. . .it looks like you just agreed with me for two out of three authors. That hardly sounds like you think I'm a nutcase! You agreed Cook wasn't that great, and said Zelazny wasn't consistent, which sounds like another way of wording my complaint about him making stuff up and adding in lots of deus ex machina. As an example, in the first Amber book, the main guy (whatever his name was) gets thrown in prison, after having his eyes gouged out. BUT. . .turns out he can re-grow eyes. That's a nice feature. Oh and also, the random magician who made the magic cards happens to be in jail with him, and has the ability to draw picture portals. Two random plot devices pulled out of the blue, in the span of ten pages or so, and it's one example among many. Somewhere else you might find the hero fleeing from his brother in a sports car, being chased down by the bro (who happens to be riding a giant horse), and escaping by plunging into the sea to walk down a watery staircase to where a sister rules a mirror image seaworld! Which, uh, has a floor you can walk on to cure amnesia. And teleport you somewhere, if you feel like it.

Amber has some interesting concepts, but as an author, Zelazny really needed to calm down and figure out some sort of rules for his world. As it is, he can do whatever he feels like doing; he has excuse carte blanche, and abuses it thoroughly.