Amber is an early prototype for The Highlander, as well as much of the writings of Piers Anthony, to name two better known examples of its influence. A childish early novel by the immensely talented Zelazny, it often makes up in creativity what it lacks in polish or character development. Starting here and developed over a series of sequels, Zelazny's universe merges swords and sorcery fantasy with the present day fiction, modern science, and postmodern schlock, making a wonderful vehicle for the protective daydream of a magical world somehow intersecting with the present, painful one of our adolesence. Full of evidence of a creative mind attempting to feel out the shape of a nuanced, expansive imagined universe.