I've read Elric!, where now?

[nikolai]

Hi all,

I've recently read "Elric!", a collection of some introductory Elric stories by Michael Moorcock http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857987438/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/202-1520325-7590253. Any suggestions on where to go now?

The book I've read contains:

* The Dreaming City,
* While the Gods Laugh,
* The Stealer of Souls,
* Kings in Darkness,
* The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams, and
* Stormbringer.

I most enjoyed Kings in Darkness and The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams. I thought Stormbringer was at bit out-there particularly when it got slightly surreal towards the end. The other three were okay.

I'm basically looking for suggestions on where to go now by someone familiar with the Elric stuff, or suggestion is a smiliar vein by other authors.

yours,

nikolai.

 

[Jamdin]

Have you read the Elric Saga Trilogy? There are now three books that collects the early and new books:

The Elric Saga Part I collects Elric Of Melnibone, The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate and The Wierd Of The White Wolf

The Elric Saga Part II collects The Vanishing Tower, The Bane Of The Black Sword and Stormbringer.

There is also The Elric Saga Part III (which I have seen only at the Science Fiction Book Club) which collects Fortress Of The Pearl, The Dreamthief's Daughter and Revenge Of The Rose. I got these as seperate books and they are pretty cool.

The newest one is The Skrayling Tree which I have yet to read. This one promises to be the weirdest one yet.

Have a good weekend,

James

Hi all,

I've recently read "Elric!", a collection of some introductory Elric stories by Michael Moorcock http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857987438/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/202-1520325-7590253. Any suggestions on where to go now?

The book I've read contains:

* The Dreaming City,
* While the Gods Laugh,
* The Stealer of Souls,
* Kings in Darkness,
* The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams, and
* Stormbringer.

I most enjoyed Kings in Darkness and The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams. I thought Stormbringer was at bit out-there particularly when it got slightly surreal towards the end. The other three were okay.

I'm basically looking for suggestions on where to go now by someone familiar with the Elric stuff, or suggestion is a smiliar vein by other authors.

yours,

nikolai.

 

[Phoenix8008]

If you liked Elric, I would reccomend reading some of the other Michael Moorcock books in the 'Eternal CHampion' series. I myself enjoyed 'The Eternal Champion', 'Hawkmoon', 'Corum: The Coming of Chaos', and 'Corum: The prince with the silver hand'.

The neatest thing about the series to me is that all of the heros of each book are supposedly a manifestation of the "Eternal Champion" which exists in every universe of the Multiverse. There is even one book (The Dark Tower in the Elric series I think) in which three different eternal champions (Elric, Corum, and Erokse) get trapped together in this tower which jumps through multiple universes. VERY fun what they have to do to get out and survive THAT adventure.

I highly reccomend these books as well as the rest of the Elric books!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'd also recommend "The Warhound and the World's Pain." It's set in Renaissance Europe and involves a quest for the Holy Grail on behalf of a most unexpected patron...

 

[Rackhir]

It's worth noting that the "crossover" events like the Vanishing Tower (not the Dark Tower - that's Stephen King), show up in the respective series of all the Champions involved, where you get to see it from the perspective of the champion who's book it is.

Note - Bane of the Black Sword has a little short story at the end which is a personal favorite of mine for reasons that will become obvious.

Hawkmoon is excellent. Just wait till you get to the end of the third book and the climatic battle. I guarentee it will blow your mind what happens... Though personally, I would avoid the second Hawkmoon series - Castle Brass. It left me feeling gyped, since it essentially negated the end of the original trilogy.

Both Corum series are excellent and highly recommended. Not to mention that you'll find out where the inspiration for the Hand and Eye of Vecna came from.

"The Warhound and the World's Pain" gets another nod from me as well. A suprisingly upbeat and hopeful ending for a Moorecock book.

Personally, I can't really think of another series or writer who has anything really like Moorcock's stuff. Elric in particular is probably the most "anti-heroic" (ie. Conan style) character I've ever seen and certainly the most tortured and out of place one I've read about.

The Song of Fire and Ice, is a very gritty, very realistic fantasy series in which no convention or character is safe. You might want to give that a try.

Fritz Lieber's - Fafhrid and The Grey Mouser books have some of the all time classic fantasy characters and the duo are the architypical rogues. Highly recommended.

The Black Company books by Glen Cook are some of my all time favorites. The main characters go to work for the Evil Sorceress who's just been freed from her centuries long imprisonment. A really terrific cast of characters and plots.

That's all I can really think of for the moment. There really hasn't been that much in the way of really great fantasy. Personally, I've pretty much stopped reading it in favor of SF.

Here's a bibliography of Moorcock books I got off a web site

http://www.multiverse.org/

John Daker novels
The Eternal Champion
The Silver Warriors (Phoenix in Obsidian)
The Swords of Heaven, The Flowers of Hell [graphic novel, with Howard V. Chaykin]
The Dragon in the Sword [cross-listed here and the Von Bek section]

Elric novels
The Elric Saga
Elric of Melniboné (The Dreaming City)
The Fortress of the Pearl
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate [contains a considerably revised version of The Jade Man's Eyes as the final "book"]
The Weird of the White Wolf [linked narrative collection]
The Vanishing Tower (The Sleeping Sorceress)
The Revenge of the Rose
The Bane of the Black Sword [linked narrative collection]
Stormbringer


Other
Elric at the End of Time [published as collection of short stories, only some of which have a connection to the Elric Saga, and also as just the novella, illustrated by Rodney Matthews]
The Singing Citadel [linked narrative collection, only some have a connection to the Elric Saga]
The Stealer of Souls (The Stealer of Souls and Other Stories) [linked narrative collection]
The Jade Man's Eyes [chapbook]
Elric: The Return to Melniboné [short graphic novel, drawn by Philippe Druillet with text by Michael Moorcock]

Hawkmoon novels
Hawkmoon (The History of the Runestaff)
The Jewel in the Skull
The Mad God's Amulet (Sorcerer's Amulet)
The Sword of the Dawn (Sword of the Dawn)
The Runestaff (The Secret of the Runestaff)

The Chronicles of Castle Brass (Count Brass)
Count Brass
The Champion of Garathorm
The Quest for Tanelorn

Corum novels
Corum: The Coming of Chaos (The Swords Trilogy) (The Swords of Corum) (Corum)
The Knight of the Swords
The Queen of the Swords
The King of the Swords


The Prince with the Silver Hand (The Chronicles of Corum)
The Bull and the Spear
The Oak and the Ram
The Sword and the Stallion

Cornelius novels
The Cornelius Chronicles (The Cornelius Quartet)
The Final Programme
A Cure for Cancer
The English Assassin
The Condition of Muzak

A Cornelius Calendar
The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century
The Entropy Tango
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Gold Diggers of 1977) [chapbook]


Other
The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius [linked narrative collection]
The Nature of the Catastrophe [collection by Michael Moorcock and others, edited by Michael Moorcock and Langdon Jones, cross-listed here and the Editor section]
The New Nature of the Catastrophe [collection by Michael Moorcock and others, edited by Michael Moorcock and Langdon Jones, a massive expansion (with exclusions) of The Nature of the Catasrophe, cross-listed here and the Editor section, and the Omnibus Editions page]

Michael Kane novels [originally as Edward P. Bradbury]
City of the Beast (The City of the Beast) (Warriors of Mars)
Lord of the Spiders (The Lord of the Spiders) (Blades of Mars)
Masters of the Pit (The Masters of the Pit) (Barbarians of Mars)

Oswald Bastable novels
The Warlord of the Air
The Land Leviathan
The Steel Tsar

Dancers at the End of Time
Dancers at the End of Time
An Alien Heat
The Hollow Lands
The End of All Songs


Other
Legends from the End of Time [linked narrative collection]
A Messiah at the End of Time (The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming) (Constant Fire)
Colonel Pyat novels
Byzantium Endures
The Laughter of Carthage
Jerusalem Commands
The Vengeance of Rome [not yet published]
Von Bek novels
The War Hound and the World's Pain
The City in the Autumn Stars
The Dragon in the Sword [cross-listed here and the John Daker section]

 

[Black Omega]

I have to admit I once read the Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius without noticing it was a collection of short stories. Says something about the Cornelius books, I think.

 

[hellbender]

Don't forget 'Tales of the White Wolf', from White Wolf Publishing. This is a nice collection of short stories, including one from Michael Moorcock and a Greyhawk/Elric crossover by Gary Gygax.

The Flowers of Hell is a reference to Elric's red eyes, which his eyes are said to burn like.

While I enjoy Moorcock's work, he has a dislike of Tolkien which is almost obtuse, he acts as if Tolkien and CS Lewis are questionable authors. Come on, it is the same genre, just a different take. Nobody has ever created a world like Tolkien, he has too much background information. Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories as mentioned earlier in the thread, are a very good read as well.

hellbender

 

[Rackhir]

I have to admit I once read the Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius without noticing it was a collection of short stories. Says something about the Cornelius books, I think.

At one point back in my early College years, I tried reading the Cornelius Chronicals. There is frequently absolutely no connection between one page and the next. Personally I would recommend avoiding the Cornelius Chronicals at all costs, unless you enjoy reading stories where dimminished brain capacity deludes you into thinking you understand what's going on.

Actually, there is something else I can recommend. Roger Zelazny's Amber books are excellent and especially his (unconnected) book "Lord of Light". They have a somewhat similar mix of "magic" and odd virtually magical technology. Not to metion being cracking good stories. Lord of Light is one of my all time favorites.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

While I enjoy Moorcock's work, he has a dislike of Tolkien which is almost obtuse, he acts as if Tolkien and CS Lewis are questionable authors. Come on, it is the same genre, just a different take. Nobody has ever created a world like Tolkien, he has too much background information. Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories as mentioned earlier in the thread, are a very good read as well.

It strikes me that his disdain is twofold:

1. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien really are the standards from which the genre is measured. So much fantasy fiction (including most, dare I say almost all, shared world fiction) is derived from their conventions that it's almost stifling, and seems downright formulaic at times. Moorcock breaks the mold, and wants more authors to do the same.

2. Tolkien and Lewis approached fantasy as a vessel for Christian morality, and, in the latter's case (and in the former's case, in the myths of the Silmarillion), allegory. Moorcock's works disdain this moral character in favor of ambiguity, and disdain the linear, theocentric, style of those two authors in favor of a cyclical, Nietzschean, style. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Moorcock's works almost smack of a Buddhist view of reality, complete with rebirth (the eternal champion), samsara (the multiverse), dukkha/mara (the black sword), and nirvana (Tanelorn)... even though Moorcock himself is not a Buddhist, it's fun to notice the similarities, and how they impact the philosophy of the characters in his novels.

Just my two plats.

 

[Rackhir]

Don't forget 'Tales of the White Wolf', from White Wolf Publishing. This is a nice collection of short stories, including one from Michael Moorcock and a Greyhawk/Elric crossover by Gary Gygax.

The Flowers of Hell is a reference to Elric's red eyes, which his eyes are said to burn like.

While I enjoy Moorcock's work, he has a dislike of Tolkien which is almost obtuse, he acts as if Tolkien and CS Lewis are questionable authors. Come on, it is the same genre, just a different take. Nobody has ever created a world like Tolkien, he has too much background information. Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories as mentioned earlier in the thread, are a very good read as well.

hellbender

Hmm, I've read a good 90% of Moorcock's books, but never really got the feeling he had a distain for Tolkien. Is that something from some of his biographical material? I do know that he was very much an "Angry Young Man" especially when he was writing the Elric books and that Elric was specifically designed to be the opposite of your classic "Conan" style, strong mighty hero.

I can see him writing in rejection of the classic archtypes, that is essentially the source of Elric's origin. However I doubt that the Christian propgandizing in especially CS Lewis's stuff was much of a motivation. I suspect it was far more a case of simply wanting to smash that which had gone before as was such a motivation for so many others in the 60's.

I am curious though where your information comes from, I have never done much biographical research on Moorecock, so my gut feelings may well be entirely wrong.