Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel 1986.
In the first new Amber novel in five years, Roger Zelazny begins a new series set in this wonder-filled world. Trumps of Doom stars Merlin,
the son of Corwin, that prince of Amber who was the central character of the first five books in this popular series.
Amber, the real world,
of which all others, including our own, are only Shadows, is ruled now
by Random, Corwin's brother and one of the survivors of the original
Nine Princes. Corwin himself has disappeared and is believed to be
insane or dead.
And Merlin, a young man living in San Francisco, has
grown up living in our world but is heir to Corwin's great powers,
especially to his creative inventive genius. A computer programmer and
designer, Merle is content to live here and pursue his creative
interest: designing the ultimate computer, one that will not work on
Earth but which will work in another and different Shadow, where the
laws of physics are somewhat different.
But someone is trying to kill Merle. Once a year there has been an attempt on his life, regular as
clockwork, and he knows that the time is fast approaching again. A
beautiful woman is dead. A student of the occult has developed real
powers and evidently has outside help. Suddenly Merle's life is
seriously threatened and he must fight his way back to Amber across the
worlds of Shadow.
A complex plot has been set in motion and the
mysterious royal family of Amber is once again in contention, subtle and bloody. Merlin must claim his heritage and his independence but he is
enmeshed in the web of intrigue in Amber and elsewhere and his first
priority must be to survive.
