Have you read Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber? Those are pretty required n my opinion. kb now has me wanting to read CL&D.
Not only have I read them, I was approached by a studio to adapt them back in 2008. Turns out they not only didn't have the rights, they hadn't even tried to get them. So i did, using the family angle. Turns out things are complex; Roger and his wife divorced not long before he died and I didn't get far. For a while I had an animator who was interested in doing For a Breath I tarry as CG, but then his dad died and he got drafted. The first five books are great. It kinda goes downhill from there. Edit: As it turns out, you weren't talking to me. NVM!
As long as I'm correct and we're talking within the context of the Amber books (look, it's early, my eyes are blurry, if I'm wrong just tell me), I would read at least until Book 5. After that, comme ci, comme ca. You might get mildly frustrated with them? But it would be a mild frustration, I think, nothing more, and I don't think they (the latter 5) would negate your enjoyment of the first five.
What I mean is, since my default is obviously to read them, will they negate my enjoyment of the first five in some way. I read fast so I don't care if they don't add a single iota of enjoyment to the series as long as they don't ruin it too.
I was curious anyway but figured you probably had. I was given an omnibus edition by a manboy who also gave me the entirety of Game of Thrones (that had been written at that point) and also a book called The Lies of Locke Lamorra. I agree with your assessment about Amber, although because I was given the anthology it took me a while to realize they actually were separate book-books. I think Amber is the only Zelazny's I've read unless I've happened across short stories in odd places. Edit: it's super cool you knew/know the Zelazny clan.
If you dig American Gods, you'll either dig the shit out of Zelazny's other stuff or you'll hate the fuck out of it. Go give For A breath I Tarry a shot. If that works for you, try Isle of the Dead. Then try Creatures of Light and Darkness. The book that should have been made into a movie was Damnation Alley. It's fuckin' Road Warrior. It's about a biker named Hell Tanner who is the only guy in Los Angeles who has successfully crossed post-nuclear Armageddon America to Boston, so he gets a reprieve from jail in order to lead an expedition trying to get plague vaccine there. Planes don't work because nuclear war fucked up the atmosphere so much that the sky is full of hurricane-force winds that constantly drop shit on the plains. That's a young adult novel written in 1967. Hollywood turned it into this:
I'm curious as to the relevance of your description of the manboy. I guess you were talking to me as well -- I haven't read the Chronicles of Amber. I have read Song of Ice and Fire, and I think I read Locke Lamora at some point. I started reading fantasy very, very young, so by the age of ten I had mostly jetted through the famous stuff, which is both good and bad.
The word was originally lover but I didn't like that. While running the risk of sounding something - not quite sure what, romantic? Young? Once-idealistic? - he and I were many things to each other over a long period of time, but most of those things were never labelled. I was going to say "defined," but then - rhyme.
I haven't the slightest clue what the word lover means. I remember getting a Valentine's Day card from a sort-of girlfriend once -- I was like 15, we didn't do much more than make out, surely -- where she had found a 'friendship' card, crossed out 'friend' and written 'lover' instead. I was like, we are? Are we? What's that mean? Was confused and worried for ten seconds and then went back to video games or whatever 15 year olds do. Anyway. Manboy was a fun choice.