Chronicles of Amber

[raidem]

I'm reading the Chronicles of Amber.  Jim was/is a fan of the series playing RGP based on the series.  Please join me as I listen to the series audiobooks.  I'll be jotting down similarities between The Chronicles of Amber and Dresden Files.

“What I want to know is, how did you meet the goddess Priscellie and Fred/Iago and others? And thank her again for doing the butcher block pod casts.”
Fred and I played a text-based internet RPG together called AmberMUSH, back in the early 90s when the internet was just beginning to hit. We did not get along well.  I was at odds with a friend of Fred’s, and Fred is the kind of guy who is fiercely loyal to his friends. We eventually worked things out,

Protagonist=Corwin

Nine Princes of Amber:

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Opening of "Chronicles of Amber" similar to Harry's awakening in Cold Day's with nurses.  It also reminds me of a potential plot where Jim says a book may have Harry in a Insane Asylum without magic.
Evelyn Derek vs. Evenlyn Flamell (both on business cards) that lead protagonist to visit her. 
Flamell's dog's remind me of Mouse or the walking in circles of some dog before laying in down.
Familiarity with places (amnesia) vs precognition
Julian and Horn, Wild Hunt
Travel between Earth and Amber, travel in Changes, travel in NeverNever.
Regenerative health with Princes vs Wizards (Jim didn't really have to do too much in using this idea)

The Guns of Amber

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Age camouflaged
Characters: Oberon, Deirdre...
Four times I ask vs. Thrice I ask
Suck the morrow from your bones (reminds me of Mother Winter)
Corwin has many shadows vs Harry having shadows (-Harry) think parallel universes.
Corwin has deal with these shadows, some in the future, some in the past while he is narrating from present.
The problem partly stemmed from his blood curse and the unintended impact it had on parallel universes and on Amber.
Furies of Shadow vs Furies of Alera
Corwin's father, Oberon, origin unkown (later known son of a Lord/Prince? of Chaos 'dworkin')
Die by an elephant while making love
summoning via tarot cards, mental communication
nuts out of the fire (think Harry's comment to Langtry in Turn Coat)
epithet (Corwing thought: He died fighting for Amber) vs He died do the right thing literally on... (tomb stone)
Eric (Regent, brother King, antagonist) last moments with Corwin similar to Morgan's
Nemesis/Dora (female) destroy Amber; Amber (the realm/city) is the nexus of the Multiverse

Sign of the Unicorn

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Black Road to Chaos vs. Outergates to Outside
Talk via Trumps could be wiretapped vs. wiretaps in Dresdenfiles (We find out that Cain does this at the end of book 5)
Reality walking unique to those of Oberon blood (may really be Dworkin blood as he is Oberon's father that made the Pattern); walking ways of nevernever
malignant characters gaining ability to walk (how unexplained yet)

The Hand of Oberon

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prime character killing shadow selves (later find out what Cain did) vs -Harry killing or sacrificing other Harry's to stand in for his death
house threshold
blood ritual on pattern
a unicorn
blood of Sarissa on Arctis Tor floor defiles Winter vs. blood of Amber (up to 3rd generation from Dworkin) defiles Amber
the above means blood of the Queens up to 3 generations hence can make Winter/Summer vulnerable
(it can be used to verify bloodlines say if Murphy's blood is spilled or Marcone's for my theory.)
Feints, Attacks similar to Cold Days
Plots, story relying on misdirection compared to Maeve story, plot with Lily relying on her minimal 'lying.'
Unknown father/son relationship:

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Ganelon is Obelon; so Corwin/Ganelon journey is a father/son one unknown to Corwin.  It could support a unknown father/son journey with Harry and someone say Harry/Nic or Harry/Marcone

Blood on The Pattern is somewhat similar to blood on Stone Table.
There is a tornado funnel that can appear at The Pattern (Prime Pattern) that is similar to the Darkhallow funnel.

Courts of Chaos

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Corwin and Dhora/Nemesis have a son named Merlin
(could be similar to my Harry/Murphy/Marcone theory)
Corwin cuts a branch from a tree, creates a staff.  (Tree talks by the way)
(The tree marks division between Order/Chaos) planted by Oberon.
Staff can be planted to create new tree.
Tree is named Ygg (reminding me of Yggdrasil)
Corwin gets a Chaos bird named "Hugi" might be similar to Huginn (Hugi acts similar kinda to Toot in personality)
Corwin creates a new Primal Pattern near this recently planted Staff, that grows upon Pattern's completion.
If there are two Primal Patterns (there was uncertainty as to whether Oberon repaired the one at Amber prior to death) then either twinned universe or cataclysm.  Since there was no cataclysm, at the end Corwin commits to finding out about this new Pattern he created, and Universe it spawned.
Brand (bad brother with Jewel) grabs Deirdre's when falling into abyss vs. Victor Sells grabbing Harry's leg in Storm Front.

[Arjan]

I read the first series as a child several times and the second series as a student when they were released.

[KurtinStGeorge]

I never read this series.  I'll have to give it a listen.  I'm getting a little tired of the Iron Druid series.  I just started the sixth book and it feels a little meh to me.  The next Alex Verus book doesn't come out until July and I don't know when the next Rivers of London novel will come out.  Any other suggestions? 

[raidem]

This really is a good series.  I really enjoy listening to it. I'd get the ones on Audible.  I think told by a Spanish named guy.

[jonas]

When you get to it pls explain Walking in these Amber books..

[raidem]

Walking is a main part of the books.  It is something that the Princes, Princess of Oberon can do after they travel a "Pattern" in the capital.

The Walking allows them to travel to parallel worlds.  And even if some of these worlds, cities/civilizations are long dead; they can walk and recreate these worlds.  They call this a 'shadow' of this other world.  Shadows of themselves can even exist.  So Corwin's presence in some of these worlds if they leave enough of an impression would leave a shadow of him that would exist aside from Corwin prime.

They simply travel like you and me down a road, etc in a car, a wagon, etc.  They add/subtract their surroundings in a way until they get to their desired location.  Sometimes they just go out exploring, with no destination in mind.  It's a innate ability but one they have to get tuned in with by walking the Pattern.

Harry 'walking' would be him going to Star Wars universe, then to Star Trek universe, Marvel, etc.  He can do all that and more.  If the Star Trek civilization goes extinct, or maybe the galaxy is eaten by the black hole, Harry could recreate this 'shadow' galaxy.  It isn't the same as the orginal but a close approximation.  And the shadow, ever so slight, would exist prior to Harry even 'recreating' it. He would just have to strengthen its reflection.

[jonas]

*Maniacal Laughing*  I see indeed...

[Kindler]

I never read this series.  I'll have to give it a listen.  I'm getting a little tired of the Iron Druid series.  I just started the sixth book and it feels a little meh to me.  The next Alex Verus book doesn't come out until July and I don't know when the next Rivers of London novel will come out.  Any other suggestions?

I had a similar reaction; my sense was that the author knew a whole lot of Irish mythology, and was really, really excited to tell everyone about it, but not much else. Hard to get through some of the books, which feel like "I went to a place, and a thing happened; I went to another place, and another thing happened; I went to a third place, and a third thing happened; the book is now over." And once the perspectives start shifting and the author made the decision to make all the other characters present tense for some ungodly reason, I just started to get mad. I still generally liked them, but there were an awful lot of warts to look past.

Honestly, I guess my biggest complaint was that it just wasn't Dresden, which I suppose isn't fair.

For weirdness (and I do mean weirdness), I'd say check out the John and Dave series (John Dies at the End, This Book is Full of Spiders (Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It), and a third with a name that's too ridiculous for me to remember). The first one was written bizarrely, with no real cohesive plot; a lot of things just sort of happen, because it was originally a web novel with sporadic posting that got picked up for publication. If you can get past that, it's a whole lot of fun. The following two books are tight, linear narratives. They're billed as horror-comedy, but it's Cosmic Horror-Comedy, which makes it closer to urban fantasy than horror, in my opinion. There's not much else like that series.

Most of the straight fantasy stuff I'd recommend that's coming out isn't released yet. But there should be some good high fantasy in the next year for major publishers, and a few urban fantasy things on the self-publishing marketplace that is far better than most of the tripe that's available in the genre.

[raidem]

Yeah Jonas, many of our out there theories on parallel realities, time travel, multiple identities of the same person, etc, they all have a firm basis in Amber.  So, I think we can run with Amber cosmology as a base for Dresden Files.  I think it fits in general.

Corwin and the sons and daughters of Amber even visit Earth. So, we could even have Amber characters on Earth during the Dresden Files.  Hey, Mac could be a Amber prince himself.  Maybe not, but still.

I'm going to view the Dresden Files as either long after Amber's destruction, or coinciding with Amber's destruction, or something like it.

I really have to read more.  I'm still on third book.  Haven't listened to more of it, as I chose to argue with EG.

[raidem]

I've added The Hand of Oberon.
It touches upon house thresholds, blood rituals, and blood that defiles and makes vulnerable The Pattern.  The Pattern and Dworkin's fate, strength, and weakness is intertwined.  Dworkin has a child Oberon, who has children, the Princes and Princess, they can have children but do sparingly.  Apparently any of these three generation's blood can cause great damage to The Pattern.

I think Jim is using this to create a similar vulnerability to Arctis Tor.

I included a bit about familial relationships in a spoiler in OP

The Hand of Oberon

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house threshold
blood ritual on pattern
a unicorn
blood of Sarissa on Arctis Tor floor defiles Winter vs. blood of Amber (up to 3rd generation from Dworkin) defiles Amber
the above means blood of the Queens up to 3 generations hence can make Winter/Summer vulnerable
(it can be used to verify bloodlines say if Murphy's blood is spilled or Marcone's for my theory.)
Feints, Attacks similar to Cold Days
Plots, story relying on misdirection compared to Maeve story, plot with Lily relying on her minimal 'lying.'
Unknown father/son relationship:

(click to show/hide)

Ganelon is Obelon; so Corwin/Ganelon journey is a father/son one unknown to Corwin.  It could support a unknown father/son journey with Harry and someone say Harry/Nic or Harry/Marcone

Blood on The Pattern is somewhat similar to blood on Stone Table.
There is a tornado funnel that can appear at The Pattern (Prime Pattern) that is similar to the Darkhallow funnel.

Ooh, thinking more about the blood of the bloodlines.  What would have happened if either Molly or Murphy's blood (should they qualify as Queen blood) would have been spilled on/at the tower.  It could make sense then that a way to free Lea would be to gut Molly near the Winter Wellspring, (or whoever has Queen's blood (3 generations))

[raidem]

Courts of Chaos

(click to show/hide)

Corwin and Dhora/Nemesis have a son named Merlin
(could be similar to my Harry/Murphy/Marcone theory)
Corwin cuts a branch from a tree, creates a staff.  (Tree talks by the way)
(The tree marks division between Order/Chaos) planted by Oberon.
Staff can be planted to create new tree.
Tree is named Ygg (reminding me of Yggdrasil)
Corwin gets a Chaos bird named "Hugi" might be similar to Huginn (Hugi acts similar kinda to Toot in personality)
Corwin creates a new Primal Pattern near this recently planted Staff, that grows upon Pattern's completion.
If there are two Primal Patterns (there was uncertainty as to whether Oberon repaired the one at Amber prior to death) then either twinned universe or cataclysm.  Since there was no cataclysm, at the end Corwin commits to finding out about this new Pattern he created, and Universe it spawned.
Brand (bad brother with Jewel) grabs Deirdre's when falling into abyss vs. Victor Sells grabbing Harry's leg in Storm Front.

One word of caution for those interested in the series.  There is lots of fluff to some of the narration with regard to traveling.  Lots, and Lots of descriptive stuff. Just go past that.  Not really important.  It gets really annoying if your wanting to basically skim/listen to the books for clues to Dresden Files. (It is an enjoyable series by itself but that narration gets boring.)

[raidem]

Trumps of Doom

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Victor Melman vs Victor Sells;  or Melman vs mailman?
Victor Melman is a mid-level bad guy, so it could be that the mailman might be a bad guy
Did Harry use the mailman's pen to sign for the package? Was Harry being 'drugged' at any point in signing for his packages?
Victor Melman becomes similar to a Vittorio like character crying "Master." Though he doesn't answer.
This unknown Cowl figure is a mysterious master that tried to get Merlin sacrificed onto a Table via Victor.
Bill Roth (Corwin's lawyer on Earth. Merlin confides in him about a situation that is getting out of control.)
(It is odd if you don't talk about parents, hometown, brothers, sisters...)
Storms between Amber/Chaos can push shadows into other shadows...
Merlin has walked both the Logus and the Pattern.  Logus is Chaos.  Pattern is Order.  (Uses his ability with Logus to bring Beer/Pizza to him and Bill)
One story for Merlin's father Corwin: in his new universe not speaking/mute using sign language with a lady.
Merlin doesn't know the whereabouts of his father.
Ghost Wheel, exists in its own shadow, is similar to Archive somewhat.  (It is a multiversal data processor that searches the shadows and learns from them. Merlin, Corwin's son, created it.
Merlin gets trapped in crystal cave.
He later gets trapped in cave with tunnels like that of Demonreach.

[raidem]

Blood of Amber

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Frakir, cord like weapon that wraps around Merlin's wrist until used, invisible.
somewhat similar in concept to what Harry uses against SkinWalker, but Frakir is permanent.
small dragons in Amber remind me of what the DF Dragons later become
Luke and mercenaries use hang-gliders in their assault on the keep of the 4 winds (or some name like that), it is similar to what Maeve, Lily do in Cold Days on Demonreach
Merlin's ex-girlfriend that died shows up again later behind things.  I'm getting the impression from this book that Kim Delaney may not be 'dead' after all. In the Amber books, there tend to be lots of 'faked' deaths possibly with other 'shadows' being placed in their stead.  I think she may yet be a contender for Kumori.
tracked stones/button similar to tracked pin from Summer
(there is more but I'm reading the books now and not listening to them)
(i also haven't been jotting down notes immediately as I run across things)

Sign of Chaos

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Jabberwock, reminding me of what Malcolm Dresden tells Harry in the 'dream'
This could further support the idea that Malcolm Dresden ancestry stretches from AmberChronicles.
Merlin hides behind a Font of Power,  Font is destroyed with Chaos; something similar to Proven Guilty up at Arctis Tor.
Somewhere in the prior books, Merlin says that he should have told Julia "I love you"; similarity with Susan in GP.
Julia mad drive to the occult after breaking up with Merlin led her to the parallel worlds and she sought power at a place where 4 worlds met.  It was a place of great power but for Amberite,Chaosian to be empowered there wasn't a 'good' thing.
T'yiga is like a corpsetaker or like nemesis, it just goes one by one. (it can be 'good'. it protects Merlin, sent by his chaos mother)

[groinkick]

I think you should look up Randall Flagg.  It's not connected to the Chronicles of Amber but I have speculated that Jim may have taken the concept and given as he said "a new coat of paint"

The main reason is Randall Flagg is connected to He Who Walks Behind the Rows in Stephen King's novel.

[jonas]

Dude, tagged that one a long time ago. He's also associated to Nyarlahotep which ties into some other DF stuff. Randall Flagg also is the Man in the Black in Stephen King's Gunslinger/Dark Tower series.
Likes I said... your not quite getting to the source material yet.