Merlin (The Chronicles of Amber)
Encyclopedia
Merlin is the narrator and main character in the second half of the Chronicles of Amber by American
science fiction
author Roger Zelazny
. He is an incidental character in the first half of the series, eventually being revealed to be the listener to whom Corwin relates the tale of his attempts to take the throne of Amber, and dealing with the subsequent invasion from Chaos.
Merlin has dark hair and light eyes. His colours are purple and gray, although he also uses the blue and gold colours of the University of Berkeley
, where he studied Computer Science
on Shadow Earth.
of Amber and Lady Dara of Chaos. Raised in the Courts of Chaos, Merlin became interested in his father and Amber after the Patternfall war. In his youth, he studied magic in the Courts of Chaos and walked both the Logrus
and the Pattern
. After this, Merlin travelled to Shadow Earth to study computer engineering
, assuming the name Merle Corey. During his time in college, Merlin made friends with a fellow student Luke Reynard who was, unbeknownst to Merlin, his cousin Rinaldo, son of Brand. Merlin combined his magical and computer skills to create Ghostwheel, a powerful artificial intelligence
with the ability to move itself and others through Shadow.
Though Merlin was targeted for many years by an unknown antagonist, he was content to remain on the Shadow Earth. However, he became suspicious when he discovered his ex-girlfriend was murdered by a creature from Shadow, and his investigation was the catalyst for his choice to leave Earth. During the course of his travels through Shadow, he learned the identity of his nameless enemy, as well as that of his friends. With the rapid increase of his powers, the Pattern and the Logrus each attempted to persuade him to ally with Amber or the Courts of Chaos, respectively.
Merlin has a very different personality than his father and, oddly enough considering his upbringing, considers himself to be a "regular guy". He lacks both the ruthlessness and the crudity of Prince Corwin, and seems to be almost allergic to ambition, a rare trait considering his parentage.
Merlin has two half-brothers named Despil and Jurt, sons from Dara and Duke Sawall. Jurt, believing Merlin to be the favorite of their mother, tries several times to kill Merlin; however, he usually ends up leaving some part of himself behind.
and the Logrus
. In addition, he later walked Corwin's Pattern to give it additional power in the fight between Order and Chaos.
As the son of the Chaosian Dara, Merlin was trained in spell-casting, but he frequently relies on the objects he carries with him. Frakir, a piece of rope enchanted during Merlin's walk through the Logrus, warns of danger and acts as a weapon. When Ghostwheel is completed, Merlin occasionally "wears" it in the form of a bracelet. Merlin eventually discovers a ring of great power called a spikard, and abandons Frakir after Frakir objects to the spikard. Merlin also obtains an unusual set of Trump that contains many locations and individuals absent in a normal deck.
Merlin's other abilities include shape-shifting (a usual talent of the Chaosians) and Trump creation. He also uses the Logrus emanation to reach into Shadow and retrieve various objects, as well as "Logrus sight" which enables him to see patterns of magic and dimensional anomalies. Though he was trained in swordsmanship and other forms of combat, his talents are not found in those areas and he rarely uses purely physical means to fight.
". Ghostwheel speaks with Merlin's voice, occasionally causing confusion, and usually takes the appearance of a spinning circle of light. Ghostwheel usually addresses Merlin as "Dad."
After finishing construction, Merlin set Ghostwheel to work indexing Shadows in the same way that a search engine
indexes the internet. Similar to a search engine, Ghostwheel can find, track, and retrieve objects from Shadow; this includes the ability to move people and objects between Shadows. Ghostwheel operates by creating pseudo-Trumps for every mutation of Shadow and then searching them.
Merlin designed Ghostwheel as a tool to be used by Random, King of Amber, for keeping watch on Shadow for the protection of Amber. When introduced to Ghostwheel and its abilities, Random was immediately struck by the construct's potentially dangerous power and ordered Merlin to deactivate his creation. However, by this time Ghostwheel had attained sentience
and resisted shutdown.
After regaining Ghostwheel's trust, Merlin came to rely heavily on his powerful creation, and Ghostwheel features as a major subcharacter throughout Merlin's saga. By the conclusion of the series, Ghostwheel had developed enough that his support of Merlin forced the Pattern and the Logrus to treat the pair as nominal equals rather than pawns.
At one point, Ghostwheel asks Merlin whether it is a god
. In the consideration of sentient machines with godlike resources for accessing and processing information, this draws interesting parallels to Isaac Asimov
's short story The Last Question
.
Merlin also remarks that Ghostwheel is certainly capable of passing the Turing Test
, which is a test for a machine that can demonstrate the ability to convince an observer of a human-like personality.
Ghostwheel seems to take its name from Gilgal Refaim
, an ancient stone circle in the Golan Heights of Israel. Gilgal Refaim may have once been a pagan place of worship or calendar, similar to Stonehenge
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
. He is an incidental character in the first half of the series, eventually being revealed to be the listener to whom Corwin relates the tale of his attempts to take the throne of Amber, and dealing with the subsequent invasion from Chaos.
Merlin has dark hair and light eyes. His colours are purple and gray, although he also uses the blue and gold colours of the University of Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, where he studied Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
on Shadow Earth.
Personal History
Merlin is the son of Prince CorwinCorwin (The Chronicles of Amber)
Corwin, a Prince of Amber, is the main character in the first five books of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. He is the second son of Oberon and Faiella, and the father of Merlin...
of Amber and Lady Dara of Chaos. Raised in the Courts of Chaos, Merlin became interested in his father and Amber after the Patternfall war. In his youth, he studied magic in the Courts of Chaos and walked both the Logrus
The Logrus
In The Chronicles of Amber, a series of fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, the Logrus is a shifting, three-dimensional maze which represents the forces of Chaos in the multiverse.-Characteristics:...
and the Pattern
The Pattern
In The Chronicles of Amber series of fantasy novels, The Pattern is an inscribed labyrinth which gives the multiverse its order.-The Pattern:The Pattern exists in a huge cavern, in the caves beneath the mountain Kolvir, deep under Amber Castle...
. After this, Merlin travelled to Shadow Earth to study computer engineering
Computer engineering
Computer engineering, also called computer systems engineering, is a discipline that integrates several fields of electrical engineering and computer science required to develop computer systems. Computer engineers usually have training in electronic engineering, software design, and...
, assuming the name Merle Corey. During his time in college, Merlin made friends with a fellow student Luke Reynard who was, unbeknownst to Merlin, his cousin Rinaldo, son of Brand. Merlin combined his magical and computer skills to create Ghostwheel, a powerful artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
with the ability to move itself and others through Shadow.
Though Merlin was targeted for many years by an unknown antagonist, he was content to remain on the Shadow Earth. However, he became suspicious when he discovered his ex-girlfriend was murdered by a creature from Shadow, and his investigation was the catalyst for his choice to leave Earth. During the course of his travels through Shadow, he learned the identity of his nameless enemy, as well as that of his friends. With the rapid increase of his powers, the Pattern and the Logrus each attempted to persuade him to ally with Amber or the Courts of Chaos, respectively.
Merlin has a very different personality than his father and, oddly enough considering his upbringing, considers himself to be a "regular guy". He lacks both the ruthlessness and the crudity of Prince Corwin, and seems to be almost allergic to ambition, a rare trait considering his parentage.
Merlin has two half-brothers named Despil and Jurt, sons from Dara and Duke Sawall. Jurt, believing Merlin to be the favorite of their mother, tries several times to kill Merlin; however, he usually ends up leaving some part of himself behind.
Powers
Merlin's magical skills are quite varied, owing to his unusual background. Being of both Chaos and Amber, he is one of the few people to have traversed both the PatternThe Pattern
In The Chronicles of Amber series of fantasy novels, The Pattern is an inscribed labyrinth which gives the multiverse its order.-The Pattern:The Pattern exists in a huge cavern, in the caves beneath the mountain Kolvir, deep under Amber Castle...
and the Logrus
The Logrus
In The Chronicles of Amber, a series of fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, the Logrus is a shifting, three-dimensional maze which represents the forces of Chaos in the multiverse.-Characteristics:...
. In addition, he later walked Corwin's Pattern to give it additional power in the fight between Order and Chaos.
As the son of the Chaosian Dara, Merlin was trained in spell-casting, but he frequently relies on the objects he carries with him. Frakir, a piece of rope enchanted during Merlin's walk through the Logrus, warns of danger and acts as a weapon. When Ghostwheel is completed, Merlin occasionally "wears" it in the form of a bracelet. Merlin eventually discovers a ring of great power called a spikard, and abandons Frakir after Frakir objects to the spikard. Merlin also obtains an unusual set of Trump that contains many locations and individuals absent in a normal deck.
Merlin's other abilities include shape-shifting (a usual talent of the Chaosians) and Trump creation. He also uses the Logrus emanation to reach into Shadow and retrieve various objects, as well as "Logrus sight" which enables him to see patterns of magic and dimensional anomalies. Though he was trained in swordsmanship and other forms of combat, his talents are not found in those areas and he rarely uses purely physical means to fight.
Ghostwheel
Ghostwheel is a trump- and pattern-based computer constructed by Merlin in a Shadow where Earth physics do not apply. By Merlin's description Ghostwheel's operations involve "a lot of theoretical crap involving space and time and some notions of some guys named Everett and WheelerJohn Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler was an American theoretical physicist who was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission...
". Ghostwheel speaks with Merlin's voice, occasionally causing confusion, and usually takes the appearance of a spinning circle of light. Ghostwheel usually addresses Merlin as "Dad."
After finishing construction, Merlin set Ghostwheel to work indexing Shadows in the same way that a search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
indexes the internet. Similar to a search engine, Ghostwheel can find, track, and retrieve objects from Shadow; this includes the ability to move people and objects between Shadows. Ghostwheel operates by creating pseudo-Trumps for every mutation of Shadow and then searching them.
Merlin designed Ghostwheel as a tool to be used by Random, King of Amber, for keeping watch on Shadow for the protection of Amber. When introduced to Ghostwheel and its abilities, Random was immediately struck by the construct's potentially dangerous power and ordered Merlin to deactivate his creation. However, by this time Ghostwheel had attained sentience
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
and resisted shutdown.
After regaining Ghostwheel's trust, Merlin came to rely heavily on his powerful creation, and Ghostwheel features as a major subcharacter throughout Merlin's saga. By the conclusion of the series, Ghostwheel had developed enough that his support of Merlin forced the Pattern and the Logrus to treat the pair as nominal equals rather than pawns.
At one point, Ghostwheel asks Merlin whether it is a god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. In the consideration of sentient machines with godlike resources for accessing and processing information, this draws interesting parallels to Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
's short story The Last Question
The Last Question
"The Last Question" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and was reprinted in the collections Nine Tomorrows , The Best of Isaac Asimov , Robot Dreams , the retrospective Opus 100 , and in Isaac Asimov: The...
.
Merlin also remarks that Ghostwheel is certainly capable of passing the Turing Test
Turing test
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All...
, which is a test for a machine that can demonstrate the ability to convince an observer of a human-like personality.
Ghostwheel seems to take its name from Gilgal Refaim
Gilgal Refaim
Rujm el-Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center. It is located in the Golan Heights some 16 kilometres east of the eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee, in the middle of a large plateau covered with hundreds of dolmens.Made up of...
, an ancient stone circle in the Golan Heights of Israel. Gilgal Refaim may have once been a pagan place of worship or calendar, similar to Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
.