thehandofoberon

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The Hand of Oberon

Roger Zelazny

Zelazny, Robert. The Hand of Oberon. Avon Books. New York, New York. 1976.

Roger Zelazny's The Hand of Oberon is a tragic story of a horse named Oberon. This book has been hated by generations past. Written in 1952, The Hand of Oberon was republished with many spelling corrections in 1963. Roger Zelazny is the author of the well known book called Trumps of Doom. The Hand of Oberon surprisingly won the Hugo and Nebula Award, for descriptive scenery.

The Hand of Oberon starts out with a horse named Oberon. Oberon was thrown out of his herd for glowing too much and for having a saddle super glued to his back. Oberon was wandering around the fields of green sand, when he stumbled upon a mouse. The mouse asks him why he was glowing, but Oberon didn’t understand mouse language. Oberon decides to let the mouse follow him around.

A week later, Oberon and the mouse are tired and hungry when they run into a human. The human sees the mouse, kills it, and asked if Oberon wanted to eat it. The human said his name was Jaclin and he wanted to ride Oberon. Oberon ran from Jaclin but Oberon wasn’t very fast, so Jaclin could easily keep up.

As night fell, storm clouds covered the sky and started to gather over Oberon’s head. As the clouds got thicker, they started to flash little bits of lighting. Oberon got worried about Jaclin, so he asked Jaclin if he could use a hand. Jaclin replied that he would never want a horse’s hand. The storm clouds started circling around Oberon’s head and a voice said, “Royal blood flows exposing shock and treachery... and an unexpected ally.” Oberon got confused but then got scared when lighting surrounded him...

The Hand of Oberon has a fun storyline but has pointless characters, pointless scenes, that distract the reader from the main storyline. The book has excited and scared readers minds for years. The author, publisher, and editor wasted money on this book.

2 out of 5 stars

Contributed by P. Winer

Sep. 14, 2012