Moorcock, Michael Books - Page 5

Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Bison Frontiers of Imagination)

Richard A. Lupoff

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

So, just how was Tarzan created? Eager to know the inside story about the legendary John Carter and the amazing cities and peoples of Barsoom? Perhaps your taste is more suited to David Innes and the fantastic lost world at the Earth's core? Or maybe wrong-way Napier and the bizarre civilizations of cloud-enshrouded Venus are more to your liking? These pages contain all that you will ever want to know about the wondrous worlds and unforgettable characters penned by the master storyteller Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Richard A. Lupoff, the respected critic and writer who helped spark a Burroughs revival in the 1960s, reveals fascinating details about the stories written by the creator of Tarzan. Featured here are outlines of all of Burroughs's major novels, with descriptions of how they were each written and their respective sources of inspiration. This Bison Books edition includes a new foreword by fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, a new introduction by the author, a final chapter by Phillip R. Burger, as well as corrected text and an updated bibliography.

Richard A. Lupoff is a critic and an author of speculative fiction. Michael Moorcock is the author of the Elric saga and other works. Phillip R. Burger is a freelance writer, a consultant to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and a contributor to the Bison Frontiers of Imagination series.

Count Brass (Eternal Champion, Volume 15)

Michael Moorcock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

And so it ends, sort of 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm reviewing not the White Wolf American edition of this omnibus, but the British edition, which as far as I know contains the same material. The White Wolf editions used to trumpet that they were "newly revised for their US publication" but I doubt there were any drastic changes in them other than fixing typos and smoothing over inconsistencies, since Moorcock basically stated in his introduction to every single book how he had to restrain himself from doing even minor story revisions because once you start it's hard to stop and he wanted to maintain the quickly written fire of youth sensibility that was in those earlier stories. That said, this is the last volume of the series and in theory closes out the sequence, by returning the focus to Hawkmoon, who we really haven't seen since book 3. In the first novel "Count Brass", we move to the aftermath of Hawkmoon's saving the world, as he wishes for all his of friends that had died during the conflict with the Black Empire were still alive . . . and finds that sometimes you can get what you want and still not be happy. The first novel's probably the best of the bunch, having the most coherent plot and the most interesting mystery, the everpresent multiverse stuff is kept in the background to some extent and doesn't seek to overwhelm everything. Dangling threads are carried over into the second novel "Champion of Garathorn" but it mostly consists of Hawkmoon becoming another Champion and saving other people on a different plane. The last novel "Quest for Tanelorn" essentially functions as a conclusion of sorts to the entire saga that spread out over the last fifteen books but Moorcock just falls back into the pseudogibberish that sometimes characterizes his more fantastic sequences and settles with bringing four champions together to save everything, which we've seen before, at least twice. The first time, it was neat, the second, entertaining, now it's just "ho-hum" because he doesn't bring anything new to the concept, they join together and smash stuff. For the record, it was nice seeing Corum and Elric one last time, and even Erekose, although he's from the first book and I don't remember him too clearly. But the novel has the hallmarks of being written quickly, or at least the story being made it as the author goes along because it all wraps up far too neatly and quickly and starts to lose sense after a bit (so who was the sword again?) and it's more of a "grand finally" than a grand finale. In his defense, however, wrapping up a saga of this scope and breadth would require a War and Peace sized novel, and Moorcock only really focuses on the fantasy-related champions, not even bringing the SF-esque ones (Jerry Cornelius, Jherek, etc), so while it feels like AN ending and wraps up the stories of Hawkmoon and Elric and Corum and Erekose, I can't really accept it as THE ending. But at least it's happy, in a way, which is rare commodity with the Champions. Regardless, it's nice to finally finish this and I have to say that the publishers, American and British, should be congratulated on bringing all these stories together under one banner, cleaning them up and arranging them for new readers, I would have never been able to gather all the required stories together and the entire Eternal Champion series is essential for those looking to understand Moorcock. On a personal note, it is interesting to finally finish this, I started reading these volumes back in the mid-nineties sometime, so to finish this one and have no more to look forward, too . . . it's interesting. Still, it was time well spent and I suspect other readers feel the same.

Editorial Review:

The 14th and final volume in the classic epic fantasy sequence : The Eternal Champion Michael Moorcock's epic novels of the fantastic are classics of the genre that appeal to all ages and walks of life. From the earliest pulp novels of the 60's to the award winning MOTHER LONDON he has earned wide critical acclaim. COUNT BRASS, the concluding volume of the tale of the eternal champion, makes the fearsome journey to Tanelorn in search of resolution. The avatar of the champion - Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon and Erekose must pool their talents in order to bring about the conjunction of the million spheres.

Hawkmoon (Eternal Champion Series, Vol. 3)

Michael Moorcock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fascinating world for the Eternal Champion. 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Hawkmoon's quest for peace in his world is typical Moorcock fantasy, with bold heroes, evil opponents, hideous fates, weird monsters, and most of all, lots of action. In his preface, Moorcock warns us not to look to deeply for meaning in Hawkmoon, but that's like saying "Don't think of an elephant." There are certainly some themes here that Moorcock returns to in later books, but they are treated perhaps a tad more superficially here than in later years (not really a fault or anything, I just thought I'd mention it). As in Elric and Corum (my personal favorite), the author uses a fable-like semi-mythological style that makes the story move and focuses attention where it needs to be focused. For example, when Hawkmoon travels hundreds of miles to a city in the Middle East, the author devotes about four pages to the journey. Some writers (think Robert Jordan) would make the journey half a book long. This simplicity of style is one of my favorite things about Michael Moorcock. The only real weakness to this novel, as has been mentioned by other reviewers, is Hawkmoon himself. He's not really much of a character. Mostly he is either fighting or saying how he wishes he could return to his wife. He also seems kinda dim-witted at times. Usually one of the other characters is the one who comes up with a solution to a problem, or notices that the bad guys are coming or that Hawkmoon's pants are on fire. Not a big weakness, but in comparison to more interesting characters like Corum or Elric, a noticeable weakness. Still, if you like Elric or Corum, or just sword and sorcery stuff in general, this is highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

Experience Michael Moorcock's infamous multiverse and the journeys of the Eternal Champion. Hawkmoon chronicles the fate of yet another aspect of the Eternal Champion, Doriam Hawkmoon, Duke of Koln. This collection of stories features revised text and a new Introduction by the author. "Five hundred pages of the best heroic fantasy you'll ever find."--S.F.

Elric Tales of the White Wolf

Michael Moorcock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An Elric novel written by Authors who grew up reading Elric 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I have read every Elric novel. I own 500 kilos of fantasy paperbacks. This book brought me as much joy, inspiration and satisfaction as any book I have ever read. Elric was the first "evil" hero. Every fantasy writer has taken a peice of elric to produce their characters. Drizt Do'urden is a shadow of Elric. Raistlen is almost an exact copy of Elric. Darth vader's sinister life, dependence on technology/sorcery and eventual noble self sacrifice are in mimicry of Elric. In this book so many authors who wanted to write Elric stories, some who had made great fame and fortune copying Moorcock, were given licence to write as they pleased. Every short story in the book is its authors best work because as they write about their own dark heros in their own novels they are thinking about Elric. My highest praise: I want a sequel.. or two... or ten... a series published monthly untill I am old and grey.

Elric is number 1 in my book. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is the first of the Elric saga Ive read. I found it most exhilirating. The dark antihero and his struggle for his humanity is almost sorrowful. His sword is legendary amonst who has lived to tell about it. Not many have though. Elric is an outcast among his people.It is one of the best books I have read in a long time.

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate: Book Two of the Elric Saga

Michael Moorcock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Super Reader 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

There are three parts to this book. Sailing to the Future includes the crossover where Elric meets, Erekose, Hawkmoon and Corum aboard the Dark Ship of the Captain.

Then there is Sailing to the Present, and Sailing to the Past. The latter is a reworked version of the Jade God's Eyes.

Sailor On the Seas Of Fate : 1 Sailing to the Future [Voyage On A Dark Ship] - Michael Moorcock
Sailor On the Seas Of Fate : 1 Sailing to the Past [The Jade Man's Eyes] - Michael Moorcock
Sailor On the Seas Of Fate : 1 Sailing to the Present [The Lands Beyond the World - Michael Moorcock

Eternal Champion crossover team-up!

4.5 out of 5


Elric and Moonglum travel to a different city in the Young Kingdoms, and with Duke Avan discover that the Jade Man is a being with whom Elric is all too familiar.

3.5 out of 5


Elric has some misadventures on a rather unusual ship.

4 out of 5

Kane of Old Mars (Eternal Champion Series, Vol. 9)

Michael Moorcock

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Mindless fun. 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Michael Moorcock, Kane of Old Mars (Warriors of Mars/Blades of Mars/Barbarians of Mars) (Lancer, 1965)

For the first book and a half of this trilogy, I had no idea what Moorcock was on about. Then I did a little research and found out Moorcock was parodying Edgar Rice Burroughs; that helped put things more into perspective and helped me get over some of my usual annoyances with many fantasy writers (the plethora of exclamation points and one-sentence paragraphs, etc.); traps Moorcock usually doesn't fall into.

Once that was behind me, I enjoyed these three books quite a bit more. The astoundingly cheesy premise herein is that a writer, Edward Bradbury (under which pen name the books were originally published), encounters and befriends one Michael Kane while vacationing in the south of France. Kane is a physicist who previously worked for the military but went off to the private sector to develop what he calls a matter transference machine (in this post-Star Trek world, we know them better as transporters or teleporters). Its only problem is that, when Kane tests it on himself, it sends him not to the receiving transference machine, but to Mars millions of years ago, a Mars that is full of thriving communities. They are, of course, at war with one another or in tenuous peace treaties that could erupt into war at any moment, leading to many examples of Kane's ability to show off the swordfighting techniques he learned as a child (how coincidental!), while forging alliances between peoples who have been at war for generations and earning the respect of all he encounters. It's high silliness of the order to be found in old Douglas Fairbanks pictures from the silent era (or the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, presumably).

Moorcock keeps the pages turning, and each of the books is slim; it's possible to get through one of them in a lazy afternoon and still have time to tackle thirty of forty pages of the newest Danielle Steel potboiler, if one is so inclined. Just don't be expecting great literature. For that matter, don't be expecting material up to Moorcock's usual high standards. Just turn your brain off and enjoy the ride. ***

Editorial Review:

The ninth volume of the Eternal Champion series collects one of Michael Moorcock's most epic fantasy adventures--the story of Kane of Old Mars. The saga begins on the south coast of France, but the adventure continues through space and time. "›Moorcock| is a major novelist of enormous ambition".--"The Washington Post" .

The Cornelius Chronicles Vol. II: The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius/The Entropy Tango

Michael Moorcock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Moorcock's Finest 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

The Cornelius Chronicles along with The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius, Life and Times of Jerry Cornelius, and The Entropy Tango represent some of the best fiction Moorcock has ever penned.

As a young teenager I devoured Moorcock's Eternal Champion books, but it wasn't until college that the Cornelius books held any interest for me, and at that point I had stopped reading SF/Fantasy altogether (I had Nabokov to read...). In many ways Jerry is the mature reader's Eternal Champion--the novels do echo many of the themes found in the other EC novels.

I actually find it quite daunting to sum up The Cornelius Chronicles in such a limited space. My 1977 Avon edition is almost 1000 pages and the four novels that make up the Chronicles (a tetrology?) offer different experiences and styles.

My nutshell: The Chronicles are concerned with Jerry's struggle for identity amidst the entropy of urban life in 1970's London. Satirical, funny, sexy, and sad; filled with a wonderful cast of characters. It really is genre-busting--from 60's spy flick to urban realism. Postmodern (in the literary sense; search for Brian McHale). In many ways it reminds me of Pynchon's V.

Find and buy these books if you can. Hopefully they will, as the author states above, be published again. Of Moorcock's "SF" work, these (with Behold the Man) are the ones that should stay in print--eternally.

Gloriana

Michael Moorcock

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Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

One of Michael Moorcock's most brilliant and highly decorated novels, here isthe story of a powerful queen whose quest for sexual satisfaction could destroy her kingdom. A fable satirizing Spenser's The Faerie Queen and reflecting the real life of Elizabeth I, GLORIANA, OR THE UNFULFILL'D QUEEN tells of a woman who ascends to the throne upon thedeath of her debauched and corrupted father, King Hern. Gloriana's reign brings the Empire of Albion into a GoldenAge, but her oppressive responsibilities choke her, prohibiting any form of sexual satisfaction-no matter what fetish she tries. Her problem is in fact symbolic of the hypocrisy of her entire court. While her life is meant to mirror that of her nation-an image of purity, virtue, enlightenment and prosperity-the truth is that her peaceful empire is kept secure by her wicked chancellor Monfallcon and his corrupt network of spies and murderers, the most sinister of whom is CaptainQuire, who is commissioned to seduce Gloriana and thus bring down Albion and the entire empire.

Mother London

Michael Moorcock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Warm, stimulating, sexy, cheering! 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I bought this in paperback in England. The store had a pile of them so I assume it's in print there. I read it on the plane home. What a perfect book for a nervous traveler -- for the first time in my life I forgot to give my whole attention to keeping the plane airborne! All the way to New York, all the way home, with the warmest, happiest chapters at the end to finish off with when you get back into your own familiar territory. But now London is familiar territory, too. Read this and know a city as one who loves it and grew up there. The Blitz scenes are worth the money alone! Funny, moving, profound,unsentimental, humane. This is a big novel, with a big generous heart. I would not be the first to compare it to Dickens. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens's and London's biographer, has compared Moorcock to Dickens and has given lavish praise to MOTHER LONDON, as have many London literary critics. Another London novel KING OF THE CITY is also a great read, though very, very different. Read MOTHER LONDON and see the city at her best, dauntless under the Nazi bombing raids, her ordinary citizens not only surviving and making the best of things, but making the quality of their lives better through sheer old-fashioned grit and determination. A lesson for all of us who never experienced our home under constant daily attack, but a heartening message with an old-fashioned up-beat celebration of ordinary human beings. Wonderful!

Swords Trilogy

Michael Moorcock

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not Elric, but still pretty darn good. 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Michael Moorcock, The Swords Trilogy (Berkley, 1971)

Michael Moorcock here introduces us to another aspect of the Eternal Champion, Corum of the Scarlet Robe. Corum fits the Eternal Champion mold well in the first three books of this six-book series-he's a chap who's rather like the rest of his race, normal from that perspective, but whose race is somewhat divorced from (older than, as are Elric's race) the humans who share a planet with them. While devoid of supernatural powers himself, he gains them in the pursuance of a quest. Also like Elric, Corum's destiny, in the first books, is shaped by the Dukes of Hell-Arioch, Xiombarg, and Mabelrode. He also has a trusty sidekick (in this case, Jhary-a-Conel, who does make a brief appearance with Corum at the very end of The Vanishing Tower in the Elric series). In other words, you've got an inkling of what's going on here simply because this is an Eternal Champion series and you've already read the Elric books. (You have, haven't you? If not, go do so.)

Moorcock does throw in a few elements to keep you guessing. Corum serves Law, rather than Chaos (as Elric does), and doesn't have any of the fatal weaknesses at the beginning of the book that other manifestations of the Champion do. The variations lead to great musing from the reader over the true nature of the Eternal Champion and why it's so changeable. While this is an excellent thing, and raises the stakes for the whole extended family of books, these three tales themselves (available separately as The Knight of the Swords, The Queen of the Swords, and the King of the Swords) often follow the same formulae as the Elric novels, and thus become predictable. That doesn't make them any less fun. But one wonders whether there could have been something more to them, that ineffable something that sent the Elric novels to heights unmatched in fantasy since J. R. R. Tolkein. Whatever it is, there's far less of it here. *** ½