On 2/10/07, Small Pink Mouse <hiddenlabcage@yahoo.com> wrote:

Oho! It's always good to meet a fellow Zelazney fan. ^_^

One thing worth keeping in mind is that this is your story and not mine
and that therefore it might be worthwhile to take any suggestions or
comments or wisealeck jokes I make with a grain of salt. So don't be
afraid to trust me like a brother! ^_~

Precisely.

Most grammatical comments deleted.

--- Matthew Miller <mille2ml@gmail.com> wrote:

Amber is the creation of Roger Zelazney. It is fantastic. Go read it.

Dog of War

"...killing me instantly. It hurt.

 The End

Epilogue"

Heh. ^_^

Thank you. I really liked doing that.

 *******************

"> My fingers found the hole in my head. Tentatively, I poked at the

side
of my skull. I could stick all my fingers in and touch soft, squishy
matter. On the other side of my head was a small, neat hole. I pulled
my hands down and stared at them. Little flecks of gray matter were
in
the tips, with the blood and hair.

"This isn't possible," I said aloud. I tried to figure out what was
going on. There was something about a card game, falling, and then
searing pain. But before that, nothing. Not a blank wall but an
emptiness. It was like trying to see beyond my peripheral vision.
There just wasn't anything there."

Nice reason to have Our Hero's amnesia made permanent. Even with a
"Raise Dead" I'm surprised that this little mini-lobotomy didn't affect
his cognitive abilities as well. ^_^;

Oh it did. Compare with next chapter.

***********************

"Black magic." Probably, I thought. The hell if I knew but I was not
about to give that away. Besides, who argues with black magic? "Who
shot me?"

That reminds me, this does have interesting implications where both
Brand and Caine are concerned. For that matter it might have
interesting implications in the case of the lamented Osric and Findo
who died even long before "9 Princes in Amber" began (As mentioned in
"Sign of the Unicorn". Since Our Hero seems to be a bit solid for a
Pattern Ghost you might want to think about reasons why Amberites of
Corwin's or Merlin's generation might not have already sought after
"Raise Dead" or cloning techniques to use as insurance policies for
themselves in the case of unfortunate happening. If it was the sort of
thing that just any Amberite would have access to than the suspicions
that were turned Corwin's way after Caine's first "death" would have
looked pretty silly even at the time it was happening (Admittedly,
Amberites are capable of some pretty silly things but somehow I have a
hard time seeing them deliberately feigning silliness where another
Amberite could see it since that seems the sort of thing that could be
used against someone in court politics or dynastic struggles).

All, or at least a few, of these questions will be answered in the
fullness of time.

****************************

"There's no such thing as-" He didn't finish because I hit him when
he
started arguing about black magic.

The lot of a materialist is never a happy one. :P

Indeed

*********************

"Because he scared me, sir. There was something unnatural, something
evil about the way he was dead, and I couldn't bear it."

"All dead men are the same." The leader snorted.

Not just the fireman's quirk then. Looks like it's this particular
Shadow as a whole that places a high value upon the "rational".

Yup. This is one of the things that will really make a difference when
our hero gets rolling.

*******************

That guy also needed to die. I decided to rush the lot of them. What
was the worst they could do, shoot me again? Stab me? Kill me?

Random: There are certain circumstances in which the wise man does not
insist on experimenting!

Yeah, some time you just get belligerent. Real belligerent.

************************

He had to work his mouth and tongue for a while, since his mouth was
dry. Finally he got enough saliva to let a drop dribble to the floor
and said "Oman."

"Do you swear on your life that is you own, true name?"

Fireman: Actually, I'd better fess up and admit my real name is
"Noman". "Noman Butmyself" to be precise but my friends all call me
"No".

Fireman thinks to self: Hey, it worked for Odysseus!

As you pointed out before, people value reason and rationality in this
shadow. Our "hero" running around with a huge head wound and other
fatal injuries is just causing problems with their world view.

*******************************

So I must be dead. I had a fatal head wound, a fatal chest wound, and
Orpheus, who seemed a thorough individual, was content that I had
gone. I checked my pulse. Nothing. I stopped breathing, and waited.
After a while, nothing happened, and I felt fine. I was dead.

In other words, he got the thing that was supposed to have nailed Caine
twice over and is still telling the story. Yup, this does have some
*very* interesting implications for the dynastic politics of Amber.
^_^;

Noticed that, did you?

***************************************

Well, according to Orpheus I had been summoned by a witch. I had no
reason to doubt his honesty, so that meant I was a bad guy. Orpheus
had shot me, and I intended to have violent, painful revenge. There
were no twinges of conscious.

"No twinges of conscience" might be better. Given his head wounds Our
Hero might not have many twinges of conscious thought but he's doing
well enough that I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. @_@

Avoiding the what is consciousness debate, we must simply ask, how
does it matter?

******************

My blood caught fire like oil.

*blinks*

Chaos blood then? It should have occurred to me that just because the
story was set in Amber didn't have to mean the person telling it was
necessarily an Amberite. @_@

=D

*******************

I began to reconsider this whole vengeance thing. It clearly wasn't
working out too well. I still couldn't remember anything past the
card
game. All I could remember about that was having five aces, which
meant I cheated at cards.

*Not* Solitaire then. I'd been wondering.

Well, he might  be cheating at solitaire, but then he'd just be a jerk.

**********************************

 I

carefully shut the door and continued searching the room.

[The C&Cer *tries* to abstain from making D&D jokes]. ^_^;

What? What?

Are there D&D jokes about. Perish the thought.

****************************

"Why do you not know my true name?"

"My memory was shot out." I turned my head, still meeting her eyes
but
enough to let her see my largest injury

Her expression changed, but it turned only more malicious and
skeptical.

N? I seem to recall that Fiona did seem to have the ability to read
surface thoughts as demonstrated both in "Sign of the Unicorn" and the
part of the Merlin series where she meets Mandor so one would think
that she would be better able than most Amberites to spot something
like this when it happens.

Again, noticed that did you?

 Then again, inpersonating Amber royalty as a

way of stirring up trouble against Amberites would seem to be an
obvious move for the Chaosites so perhaps I should wait and see. ^^

It'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.

*****************************

All in all this is an interesting start and I am looking forward to the
next part of your story. You seem to have caught Zelaney's style quite
well. ^_^

- S.P.M.

The shear fun of just writing Zelazny is amazing. Some of the points
you mentioned will be very important. Some are just funny.

Thanks,

Miashara

"No, this'll be great! Lemme run a few thousand volts through you..." - Dave Davenport, from Helen Narbonic at http://www.narbonic.com/



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