly convey the sense of a scheming family that you can never trust. That is lost in the second five books, but a perspective on the rest of shadow is gained.

Ok, have I lost you yet? In the world of Amber, there are two points in reality: Amber and Chaos. They are all that is real. Everything between them is simply a warped reflection of the two. The farther you get from either point, the more warped the reflection. Amberites and Chaosians call these reflections 'Shadows.' Even Earth is a shadow, and some of the books are set here.

The first book, 'Nine Princes in Amber', opens in a hospital on Earth. A man awakes in a bed, covered in bandages. He does not remember who he is or why he is there. He does not even recall his name. He knows only that he must leave this place and discover who he is.

To tell you much more than that would be to ruin the series. I can only tell you that the man is your narrator, Prince Corwin, and he eventually does learn who he is and what the hell is going on. It just takes five books.

The Amber books are all told from the first person perspective. It makes for an interesting read for a number of reasons. First off, you get the baises of your narrator and you see things from his point of view. Considering Corwin gets tricked and screwed several times, you are kept guessing as to who the 'ultimate evil bad guy' is. Corwin himself changes his opinion about what is going on at least once a book as he discovers new layers to the plots. Only in the last 50 pages of the final book do you finally figure out what the hell has gone on.

The second books follow in much the same vein. All first person, never knowing who or what is your enemy. They are certainly wilder, and concerned with much greater things than the throne to Amber. They are also told by Corwin's son, and they have a certain rebellious and naive flair to them. Personally, I loathe Corwin and long to jump in the pages and drop kick his sorry ass into the Abyss. But I adore Merlin and his snide comments. His is the sarcasm of which all other sarcasm is but shadow.

I also like the Amber books because you can't prove they are not true. All fantasy takes a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Most authors get around this by creating worlds that have nothing to do with Earth. They start out the books by creating the 'rules' that govern their worlds. All of reality is included in these ambitious novels. Roger Zelazny creates a beautiful explanation for how his universe functions, one that could possibly be true. Other worlds, such as White Wolf, have created the same level of believability, which is why I enjoy them. After all, if you can't believe something can happen the way the author says it should, than the series falls apart. This is one of the keys to writing good sci-fi and fantasy that a lot of other shitty writers miss.

It's hard to write a page about the books without giving away the plot. But I love these books so much, I had to at least put up something. There are plenty of sites dedicated to the books that do contain plot spoilers. I strongly, strongly encourage anyone who wants to read the books not to look at any of the sites, because it ruins some of the surprise of the books. But then again, when I first read the series, I knew who the villain was and I still was caught unprepared for the twists and turns of the plot.

I found a very good review of the books here. It does contain some spoilers, but not so much that it will ruin the books for you.

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