I must admit, that after the first one failed to interest me, I listened to in on in the background while playing some game and did not pay too much attention to it.
I like the symbols these books set up - the pattern, Amber (which I keep mixing up with Avalon), ever changeable shadow, the multiverse... But other than that... Everything feels arbitrary, why should gunpowder work here and not there, and where's the line... This book introduces the idea of shadow selves of Amberites, I think, but it presents no issue to our protagonist, casts no doubt in his amnesiac mind of his realness... Oh, and love interests are boring in this book. For all that the pattern is fascinating, this book didn't appear to give one to me.