Amber DRPG sans Zelazny

[RPGPundit]

Well Try Gaiman.
American Gods has a bit of an Amber vibe as does Anansi Boys.

Gaiman was a good friend of Zelazny and has noted that he woudl have loved to have written more Amber stories if Roger hadn't personally asked him not to. In fact I think Gaiman pitched an Amber Anthology to Roger once with a bunch of the usual fantasy suspects (Martin, Cook, Etc etc) but Roger said no.

I find that a real shame and a little odd as he allowed 7 No Trump (good) and The Black Road War (not so good) adventure books when he was alive as well as the really quite awful Visual guide to Castle Amber. And by asking his mates not to write about Amber we end up with the Benecourt books and look how that turned out.

I have a Dying Earth anthology and its got some real gems in it becuase all of those guys participated and an Amber Book on the same vein I think would have been golden.

But its moot.

I have to disagree here.  You see, we might have seen Amber stuff by Gaiman and Martin, which might have been awesome (though I think both would have seriously altered the "vision" of Amber anyways; Gaiman is much more pretentious than Zelazny, and Martin is more cynical); but then we would also have seen a bunch of other stuff. And we'd have ended up with 50 "official", sanctioned, "legacy" novels by Betancourt or some hack like him.

By doing what he did, Zelazny made it clear that he was utterly opposed to that ever happening; it allowed Amber fandom to repudiate Betancourt's crap without any moral doubt.  It preserved the purity of the product, exactly like Zelazny wanted.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

I find that a bit odd as well. He obviously had strong feelings about his literary legacy, in that he didn't want others playing in his personal play ground. Which is fine, authors prerogative and all that. But this being the case why didn't he do anything about updating his will? Telling his friends (Gaiman, Martin, etc) that he didn't want others writing about Amber is all well and good, but the only thing it really accomplished is making sure that the quality writers who knew him best had to stand by and watch Betancourt fuck it all up. I have real trouble wrapping my head around the thought process that says tell your best mates how you want your legacy to be handled, but don't bother keeping your will up to date.

If he really felt that strongly about it he could have done more that tell Neil and George "Bury me with all my stuff, because you know it's mine". He should have left someone in charge that knew the score. As to opposed to someone with an axe to grind.

I believe that Zelazny didn't believe, at the time, that his situation was so grim; maybe he didn't want to believe it, and so he didn't finish fully settling his affairs the way he might otherwise would have.

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

I have to disagree here.  You see, we might have seen Amber stuff by Gaiman and Martin, which might have been awesome (though I think both would have seriously altered the "vision" of Amber anyways; Gaiman is much more pretentious than Zelazny, and Martin is more cynical); but then we would also have seen a bunch of other stuff. And we'd have ended up with 50 "official", sanctioned, "legacy" novels by Betancourt or some hack like him.

By doing what he did, Zelazny made it clear that he was utterly opposed to that ever happening; it allowed Amber fandom to repudiate Betancourt's crap without any moral doubt.  It preserved the purity of the product, exactly like Zelazny wanted.

RPGPundit

But he already allowed the 2 choose your own adventure books and the frankly awful visual guide.
So its not like this was a pristine Harry Potteresque lock out. If Betancourt had been a 1/2 way decent writer and had any actual genuine ideas of his own those books woudl have been lapped up by any but the most ardent fans. Most casual fans of the series are not aware of Zelazny's wishes on the topic in any case. the Betancourt books failed simply becuase they were awful. If they had been good you would have ended up with a laod more crap.

But its moot of course.

As I say I have Songs of the Dying Earth and its got some great Vancian style stuff a few duffers but generally good stuff by great authors. The thing you notice is how important they all say Vance was to them. I think an Amber book of that nature would have been really good. The story of Delwin and Sand, the Fall of Osric, the Forging of Greyswandir all great little ideas for short stories, shit just a story about Random playing drums and late night poker in Texorami might be great.

[Sydius Mendoza]

By doing what he did, Zelazny made it clear that he was utterly opposed to that ever happening; it allowed Amber fandom to repudiate Betancourt's crap without any moral doubt.  It preserved the purity of the product, exactly like Zelazny wanted.

RPGPundit

Your argument kind of collapses in the last sentence there. The existence of the Betancourt books is proof positive that purity was not preserved. They can be ignored, reviled, and utterly dismissed. But you can't erase them. More is the pity.

[RPGPundit]

Your argument kind of collapses in the last sentence there. The existence of the Betancourt books is proof positive that purity was not preserved. They can be ignored, reviled, and utterly dismissed. But you can't erase them. More is the pity.

Fair enough; but it does mean that no real Amber fan will EVER consider Betancourt's bullshit to be a legitimate part of canon.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

But he already allowed the 2 choose your own adventure books and the frankly awful visual guide.

That's different; those aren't things that can be mistaken for literature.

So its not like this was a pristine Harry Potteresque lock out. If Betancourt had been a 1/2 way decent writer and had any actual genuine ideas of his own those books woudl have been lapped up by any but the most ardent fans.

But that's the point: first, that Zelazny's express statement made it impossible that any decent author would dare to touch Amber; and second, that even if it had been slightly less atrocious than Betancourt's garbage, it would still have been rejected by the anyone who was a serious fan of Amber in respect to Zelazny's wishes.

RPGPundit

[finarvyn]

The one silver lining to the Betancourt books is that they got people reading Amber and talking about Amber a bit. I hardly ever see any Amber books in stores anymore and Amber discussion boards have a lot less chatter than they did a few years ago. Many of the best Amber campaign sites no longer seem to exist any more.

Not only don't we have anyone writing Amber, no one seems to be reading it any more either. I fear that Zelazny's books are doomed to quietly fade away.

[jibbajibba]

The one silver lining to the Betancourt books is that they got people reading Amber and talking about Amber a bit. I hardly ever see any Amber books in stores anymore and Amber discussion boards have a lot less chatter than they did a few years ago. Many of the best Amber campaign sites no longer seem to exist any more.

Not only don't we have anyone writing Amber, no one seems to be reading it any more either. I fear that Zelazny's books are doomed to quietly fade away.

you get the occasional talk of the movie options being discussed. I think its great material for an HBO series, having as it does that Lost syle gradual reveal and disclosure that things are not what you thought they were. That would inspire the reading of the books again.
I know Syfy had the TV rights which would possibly be quite egregious although WB had the movie ones again now lapsed I think.
Zelazny's entire Opus is at risk of slipping away. Damnation Alley was made into a film, although a worse hack of a movie there will never be. No other movie or TV adaptations exist that I know of. Again a Jack of Shadows movie could be great.

[RPGPundit]

I feel pretty confident that at some point, someone will "revive" him; there's too much material, in stuff like Amber, Lord of Light, Jack of Shadows, Damnation Alley, etc. that would be just the kind of thing hollywood desperately needs.

[jibbajibba]

I feel pretty confident that at some point, someone will "revive" him; there's too much material, in stuff like Amber, Lord of Light, Jack of Shadows, Damnation Alley, etc. that would be just the kind of thing hollywood desperately needs.

trouble is I think there are 4 schools of fantasy/scifi in movies.
The first wants Massive Epics aimed at early teens LorT, Hobbit , Harry Potter, Avatar etc.
The second wants Rom-Fantasy, Twilight,, and a whole bunch of movies I don't even know.
The third wants to cover straight to video junk
The last is the most interesting and wants to look at original 'deep' scifi or fantasy, stuff like Inception, Moon, etc

Now I can't really see a place in there for the kind of stuff Zelazny does its a bit pulpy, but a bit intellectual, a bit action but a lot of politicing. For me the place where this is happening is TV but there are a lot of historical dramas, known legends, well known fiction and reboots of old stuff to keep them busy for an age.

[MollyMae]

Not only don't we have anyone writing Amber, no one seems to be reading it any more either. I fear that Zelazny's books are doomed to quietly fade away.

Just finished my first read-through of the Corwin and Merlin cycles in December.  The wife is reading them now.  We've also started an ADRP campaign with a group of friends.  

=P

[Panjumanju]

Just finished my first read-through of the Corwin and Merlin cycles in December.  The wife is reading them now.  We've also started an ADRP campaign with a group of friends.  

=P

Lo, there is hope for the future.

//Panjumanju

[finarvyn]

Just finished my first read-through of the Corwin and Merlin cycles in December.  The wife is reading them now.  We've also started an ADRP campaign with a group of friends.

Fantastic! Glad to hear that there are folks still discovering the books and the game. I really was starting to think that only the old-timers read and played anymore.

Welcome to the boards, by the way!

[RPGPundit]

trouble is I think there are 4 schools of fantasy/scifi in movies.
The first wants Massive Epics aimed at early teens LorT, Hobbit , Harry Potter, Avatar etc.
The second wants Rom-Fantasy, Twilight,, and a whole bunch of movies I don't even know.
The third wants to cover straight to video junk
The last is the most interesting and wants to look at original 'deep' scifi or fantasy, stuff like Inception, Moon, etc

Now I can't really see a place in there for the kind of stuff Zelazny does its a bit pulpy, but a bit intellectual, a bit action but a lot of politicing. For me the place where this is happening is TV but there are a lot of historical dramas, known legends, well known fiction and reboots of old stuff to keep them busy for an age.

Really? With the current megasuccess of Game of Thrones, you can't see any place for an ensemble cast fantasy epic full of scheming bastards?

RPGPundit

[finarvyn]

The thing is, I think that Game of Thrones is the current "hot" topic, but I'm not sure if its success will extend to other settings of a similar nature. Especially a property from the 1970's that hasn't shown much coolness in a long time.

In other words, I suspect that the "next Game of Thrones" will get big enthusiasm before Amber because Amber would be seen as something that's no longer relevant.