This Is Where It Gets Complicated

It's been almost 100 playthroughs since I last had a go at a Combat Command book, and the next one in the series is unique in being set in a fictional universe I know. Not that that was the case when I originally purchased the book, or even when I started this blog. Back then, my only experience of the works of Roger Zelazny was a short story I'd read in an anthology in 1990, of which I can remember only the line, "I think that mental cruelty was a trout." I did also own a copy of Deus Irae, the novel he co-wrote with Philip K. Dick, but I hadn't yet read it.

Time passed. On one of my browsing expeditions to East Hull, I came across a very reasonably priced volume comprising the five novels of the first series of Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. Having read some very positive feedback about the series at an online forum I frequented, and knowing that I owned a gamebook connected to the series, I bought the volume, and a little while later I took it with me to read on the coach when visiting family on the other side of the country, and enjoyed it (despite the appalling number of OCR-induced typos). Thus, I approach Neil Randall's Nine Princes in Amber: The Black Road War with a degree of familiarity with its characters and setting, and greater capacity for being disappointed if this book turns out to be as poor as most of the preceding Combat Command gamebooks proved.

Section 1 is long - around 13 pages, not including the illustration - but does a reasonable job of holding my attention. It's a first person narrative, like at least the first series of novels, but with a different narrator. My character is Derek, the son of Eric (Eric was the principal antagonist in the first couple of books). It is now part of the way through, or possibly after the end of, the second series - that much is clear from the fact that Derek has read the first seven novels. Yes, they exist within the fictional reality as well as the one in which I'm writing this blog. Derek suspects that they're not an entirely accurate account, owing to authorial bias or faulty memory, but acknowledges that something like the events described in the books did happen.

At the start of the adventure, Derek is in Toronto, seeking a way to get to Amber, which is a parallel world. Having identified someone who may be able to help, he and eleven associates are keeping watch on the man's apartment, preparing to visit or raid it at an appropriate time. And then somebody drops a bomb on Derek's car. A timely warning from one of the team enables him to dive clear in the nick of time, but the attack raises some unpleasant questions. Derek stealthily consults with some of the others, none of whom are able to identify the attacker. A couple of minor details catch my attention, each one seemingly trivial on its own, but in combination making me wonder... A black squirrel is nibbling on the remnants of an apple as Derek approaches Jacques, and when Derek throws a rotten apple at Tom, it is seized by a small black dog. Any more black animals, and I shall become suspicious. Especially if they do anything with apples.

The bookshop above which the apartment is situated finally closes, and Derek and Jacques make their way to the door. A ring at the doorbell elicits no response for long enough that Jacques insists on breaking in, but before they can take any further action, the door is smashed open from within, and a trio of knife-wielding thugs emerges. One goes for Jacques, one dashes out into the street, and the third goes for Derek, so it's time for me to get the dice out and see how the fight pans out. Such is Derek and Jacques' expertise (combined with a decent roll on my part) that their attackers don't make it through the first round of combat. Despite having significant military experience, Derek has never killed before, and is sick afterwards.

Four more of the team join him and Jacques as they proceed into the apartment. The living room door is open, and the room itself offers few opportunities for concealment, while anything or anyone could be behind the closed bedroom door. I decide that Derek cannot resist the lure of the unknown, and he opens the bedroom door. What he sees behind it is unusual, and his reaction is strange.

The room is illuminated by a blue light with no obvious source, a venetian blind keeping it from showing through the window. There is no furniture, unless you count the tapestries on the walls, and the floor is decorated with a complex network of coloured lines and boxes, in which a pattern is just vaguely discernible. At the centre is a circular door, which looks as if it should lead down into the bookshop, though there was no sign of it when Derek and his men checked out the shop.

What is strange about Derek's reaction is that it hardly is a reaction. The rulers of Amber are able to unlock their dimension-hopping powers by walking a specific path along a labyrinthine pattern on a floor. Derek must know this: he's read the same books that I have. And while the mention of boxes doesn't really fit with the Pattern as described in the novels, the presence here of a pattern ought to be raising all sorts of questions about what, if anything, it has to do with the Pattern. But Derek's just wondering if he should investigate the door or go to the living room after all.

Further investigation seems like the best option, but there's something else to consider. Making a mistake while walking the Pattern has lethal consequences. So if Mr. Randall's interpretation of Zelazny's writing is at odds with mine, and this is a reproduction of the all-important Pattern, and Derek cluelessly strides straight across to the door because he's too thick to have figured out that the pattern is the Pattern, that's game over (and a big poke in the eye for anyone reading this book who's not familiar with the Amber novels, as I would have been if this blog didn't keep going on hiatus).

I'm going to hope that the author isn't that sloppy/cruel. And if he is, and Derek dies for failing to twig what someone with his knowledge should have, then the book doesn't deserve any more of my attention than it's already had. Derek sets foot on the pattern, and feels energy pulse into him. He starts to follow the pattern, finding that each successive step takes more of an effort than the last one. Should he turn back or keep going? It seems increasingly likely that this is the Pattern, so not continuing looks like a very bad idea.

Once Derek has committed himself to following the Pattern, it becomes easier. He reaches the door, which bears an inscription in a language he cannot read, and opens it. Beyond it are darkness, a foul stench, and insanity.

And that's it. Game over. The book's spine cracked as I opened it to what turned out to be the 'You just failed, sucker' section, but after having an Instant Death sprung on me like that for no good reason, I don't care. After an intriguing and promising start, The Black Road War turned into an authorial thumbed nose at the reader. It's not the worst gamebook I've read, but it is a definite candidate for 'most disappointing'.