I have never picked up a book by Roger Zelazny before last week, I wished I had years ago, The Chronicles of Amber is amazing and it is a great learning curve for any writer who wants to learn how to write descriptive battle scenes cohesively.
I at least, learned a new word through this book “parried” which is something I find useful since I am a fantasy and adventure author myself!
I have never found a book that wrote battle and fight scenes as good as this before, I highly recommend it to any author who wishes to write adventure or war stories!
I can see why Neil Gaiman has been inspired by this author, I can see a little bit of Stardust in the book, but I can also see that J.K Rowling might have been influenced by him too, the tarot cards for instance.
Though both might be exactly like me that it seems rather a strange fluke that some parts of these chronicles are so much alike to two of my novels, one finished and the other part finished. In fact one of them is so much alike to this story, I have to make a few adjustments, because it could almost be a direct copy and what is rather strange about it is that the main character in my novel is called Amber.
I know in the chronicles Amber is a place, rather than a person’s name, but you get my drift?
It’s weird, I have never read these novels before, nor heard many reviews about it, yet one of my novels is so alike it’s amazing and I have only got one hundred and ten pages into the first novel at the moment, what else will I discover about the chronicles in the next nine books?
This really makes me believe in Elizabeth Gilbert’s concept that ideas are alive, that they have souls and they find people who will bring them to life – you’ll find more about this in her book “Big Magic”, it’s a highly recommended read.
Are the Amber chronicles truly finished? If ideas are alive and have a soul of their own, then they must have chosen me to continue their story a little – that’s scary and this is why I have to change so much! Because I honestly was completely unaware about these chronicles until I picked up the book a couple of weeks ago!
Though I loved the story I was writing and though Paul kept pushing me to send it away to an agent, there was something nagging me in my instincts not to send it out, because there was something I needed do or something I needed to learn first. It’s very strange.
I picked this book up because a friend online who knew a small amount about my plot grew concerned I was copying too much of one of her favourite novels from Roger Zelazny, I told her I have never heard of him nor the chronicles and that was true – I am so grateful to have such kind friends who tell me these things! Imagine if I had published this book?
It has been an eye opening experience.
I actually though some of my story seemed reminiscent of Highlander by Gregory Widen and perhaps a little bit like the stories of Merlin and Edmund Spenser’s fairy queen with a little bit of time travelling thrown in, but I thought it was original enough.
It might still be original enough, but I am not sure, hence why I won’t delete what I have done to the story, but I will copy my story and adjust things and keep all of the drafts, so one day, when I make friends I can trust with sharing unpublished works, I will show them and ask them which draft they prefer and see just how much of the Amber chronicles are really in them.
Because I am a nervous creature and I hate coming across as a fraud, so it’s important to me to try and be unique; see the try there, it’s virtually impossible to be unique anyway as everything has been done, but ultimately it hasn’t been done by me. So maybe, just maybe my work is far enough removed not to cause eyebrows to become raised?
This isn’t the first time a piece of work has been very close to my own and I found out after I wrote them and I doubt it will be the last.
Happy reading!
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