Product Description: This 11th volume of The Eternal Champion Series is dedicated to the most popular incarnation of the Champion: the doomed emperor Elric of Melnibone. In order to achieve his destiny and begin a new age after the Armageddon that threatens to destroy the world, Elric must risk his very soul.
This book will suck out your soul! ^ Not really, but somewhere there's a great tagline for an ad campaign for this book waiting to be used. Michael Moorcock has a gigantic catalog of novels and short stories, many of them dealing with his Multiverse concept, in which Law and Chaos constantly battle and a fellow known as the Eternal Champion tends to help sort it all out, with varying results. Back in the last decade White Wolf and Moorcock took most of the stories/novels, grouped them by character and concept and then put them out as a series of collections. This is the eleventh of those and second featuring Elric, perhaps Moorcock's most famous creation. While not my personal favorite of Moorcock's many characters (that honor goes to Jerry Cornelius, who I find has more personality) Elric definitely has a loyal following and his stories did a lot to nurse the then fairly low-key epic fantasy genre. Basically, Elric is a weak albino from a very old race that is dying out (and is quite evil) but he carries the magical sword Stormbringer that likes to suck the souls out of people (though Moorcock never says where the souls go, into the sword or straight to hell?), thus giving the sword and Elric vitality. Unfortunately, Elric has a very rough life and that makes him a somewhat dour person, since he's constantly caught between Law and Chaos (technically he's on Chaos' team though he swaps sides often). The stories in this volume depict the end of the Elric saga, when the war between Law and Chaos heats up on Elric's world and finally threatens to come to a conclusion. Moorcock's type of fantasy takes some getting used to, with a lot of really odd place names and bizarre monsters (some sound like they're straight out of Lovecraft) as well as some definitely odd situations. Elric himself seems to act more as an observer in most of these stories, trying to keep out of trouble. The earlier stories are typically the most formulaic (though brilliant for anyone else, as the cliche goes), since Elric generally has to fight Someone Bad and often saves the day by casting a spell or invoking the aid of some Old Elemental Spirit or just wading through crowds of people with his magical intelligent sword (oh by the way, it wants to kill all his friends too). Moorcock has definite style and flair when executing this kind of material but if you read them all at once there can be a definite sameness about them, where Elric just mopes and mopes and goes "wow is me" for chapters on end before getting attacked and summoning dragons or something to save him. The later stories (and Revenge of the Rose, which was written later) are much better, especially when they deal with the Multiverse directly, because the ideas and action and giant battles just keep coming, until it becomes a kind of sensory overload and toward the end of Stormbringer (the last story) everything gets all weird and metaphysical and it's just great. Moorcock can be lauded for bringing a mature sensibility to fantasy (Elric's a dour fellow but he has his passions) and for all of Elric's moping, he's far more memorable than most other fantasy characters. I won't go as far to say that these are his best work (again, I like the Cornelius stuff better and I haven't read Mother London or the Pyat novels yet) but for lovers of fantasy it's basically essential (if you can find them, the White Wolf editions went out of print and apparently command a high price, they must have been rare . . . the British editions are still available, I think) and no matter what you think of his style it's clearly one of the more original concepts in a genre that feels fit to merely repeat the work of a certain hobbit-loving author over and over again. Moorcock stands on his own and to understand fantasy at all, these books are required reading.
Random review ^ A very good book, same with the first Elric. I can't rate it perfectly though as some of the stories have parts which sort of clash with my sense of taste ;) Though even then, if the elements seem bizarre to me, they fit in with Moorcock's multiverse and help paint it better. And some of the stories are simply excellent.
I've introduced several friends (who normally don't read) to Elric and they've read the first text as well as the second. A good story with action elements with deep underlying themes, with fun stylistic device, but it's good even if you don't care about such things =)
Biggest brain in the multiverse! ^ While others build mere worlds, Moorcock has built the multiverse. While many use his ideas, these days, he was the first to conceive the idea as it is used throughout fantasy fiction. Just as some of his books slowly unfold to show you ideas from different angles, so does he slowly reveal the multiverse. Read this and the three books in the War Amongst the Angels series and you will see what I mean. Moorcock was also the author who predicted Black Holes and a whole different cosmology to go with them, he spoke of the multiverse in terms of branches or branes on a tree, and science has continued to prove him right throughout his career. Moorcock is far more than a writer of fantastic adventure stories, but neither does he reject his own relish for the stuff and as a result he gives us books which, as adult, we can enjoy more and more. The literal minded consumer of mass production fantasy is probably going to need a lot more explanation than Moorcock provides. You just have to trust him, jump in anywhere, and let him carry you on a wild tide of adventure, character, philosophy and more! The ending of this sequence is famous. So it should be. There is nothing else as good, at least since Melmoth the Wanderer! (Actually, it's better than Melmoth the Wanderer).
STUNNING ENDING ^ I was told by a friend that you had to trust Moorcock. Not only do his stories unfold rather like life, with new information coming in from new angles all the time, but they march towards the greatest dramatic conclusion in all fantasy. And this is where you'll find it, in STORMBRINGER, the final volume. You will be mightily rewarded with one of the most powerful literary fantasy stories you've ever picked up. And once you start reading him, it becomes fascinating -- because no writer has written so much at such a high level of literary ambition. Read his Jerry Cornelius stories, his Pyat novels or books like Mother London and you will know why Moorcock got the Grand Master award and why he has been winning prizes since his career began.
I would really love to see M.V.Cox and Michael coop. ^ This novel by Moorcock was very good, but not great. I enjoyed it , this is true..but there is no love affair. I found his writing style exciting, but the story as a whole, lacked the luster I was anticipating. I would love to see Michael team up with a new author, M.V.Cox, who wrote Souls Eternal. Funny they seem to have many passions in commmon. I reviewed Souls Eternal and found it the work of a genius.I will continue to read Michael Moorcock,but I would love to see him team up with Michael V.Cox. I think they would reach the sky and beyond. I for one would read anything they put out..thank you.
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