The Chronicles of Amber - The Chronicles - Short Stories

Short Stories

For the limited 1985 edition of Trumps of Doom, Zelazny wrote a prologue which details Merlin's passage through the Logrus.

After completing the Merlin Cycle, Zelazny wrote six Amber short stories, in which he began to tease the threads of the story into a new configuration. The author died shortly after completing the sixth short story of this small series, and before the first story (co-written with Ed Greenwood) had been completed. Five of the six short stories were collected in Manna from Heaven (2003), along with the Trumps of Doom prologue and 16 non-Amber stories. The unfinished tale "A Secret of Amber" was published in 2005 in Amberzine #12-15. Although several orders for these stories have been proposed by fans, according to Zelazny himself (commentary quoted in the biography "...And Call Me Roger": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 6 and in the "A Word from Zelazny" sections that accompany these stories), the correct order of the stories is this (i.e., the order in which they were written):

• "A Secret of Amber" (co-written in alternating sections with author Ed Greenwood, published in Amberzine #12-15, March 2005)
• "The Salesman's Tale" (Amberzine #6, by Phage Press, February 1994 and Ten Tales, edited by John Dunning, 1994)
• "Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains" (Wheel of Fortune, edited by Roger Zelazny, 1995)
• "The Shroudling and the Guisel" (Realms of Fantasy, October, 1994)
• "Coming to a Cord" (Pirate Writings, Number 7, 1995)
• "Hall of Mirrors" (Castle Fantastic, edited by John DeChancie and Martin Greenberg, March 1996)

"A Secret of Amber" was written in stages beginning prior to any of the other Amber short stories, but was left incomplete at Zelazny's death. It features an interaction between Fiona and Corwin. The latter five stories tell a linked tale from several viewpoints. Zelazny planned to write more and to eventually publish a collection of Amber short stories.