The first book in the series has already
been reviewed. Does the second hold up in
comparison?

General Information

Title: Guns of Avalon

Author: Roger Zelazny

Original Publication Date: 1972

ISBN: 0380809060 (single volume of ten books)

Cover Price: $22.95 US for the complete series

Buy from: Amazon.com
or Amazon.ca

Premise

Corwin once again makes a bid for the crown of Amber,
but this time,
he comes in better prepared.

High Point

The “I fear Benedict” speech.

Low Point

Not cluing in sooner. There’s one comment made in
the first meeting
that sticks out like a sore thumb to me, and yet
Corwin never noticed
it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t telling a
child not to do some
obscure thing they’d probably never have thought of
the best way to
make sure they actually do it?

The Scores

The originality of this sequel suffers from
being essentially
the same sweeping plot as we had in the first book.
Corwin wants the
crown that Eric has, and he recruits an army (the
same army!) along
with allies to help him win it. I give it 4 out of
6.

The imagery used to describe locations is
the same quality as
we had before. The figurative language has been
toned down a notch,
and it’s missed. I give it 5 out of 6.

The story is still entertaining, despite
being so similar to
the first novel. The cliff hanger ending in this
book didn’t work, in
my opinion; Corwin takes far too long to get
suspicious, and the
reader was waiting for those events well before we
see them. I give
it 4 out of 6.

The characterization is again well done in
secondary
characters, particularly with Ganelon and Benedict.
We still don’t
see a lot of depth in our hero, despite his
opportunities for
character growth. (Then again, he’s a few centuries
old; how much out
there will still make him grow? Lack of growth can
be forgiven, but
not lack of depth.) Still, he comes across as
shallow, and that’s not
something we want in a hero. I give it 4 out of 6.

The emotional response this produced was
good, but still a
bit hampered by the overly long wait before revealing
the “shocking”
ending. I give it 4 out of 6.

The editing was fairly well done. In terms
of the way the
story takes place, it’s extremely well done. In
terms of spelling and
punctuation, I only noticed two errors. (The strings
“wtih” and
“possisbly” appear a few pages apart in chapter
eight.) I give it 5
out of 6.

Overall, it’s still a good read, and it’s a
good transition
from the introductory novel to the action that really
comes into play
in the next few novels. I strongly recommend this,
and the rest of
the series. I give it 5 out of 6.

In total, Guns of Avalon receives 31 out of
42.

Additional Notes and Comments

I’ll probably review The Sign of the
Unicorn, The Hand of
Oberon, and The Courts of Chaos (if not
all ten books in
the series) before moving on to other book reviews.
If you see
anything on this
list
that you’d like me to review when those are done, let me know.