Elric's Returns are Diminishing21 June 2013tBack in the days when I was going out of my way to get as many Elric books as possible, I had little idea that there were the classic (or original) Elric books and then there were the ones that Morcock ended up writing later because of the popularity of...
This is THE classic sword and sorcery tale that came about in the early 1960s. Note that I am referencing when Elric first appeared which was in Moorcock’s novella, "The Dreaming City" (Science Fantasy #47, June 1961 (Wiki).Note that this is one of my early reviews so the format is different. C...
http://panopticonitalia.blogspot.it/2...The Eternal Champion is the first volume fantasy eponymous cycle, written by Michael Moorcock and published on the UK market in 1962. The novel belongs to the subgenre of sword and sorcery, with some contamination clockpunk. The narrative proceeds in person...
"Pale Roses". A short, shallow story about sin. It almost wins me over with its ending, but before that it never manages to strike enough of a spark to make me sit up and notice [5+/10]."White Stars". An OK story that repeats some of the main themes of the End of Time, but doesn't have a lot of d...
É nestas alturas que as etiquetas se revelam empecilhos. A tentação de descrever este livro como um excelente exemplo de obra proto-steampunk é muito grande, mas fazê-lo seria um grave erro. The Warlord of the Air não foi conscientemente escrito para iniciar um novo movimento literário, e categor...
After three books of tall tales that often completely conflict with history, genius "inventions", rampant drug use, rape and more unnecessary and arbitrary insults directed at Jews than there are Jews in the world, what's left for a potentially insane and completely unlikeable protagonist to go? ...
The complexity of time24 May 2013tPersonally, I can't remember much about this book except that when I read it I felt that it was a little strange and could not really get into it all that much. Okay, there are probably people out there that will jump down my throat in writing a review of a book ...
I am Elric of Melnibone, last of a line of great sorcerer kings. This blade I wield will do more than kill you, friend demon. It will drink your soul and feed it to me. Perhaps you have heard of me by another name? By the name of the Soul Thief? Also known as the White Wolf, because he is an albi...
Byzantium Endures, the first of the Pyat Quartet, introduces one of Michael Moorcock's most magnificent creations - Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski. Born in Kiev on the cusp of the twentieth century, he discovers the pleasures of sex and cocaine and glimpses a sophisticated world beyond his horizons...
http://panopticonitalia.blogspot.it/2...The rune magic is the fourth book (and therefore the final) of the saga of Rune Magic Michael Moorcock, published on the British market in 1969 by Lancer Books under the title "The Secret of the Runestaff"; while it is high in Italy only in 1978, thanks to ...
Singular, capital, wonderfully enjoyable, this is the biggest collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories published since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle laid down his pen - nearly 200,000 words of superb fiction featuring the Great Detective by masters of historical crime. Almost all the stories are specia...
If you have read the Barsoom books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, there really is no reason to read this. In the kindest terms, it could be called an homage to "A Princess of Mars." It also could be called a blatant ripoff.Here's the plot: An Earth man ends up being swept through space and time to anci...
Michael Moorcock, The Chronicles of Corum (Berkley, 1973)Moorcock returns to the world of the Eternal Champion, in the guise of Corum, then rips him out of it. Over a thousand years after the events of the last novels, Corum has become worshipped as a demigod. His followers summon him into their ...
As I wrote elsewhere, I read the Elric stories first many years ago and have done a couple of re-reads since. But that is only the “classic” tales all of which predate the 21st Century. While searching out copies for a recent re-read (my own volumes are stored away), much to my surprise I found...
Behold the Man… Who else but Michael Moorcock, in all his devious craftiness, could employ Satan, Heaven & Hell, souls, damnation, and a quest for the Holy Grail, as tools for a story whose central premise is a call for humanity to eschew religious belief and embrace scientific discovery and se...
This is more of the same. Homeboy gets transported to a new time, and he KNOWS that he's hanging around with the goodguys. Then, he gets captured by the other side, and he's belligerent--but wait! Then, he realizes that NOW he's with the REAL goodguys! Until he's stolen by someone else, and h...
Fantasy. "Corum Jhaelen Irsei, hero of the legendary battle with the Sword Rulers. In an age before time began when the old Gods were abroad in the Earth, Corum of the Scarlet Robe defeated the agents of chaos and cruelty and made history possible. Now a new age requires a hero. There are new lor...
Corum fighting to save those who once would have destroyed him trying to get what's needed to achieve this (the Oak and Ram). This is a much, much darker series than the first trilogy of Prince Corum. The books are still absorbing, still filled with action and still good story telling.This is an ...
Originally published on my blog here& in August 2000.The second trilogy of Corum novels ends on a distinctly bitter note. The Sword and the Stallion is sombre throughout, and almost amounts to a campaign against the idea of the hero, particularly against the concept of the Eternal Champion so imp...
Originally published on my blog here in September 1999.The Final Programme must have seemed, in the mid sixties, to be the epitome of British New Wave chic. Yet, unlike so much of the literature of the period, it and its sequels have not dated. Like the TV series The Avengers, it contains a disti...
Michael Moorcock is one of my favorite authors; reading his novels and their heady stew of existentialist angst & anarchism & multiple dimensions at a young age caused his world view to seriously impact my own. thanks a lot, Moorcock - I blame you for my general inability to give a straight answe...
The second novel in the History of John Daker, The Eternal Champion. Phoenix in Obsidian aka The Silver Warriors. Erekose made his choice, and fought against humanity. With them destroyed, he has no choice but to find solace with the Eldren. There is no rest for the Eternal Champion though, and...
Nine by Nine and Three by Three In search of her kidnapped husband, Oona von Bek and the mammoth-riding shaman White Crow must cross Hiawatha's lands of legend to a fabled golden city... We all Seek Looking for the creators of the black sword Stormbringer, Elric of Melnibone journeys to Vinland, ...
- Aspect published the previous novel in the series, The Skrayling Tree, in hardcover (0-446-53104-9) in 2003 and in mass market (0-446-61340-1) in 7/04. The prior novel. The Dreamthief's Daughter (Aspect hardcover, 2001, 0-446-52618-5; mass market, 2002, 0-446-61120-4) received praise from the W...
A pretty cool birthday present19 June 2013tThis was basically the first Moorcock book that I ever read and it was given to me by a beautiful woman for my twenty second birthday. I am not sure if it really was a birthday present or if she realised that I liked these types of books and wanted to ge...
Originally published on my blog here in July 2001.The second of the Pyat novels - centred around a minor character who originally appeared in the Cornelius Quartet - takes his story from his escape from the collapsing Russia of the civil war which followed the 1917 revolution to a new life in the...
The third novel of the Pyat quartet finds Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski scheming his way from New York to Hollywood, Cairo to Marrakesh, from cult success to the utter limits of sexual degradation, leaving a trail of mechanical and human wreckage as he crashes towards an appointment with the worst...
THE KNIGHT OF THE SWORDSThe first of three volumes concerning the quests and adventures of Corum Jhaelen Irsei of the Vadhagh Folk, who is also called the Prince in the Scarlet Robe.
The Steel Tsar is the third novel in the Oswald Bastable trilogy, A Nomad of the Time Streams, by Michael Moorcock. It is a sequel to The Land Leviathan and was originally published in the United Kingdom by Granada Books. The novel was heavily revised and rewritten for its inclusion in the Orion...
Caballero de la noche, capaz de proezas temerarias y emprendedor de aventuras que lo llevan a abismarse en mundos imaginarios o en las fauces de la más pérfida realidad, Elric de Melniboné se ha convertido en un personaje clásico de la fantasía épica. Y la saga de ocho novelas que le dedicado Mic...
JHARY looked about him. “The sea or the mountains? Neither’s inviting…” Corum sighed deeply. The morbid landscape had instantly depressed him. Rhalina touched his arm, her eyes full of sympathy. Though she looked at Corum, she spoke to Jhary who was now adjusting his ever-present sack on his shou...
said Jhary-a-Conel as he slapped gloved hands together over a fire which seemed reluctant to burn. “The Fhoi Myore are fitting cousins to the Lords of Entropy, for they seem to seek the same ends. For all I know the Fhoi Myore are what those lords have become. There are so many fluctuations these...
There were at least a dozen canine throats baying in unison, and the only throats which could make that particular sound belonged to the hunting dogs of the Fhoi Myore, the Hounds of Kerenos. Corum got his bow and quiver of arrows from where he had stacked them with the rest of his gear when unsa...
It was Jacobean, with the conventional small square-leaded windows, three floors, five chimneys, a grey slate roof. Around its walls, particularly over the portico, climbed roses, wistaria and evergreens. Its gardens were divided by tall, ornamental privet hedges; there was a small lawn at the fr...
Forests no longer lined the banks, but instead there were gentle hills and seas of wild corn on both sides of them. Hawkmoon and D'Averc lived off the fat fish they caught in the river, together with corn and fruit found on the banks, and they became more relaxed as the ra...
I remember yet the giants of yore, Who gave me bread in the days gone by; Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree With mighty roots beneath the mold. THE POETIC EDDA, “The Wise Woman’s Prophecy” Iam Oona, the shape-taker, Grafin von Bek, daughter o...
They all sat together near the spaceship while the Lat kneeled nearby, absorbed in some kind of gambling game. The Iron Orchid and My Lady Charlotina seemed to be the stakes. Only My Lady Charlotina was getting impatient. She sighed. "I do wish they'd hurry up. They're lov...
A Hellblade Misplaced. It was not until Ulshinir was well below the horizon and the reefs still invisible ahead that Gaynor the Damned gave the order to “let some light on the poor toad” and the sailors obeyed with perhaps a touch of reluctance, drawing off and rolling up the black ...
To get a glimpse of the world I grew up in, I have to give microscopic attention to the backgrounds of English movies made between 1945 and 1955 in the hope of seeing the ruined South Bank in Hue and Cry or the remains of Wapping in Night and the City. If I’m willing to sit through hours of Cockn...
He had no strength to swim and the weight of the armour denied any hope of his rising to the surface and being sighted by Magum Colim or one of the others still loyal to him. The roaring in his ears gradually faded to a whisper so that it sounded as if little voices were speaking to him, the voic...
The government and all its departments had fled the capital before the war had got into its stride and had retired to an underground retreat somewhere in the Appalachians. It had survived the explosives, but not the plagues. Having little strategic importance, therefore, Washington had most of it...
But really both of us played a game. We didn’t know the rules and we didn’t know what there was to win or lose. To a greater degree than I realised at first, our roles were changing. They weren’t especially healthy. Against everything I had ever felt like doing I now encouraged other fantasies. A...
New York cheerfully tolerates the horde of fools and rogues who seek the security of her deep canyons and cliff-like tenements. What was a virtue, however, is now displayed as a vice. Since the days of her Dutch founders she refused to fear those Catholic and Jewish elements who scrambled to her ...
It is largely because we met him that we came here.""Artek is safe?" A woman spoke. It was possible that she was young, that she had been beautiful. "He is safe?" She stumbled toward Corum. Her hands, also, were secured behind her back. She fell and struggled to her knees, whimpering in pain. "Ar...
As I labored for the high ground, Oona’s Kakatanawa (suddenly awake) began yelling what I guessed were their war cries just as a ball of bright silver light appeared over the ornamental lake, where von Minct and Klosterheim fell back, blinded. There was a horrible roaring ...
It landed on the deserted field in the cool dawn. It was a big, complex ship of a golden plastic alloy that was turned to deep red by the rising sun. It landed in a faint whisper of sound, a murmur of apology, as if aware that its presence was unwelcome. Three figures started forward over the yie...
Elric, whose vengeful emotions had already brought much grief to himself and others, bore a grudge against the sorcerer and spent three years in pursuit of him until he was at last tracked to Bakshaan, a city rich enough to make all the other cities of the North East seem poor, where, in a melanc...
If it was his weakness to fall in love with short-lived Mabden women, then he must reconcile himself to the knowledge that he would outlive many lovers, must experience many losses, many agonies. As it was, he did not think much about it, preferring to avoid the significance of such ideas wheneve...
My eyes were filled with yellow light, like blood. I realised that the sun was out. It was the first sunshine I had seen for a long time. I rolled over and looked about me. My apartment was insane. I had not noticed before that it was so untidy. Yellow blood from the sun. It ran in a series of ca...
SOCIETY HOSTESS DEATH RIDDLE “It’s silly, I know,” said Jerry as he and Una lay close together, knee to knee in the massive and uncomfortable bed, listening to the waves and the wildlife of the Sandakan dawn, “but I do miss America. I have ancestors there, you know.” “You’re obsessed with your re...
Ted Carnell, still at a point where I think he was trying anything to get the magazine’s circulation back up, commissioned an Elric serial. We planned four quasi-independent episodes, separately titled, which would fit together and become a novel, though any story could be read individually. Then...