Except for the correction of a few typographical errors, this version of my thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on 31 March, 1988 is materially identical to the copies deposited with the Faculty of Arts and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. However, in order to make this web version more readable on a screen, some of the fonts have been changed, as well as other small changes made to the appearance of some tables and figures. These changes have resulted in changes to the pagination of the original thesis.
NINE PRINCES IN AMBER is the first in the classic CHRONICLES OF AMBER, a series that exemplifies the Zelazny style, in which the first-person narrator, a tough-talking, ruthless (but essentially good-hearted) man must confront a menace from his mysterious past. A man with unearthly physical strength awakens as an amnesiac after an automobile accident. Gradually, he remembers that he is Prince Corwin, one of the many magical, long-lived members of the royal family of Amber. Amber is actually the real world, and all of the parallel worlds that flow from it are merely imperfect copies, or Shadows…including our own world.
