My decision to reread these novels as an adult continues to pay dividends. The Hand of Oberon covers a large amount of the origin of the Pattern, the levels of shadow and of Amber’s history that we have not yet seen from the view of our protagonists, and also some clarity on the imprisonment of Dworkin.
If none of this makes sense, you haven’t been reading the books and that’s a shame. I’m phoning this review in to the nth degree because it’s Sunday and I’m feeling lazy as hell, so this isn’t going to help. We get a super cute purple griffin who is just the goodest boy in addition to being a furious guard animal, we get even more court intrigue as the powers moving against Amber continue to marshal, and we get Corwin having a lot of trouble navigating all of this.
The title is apt, as we see the machinations of Oberon, father of Corwin and the rest of Amber’s nobility. Up until now, all we’ve seen is that every Amber noble appears to fear him, due to his mystery and due to the depth of his power, and that he wants Corwin to take the throne. Here we begin to see that in addition to this, he is a master manipulator and a tactician able to plan events with such foresight that the people being manipulated take the possibility that he’s behind the scenes as an impossibility.
I would say this is my least favorite of the five Amber books, based on this reread, but it’s still completely worth it. Have at.
