Fourth of Zelazny's Amber chronicles, a sword-and-sorcery series of resistible charm. The children of vanished King Oberon pursue their internecine squabbles through the realm of Amber, its mirror Rebma, the visionary city of Tir-na Nog'th, and the ""shadow Earth"" in the vicinity of Albany. The narrator Corwin tries to unravel the intrigues of his scheming siblings, including a threat to the hieratic Pattern which is the sustaining cause of the whole Amber universe and some ominous hanky-panky with the Trumps through which the Oberon clan travel and communicate. . . . Meager.