Roger Zelazny named Henry Kuttner's The Dark World as a direct influence on Amber, and the resemblance he was acknowledging is specific. Shared:
- A narrator who wakes in our world with no memory, is told he is someone else, and turns out to be a prince of another world with powers he does not yet remember having
- That other world as the real one, with ours a lesser place adjacent to it
- A family of immortal, quarrelling, half-divine siblings who are the story's real antagonists
- Amnesia used as the device that lets an insider be explained to
Filed MEDIUM. Zelazny took a starting position from Kuttner and then built the thing Amber is actually known for, the Pattern and the shadow worlds, which has no equivalent in The Dark World.