It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair that flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the loose sleeves of his yellow gown emerge two slender hands, also the colour of bone.
He is Elric, Emperor of Melniboné, cursed with a keen and cynical intelligence, schooled in the art of sorcery -- the hero of Michael Moorcock’s remarkable epic of conflict and adventure at the dawn of human history …
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Amazon.com Review: Elric of Melniboné is a requisite title in the hard fantasy canon, a book no fantasy fan should leave unread. Author Michael Moorcock, already a major player in science fiction, cemented his position in the fantasy pantheon with the five-book Elric saga, of which Elric of Melniboné is the first installment. The book's namesake, the brooding albino emperor of the dying nation of Melniboné, is a sort of Superman for Goths, truly an archetype of the genre.
The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga. --Paul Hughes
The Snow King "Elric of Melnibone" is the excellent beginning of Michael Moorcock's sprawling series about the dying,weak albino heir to Melnibone. Elric is a fascinating character- he's a proto-emo with his pale skin, he's vampire-like with Stormbringer, but he shows moral and physical strength when necessary. There is Elric's wicked cousin, Yrkoon, who plots to steal the throne, and Cymoril, Elric's beloved.
Michael Moorcock lushly describes the decadent, labyrinthine land of Melnibone. It's reminiscent of Faramir's description in "The Two Towers" of the corrupt Numenorians,using sorcery to keep themselves alive, fearing death, yet not bearing children. Melnibone has become an inhuman world, yet Elric remains human. He's also reminiscent of the Mayan god Quetzalcoatl,who rejected the corrupt sorcery around him,who was frail,and tempted to incest. Elric's beloved Cymoril,also happens to be cousin. After a sensual scene of lovemaking in the wilderness, Elric unintentionally slays her. The heartbreak drives him to madness-- and revenge.
"Elric" is an excellent, compelling, literary work. It sets the standard for post-Tolkien fantasy. Journey into Melnibone!
A horrible, horrible train wreck I have been devouring 20th century fantasy and science fiction for a rather long time, from Howard to Heinlein, from Lovecraft to Tolkien, Asimov and onward. And I kept hearing the names Elric and Moorcock. Everyone calls Elric a must-read in modern FSF. So I got it.
It's garbage. It's boring. It's annoying. It's terribly, horribly, painfully, poorly written. There is zero character development, meaning, you will never care about anyone in these books. There is zero plot logic, meaning you can pick up anywhere and start reading and understand the general nonsense that is going on, because no event has anything to do with any other. There is zero world-building, meaning magical things and people are mentioned once and never explained.
But to break the camel's back, Moorcock does nothing but tell, not show. So we get this, over and over: "Elric briefly has a thought or feeling, but because he is from Melnibone, he decides he doesn't care about that thought or feeling, and decides to go do something stupid."
I cannot imagine why anyone likes this book/series. It is almost unreadable. Go pick up George Martin, or Herbert, or Leiber, or anything else! Save yourself...and your money!
What was i thinking? When i was in junior high, this was one of my favorite books (it tied with Terry Brooks Sword of Shannara and Piers Anthony's Xanth series). i recently recommended it to my girlfriend, who didn't like it. So i reread it. For the life of me, i can't tell you why this was one of my favorite books.
The most noticeable thing i hadn't remembered - this is serialized pulp fiction, by which i mean the story is intended to be read and fully appreciated in small chunks. Each of the 6 books are the shortest books you'll ever see and each of those is made up of 3 books. And each of those is basically its own story, although it remembers (somewhat) what's happened in earlier stories.
Why is that bad? Because the book leaves out a *lot* of detail. It races from one story to another. On page one he learns there's a danger, on page 20 he learns he must kill an evil god, on page 40 the evil god is dead, on page 41 he's somehow on the opposite side of the world, married, blissfully happy and doesn't remember much of any adventure he's had before but look, here comes another evil god, on page 60 he learns he must kill an evil god, etc.
It's probably the format you want if you're reading this once a month in a magazine but as a book you wonder why the stories are so separate, bite sized and lacking in detail. The ideas behind most of these stories is great but they all should have been fleshed out and grown to actual book length stories.
Another thing i hadn't remembered - Elric, the greatest sorcerer in the world, doesn't actually seem to use magic. He fights evil sorcerers who also don't use magic. Magic, in Elric's world, is this - "oh no, i'm in trouble, hey ancient fire spirits, you and my family were friends, come save me". Then some elemental creature or somesuch shows up and rescues him. The extent of Elric's magic seems to be poking people with a sword. Not a complaint, just an observation.
The stories are dark, friends die, Elric's life is fairly miserable and it all ends badly. If you're into dark, gothy kinds of things (and i am), that's a good story line. There are good ideas here. i loved these books as a kid and my memories of these stories will always stay in my heart. But when i look back on the actual stories themselves...
One bright side - these are old stories. 1960s old. i learned that Moorcock wrote a few new Elric novels. Atrocious. Elric fights the Nazis with dragons? At least these original books aren't the new ones
Super Reader Elric is the emperor of a declining civilisation. It is threated from without, by the 'lesser' races of humanity.
He also has to deal with the power plays and ambitions of his relatives, and has his own illnesses to bear, as well.
However, he has a plan. He doesn't realise what and who it will cost him to carry it out, as he makes a deal with Chaos.
Dark Fantasy of the Highest Imaginative Order Most of what I would have to say about this book could go for anything Moorcock wrote in the Elric pantheon during the 1970's; but ELRIC OF MELNIBONE is the starting platform, the first of a long series. It's rich in action, character, creativity, and--to coin a bogus Hollywood word--disturbia.
Elric is the lonely, brooding emporer of wicked Melnibone, an ancient kingdom of evil demi-humans who lord themselevs over the world with detached contempt. Elric himself is far more ... sensitive is almost the word ... Anyway, he's a sympathetic character, fully capable of love, bereft of ambition, tolerant of those he does not understand--to a fault. He's also an albino, quite sickly, and threatened by his nemesis cousin, Yyrkoon. At the crux of his destiny is a sword, Stormbringer, that makes its wielder powerful by draining the souls of those it slays.
Vampirism and fantasy never, never, never married so well as in the Elric series. The first book is probably the most ... well, uplifting is hardly a good word choice ... In any case, it's the most complete in terms of a self-contained story. And it's great!
Side note: You'll never forget the character of Dr. Jest. He's the stuff of nightmares ...
(This review has been posted by Marcus Damanda, author of the vampire book "Teeth: A Horror Fantasy.")
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