Michael Moorcock Books

Much as I hate to admit it now, I'd never heard of this book nor of Rex Warner until stumbling upon a list Anthony Burgess did for the New York Times Book Review of his Top 99 Modern Novels. The copy of the book I have just happens to include a forward by Burgess, so it seems safe to say that he did his part to maintain the reputation and readership of this fine book. And it was heartening to see that it is still in print. Heartening because this is a novel that deserves to be read and should have made many more "Best of" lists.

One strange deficiency in the literature of the 20th Century is the relative paucity of novels about fascism, its attractions and its awful consequences for those who believed. Sure, there are plenty of books about the Holocaust, but almost all are written from the victims' perspective. But while we have a rich literature depicting the mindset of Communists (Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, etc.), there aren't many similar books describing how someone, a young idealist perhaps, might have been drawn to fascism, even Nazism, but then been disillusioned, or even eaten by the revolution they helped to foment.

In at least this regard, Rex Warner's Aerodrome may well be the best novel ever written about fascism. The book is a pretty simple allegory--which though the critics I was able to find say was influenced mainly by Kafka, seemed to me to owe much more to Orwell's Coming Up for Air. The narrator, Roy, has grown up in The Village, a bucolic country town with more than its share of drunkenness, adultery, and incest. Bordering on the Village is the Aerodrome, clean, orderly, modern, technological, it represents everything that the Village is not.

Amidst a burgeoning mystery over who his real parents are, Roy joins the Air Force, drawn by its orderliness, attempting to please his girlfriend, and deeply impressed by the rigid but charismatic Air Vice-Marshal. The Vice-Marshal is determined to expand the Aerodrome and bring the Village under his control, remaking it in the same sterile image as the Aerodrome.

Roy meanwhile comes to realize that for all the disorder and human frailty on display in his home town, it is at least alive with possibilities :

I began to see that this life, in spite of its drunkenness and its inefficiency, was wider and deeper than the activity in which we were constricted by the iron compulsion of the Air Vice-Marshal's ambition. It was a life whose very vagueness concealed a wealth of opportunity, whose uncertainty called for adventure, whose aspects were innumerable and varied as the changes of light and colour throughout the year. It was a life whose unwieldiness was the consequence of its immensity. No skill could precisely calculate the effects of any action, and all action was dangerous.

There, in a nutshell, is the human dilemma : on the one hand we long for a world that would be safe and predictable and would yield to calculation, but, on the other, such calculations are beyond our meager mortal powers, so that whenever folks seek to impose order, they succeed merely in eliminating freedom and stifling progress. The appeal of fascism--or communism, or Nazism, or all the other -isms--is precisely that it holds out the promise of having finally invented the human calculus which will provide security, without any of the nasty side effects. That this appeal has always proven false does not seem to dampen the human need for, nor the responsiveness to, such promises.

Perhaps the best aspect of this novel is its timelessness. Though it is clearly a comment upon the 1930s and 40s, the Village, with its verdant fields, its convoluted genealogies, its interfamilial murders, and lurking just across the way the orderly utopia of the Aerodrome, suggests Man after the Fall as much as it does Britain just before WWII. The themes that Warner is dealing with are eternal. That he manages to present them in such a natural and readable way makes the book one that everyone should read.

GRADE : A+

Having read so much 20th. Century literature in English, I was amazed and embarrased not to have come across this important book before now. This is doubly so having read Orwell since my teenage years, yet I believe this book is far clearer in its critique of state facism than 1984. The leisurely pace and clear prose, set in the beautiful English countryside is deceptive. The story builds up to a threatening climax. It is a story of authoritarianism and love, of clear and singular vision and muddled human reality. A real must to read. Primo Levi would understood this book all too well.

This book and Letters from Hollywood originally appeared around the same time from the same UK publisher. I still haven't found Letters from Hollywood (the letters Moorcock wrote to Ballard when Moorcock was working in Hollywood) which has some beautiful illustrations, so if anyone out there has a copy for sale... I got this in the US hardback, done by Carrol and Graf and it's well worth waiting for. I think it's one of Moorcock's best. Tight, sharp and very sexy, the whole thing's set in a brothel in middle-Europe at the turn of the 20th century -- pretty much exactly a century ago, where the politics don't seem alrogether unfamiliar and neither do the sexual obsessions! There's no fantasy in it (unless you count the acting out of sexual fantasy). It describes an old roue who takes up with a young girl, takes her with him to a famous bordello in Moorcock's fictional Mirenberg (a sort of amalgamation of Nurenberg and Prague). While there, war begins to build. The usual attitudes are struck and compromises fall. The collapse of the erotic fantasy into reality is mirrored by the collapse of high society as the war comes closer and closer and their short-sightedness fails to halt it, as they almost welcome it. This collapse from fantasy into reality is mirrored by the collapse of the Edwardian 'golden' society as the entire city comes under attack. It's a beautiful, often sensuous story, very short for Moorcock, but as usual very much to the point. Itr leaves you at once yearning for a vanished past that probably never existed and mourning the human forces which so frequently translate into aggression and hatred when they could easily become cooperation and love. Moorcock is a realist through and through -- his fantasies show you that -- with his feet on some solid philosophical, sexual and historical ground -- and this, like his more complex Pyat books, examines our presumptions about our own cultural virtues as well as our obsessions with sex and its confusion with power. For anyone who wants a fine substantial read, this would also be a good introduction to those a bit daunted at beginning the wonderful Pyat series.

This book clinches Moorcock's ability to capture multiple genres; anyone thinking him a one-trick pony with the swords-and-sorcery/sci-fi of the Elric and Hawkmoon books needs to investigate this novel, along with the Colonel Pyat, Jerry Cornelius, and Karl Glogauer novels, as well as "Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen." This tale finds Rickhardt von Bek and his teenage lover, Alexandra, living a lazy, extravagant life in 1890s Mirenburg. Initially, it reads like a journal of personal excess and adventure, until the setting moves to Frau Schmetterling's brothel and the political forces ruling Waldenstein square off for war. Von Bek's search for pleasure and satisfaction begins to seem more in vain as the city is bombarded, and the 19th Century Gilded Age dream becomes a 20th Century nightmare of heavy warfare. As Mirenburg falls, so do von Bek's dreams of la dolce vita and his relationship with Alexandra crumbles along with the city's beautiful buildings. There are, of course, plenty of naughty bits to go along with the more serious bits, and these are well-executed. Definitely a recommended read.

These four Jerry Cornelius books are some of Moorcock's best work. Carrying on the Eternal Champion, in this series he moves away from heroic fantasy and towards satire, and science-fiction. Unfortunately, it is hard to find. If ANYONE has a copy for sale, email me!

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.

Matthew Baugh's review of this excellent anthology (see above) is helpful, succinct, and accurate in every particular. However, he is apparently too modest to mention the story that he wrote for the volume, "The Heart of the Moon." Baugh's story, the first one in the book, is an absolutely brilliant tour de force which, if you're not already a fan of this series, is guaranteed to make you into one. I refuse to give away any spoilers, but I will say that if you are a fan of Robert E. Howard, Doctor Who, Hammer Horror, or just plain good writing, you owe it to yourself to read Baugh's story, and the rest of them in the book as well.

This series is getting better and better. It thrives on the funny, adventurous, or uncanny parings of pop culture characters and the crossovers are getting more entertaining as they get more audacious! It is interesting to see how many of the stories are now showing the shadowy influence of the Black Coats, (a vast criminal conspiracy from the stories of Paul Feval.) There are also several nods to Madame Atomos, a Japanese master villainess. Unlike many super-criminals, she isn't interested in ruling the world. Her greatest goal is to punish the United States for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"Long Live Fantomas" by Alfredo Castelli patches a loose thread in the stories of the great villain. I don't know enough about Fantomas to fully appreciate this take on his origin, but the story is a doozy. The sheer evil of the "original" and (even more) the new Fantomas are very well handled. The shadowy presence of the Black Coats is a nice addition. There is also a new twist added to the story of history's first recorded serial killer.

"Next!" by Bill Cunningham lets Barbarella turn the tables on some of the most infamous lady's men in SF. I once read a humorous list of Star Trek words which included this entry: "Kirk - v. 1) to bend to the point of breaking the Prime Directive, as 'We really Kirked that planet.' 2) To bed multifarious members of the opposite sex from as many humanoid species as possible." (It was fun to some of the great Kirkers out-kirked for once.)

"Au Vent Mauvais" by Francois Dardaudet is a fun riff on third generation wannabe master villains. The story manages to be both funny and chilling as it gives us an idea of just how poisonous Madame Atomos' obsessive hatred for the United States is.

"Return to the 20th Century" by Paul Filippo combines the science fiction of two eras into a funny, fast moving adventure. It's amazing how good a story making creative use of the silly science of bygone generations can be!

"Les Levres Rouges" by Win Scott Eckert is his sequel to "The Eye of Oran" from volume 2. This story gives Doc Ardan a greater role as it drifts into the erotic horror of Hammer studios. It's "Doc-Savage-meets-the-lesbian-vampire-mistress-of-the-undead-elder-servitors-from-the-bottom-of-the-sea." Win manages to make a bewildering array of diverse elements come together to good effect.

"Beware the Beasts" by Greg Gick is a nifty short encounter between Doctor Omega and the inhabitants of what is probably the most famous planet in French SF. Short and funny!

"The Ape Gigans" by Micah Harris is my personal favorite from this volume. It uses an amazingly creative combination of characters. A willful heroine/villainess of a period romance meets the King of Skull Island and the prehistoric horrors from the canter of the earth! Not only does this make me (really) want to read THE ELDRICH ADVENTURES OF BECKY SHARP (Micah's upcoming novel), it even makes me want to read VANITY FAIR.

"A Dance of Night and Death" by Travis Hiltz combines the classic films of Louis Feuillade, "Las Vampires" and "Fantomas." We know a lot about the sorts of things that Irma Vep does, but this is the first glimpe I can remember of her inner workings as she has an intense encounter with the dread Fantomas.

"The Lady in the Black Gloves" by Rick Lai continues his exploration of characters form the Arsene Lupin stories. Like Rick's other stories, this tale of false identities in intricately plotted with subtle references galore. Even to someone unfamiliar with the characters he is using, this is a good creepy mystery as we look as the sordid and sadistic side of the European underworld. (It isn't all glamorous plots to control civilization you know.)

"The Murder of Randolph Carter" by Jean Marc Lofficier is a hilarious take on the country house murder mystery with Hercule Poirot in far past his depth. (That's what happens when you deal with Deep Ones I suppose.) What happens when a rational sleuth tries to solve a mystery in the bizarre milieu of H.P. Lovecraft? His little grey sells just aren't up to grasping it.

"A Day in the Life of Madame Atomos" by Xavier Maumejean is a brilliant comic piece about the villainess which pays homage to the silly spy romps of the early 1970's. The story works well throughout and the last paragraph is priceless!

"Bullets Over Bombay" by David A. McIntee is a Bollywood style adventure of the French occult detective Dr. Mystere. I have to confess, I found the conbination of musical numbers and a slaughtered village unsettling. I'm squeamins about high body counts among innocent bystandrs and that impaired my appreciation for the story. On the other hand, the glimpse of Dr. Mystere is very interesting.

"All's Fair..." by Brad Mengle asks what happens when all of the spies and mystery men in aris are interested in the same woman on the same night... A fun and humerous debut for Brad. Nice job!

"The Affair of the Bassin Les Hivers" by Michael Moorcock(!) I'd heard that Mr. Moorcock was a fan of the TOTS series and it's a blast to see him contribute a story. Not surprisingly, this mystery featured the sinister M. Zeneth the Albino. Zeineth was the inspiration for Moorcock's own Elric of Melnibone and we see shades of the doomed prince in this incarnation.

"The Successful Failure" by John Peel is a clever caper mystery with the unlikely but very likable pairing of Beautrelet and Bigglesworth on the case. A very enjoyable adventure.

"The Butterfly Files" by Joseph Altairac & Jean-Luc Rivera is a nicely paranoid short piect that gives us a fascinating (and disturbing) look at Madame Atomos before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. War warps people's souls, but some are pretty twisted to start with.

"The Famous Ape" by Chris Roberson is the most unexpected crossover I have ever seen in the TOTS series. - I remember the Babar stories vaguely but fondly (my one big quibble was that they were written in cursive.) As an adult I've heard them criticized as being pro colonialism, and that may be Chris' starting point. The result can be disturbing as we see political realities played out in the traditionally unrealistic and non-political world of children's stories. Ultimately though I really liked this. Chris isn't doing this to disturb and offend the way some revisionist authors seem to. He is provoking thought and feeling but does it in a way that is compassionate and, in the end, touching.

"Two Hunters" by Robert L. Robinson features the pairing of Judex with one of the most famous hunters in literature. Judex is probably my favorite Shadowmen character and this story does well by him. The meeting of our two heroes is perfectly logical and fits well into both of their histories. It's also a ripping good adventure.

"The Child Stealers" I was ready for something really good after part of this story in last year's volume. This was (IMO) every bit as involving as the first chapter and more exciting. It was great getting to see so much of Gregory Temple and John Devil in this one, and the minor characters included are brilliant and subtle. I am also amazed at how smoothly Stableford has moved from the voice of Ned Knob to that of Gregory Temple. The two characters are extremely different but he handles each with equal insight and sympathy.

So, another good year for the Shadowmen and their fans! I'm eagerly looking forward to Vol 4!

This is the most significant bibliography of the works of Michael Moorcock, covering his output through 1979. Throughout a series of incredibly intertwined novels, stories, articles, etc., he has carried the concept of parallel universes to its most elaborate form to date, as the Eternal Champion appears under different names, in different planes and realities, but always with the same fate. As well as listing his books, it also lists Moorcock's work in comic books and strips, editorials, films, letters, manuscripts, music, posters, portfolios, artbooks, reviews, and war games. There are also sections on the fiction and non-fiction which he influenced.

Michael Moorcock is one of the most promiscuous writers in 20th century literature, as even a cursory examination of this bulging bibliography shows - and he has put another 20 years of output under his belt since its publication. Science fiction was not considered to be the cream of the literary crop when he started his work, but he began to erect a towering literary edifice despite that. He initially found the writing life to be very, very hard, as his first two books completely stiffed. This was a terrible blow, but things started coming to a head in the early 1950's when he authored two seminal novels. After that the books just kept coming and coming. This excellent bibliography chronicles each of these creative climaxes, while sucking the reader in with an explosive flow of biographical notes, including some intriguing asides about the author's relationship with his brothers Harold and Richard. His fascination with the works of Melville is also chronicled extensively. Exhaustive as it is, a bibliography by definition can only prick the surface of its subject, and the reader is encouraged plunge into the primary sources on his own. Those heeding this call will have a ball.

The prodigious output chronicled in this bibliography can best be understood in the context of American society under Eisenhower. Back then, one dated little unless there was some promise of marriage in the end, and young ladies invariably took on the names of their gentlemen when they wed. These two cruel facts no doubt left Moorcock with a great deal of time on his hands when the other young bucks were courting the local damsels. He and society have since grown up however, so one expects that he no longer has to tolerate oafish wits making infantile cracks about his surname.

This book, along with Gloriana, is Moorcock's best work. Very different plot from his typical Elric, Corum, etc. Set during one of the interminable wars in the middle of the last millenium, the tale revolves around a German officer on an unusual quest. Very interesting take on the role of Lucifer in our world.

Very enjoyable!

As much as I enjoyed the subsequent two novels of the Von Bek trilogy (_City in the Autumn Stars_ and The Dream Thief's Daughter_) this first volume is still my favorite. It could easily have stood on it's own as a classic.
The basic premise is that Lucifer is not an all-knowing, all-powerful arch fiend, but merely a frustrated, desperate exile. God exiled Lucifer to earth with no instructions and no further communication. In his own words, Lucifer tells how everything that he did since then was his own idea, done on his own initiative. First, he tried to prove that he could build a world that was greater than the Creator's (he reveals that most of the world's rulers and churchmen are really "his".) However, by the 17th century, Europe is clearly dieing in unending warfare and plague INSPITE of his efforts to make a better world. Lucifer admits that his efforts have been a colossal failure and that he has no idea why. Moreover, he just wants to reconcile with God and go back home to his old position in heaven.

In desperation Lucifer sends an agent to find the Holy Grail. Grasping at straws, he believes that the legendary Grail will grant immediate union with God, and as a result the Last Judgement and an end to the World's Pain. Unfortunately, the Devil has no pure knights to search for this Grail- the closest thing he can find is Capt. Ulrich Von Bek. Von Bek is far from innocent, since as a mercenary soldier he has wilfully commited murder, torture, rape, and robbery as "part of the soldier's craft." Von Bek does have a conscience, though- he just gambled that there was no God or Devil to answer to for his crimes.

Von Bek goes forth on this hopeless quest- quite convinced that Lucifer, and quite possibly God, are both out of their minds....

The Bane of the Black Sword is also a collection.

The Stealer of Souls
Kings in Darkness
The Flamebringers (also called The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams)
To Rescue Tanelorn

The first three are adventures with Elric and Moonglum, and the latter is actually a story of Rackhir the Red Archer, one of the worthy individuals the Eternal Champion meets from time to time.

This book was published in 1989 and reprints much of Moorcock's work from the previous two or three years, much of it journalism.
What's really remarkable is that in 1987 Moorcock was warning about our relationship with the Arab world, our failures to recognise and understand its culture and manners. This book isn't that hard to get in the UK second hand. I don't think the essays (there is also a lot of material on Moorcock's strongly
held feminist views) have ever been reprinted anywhere else.
Moorcock's recent Cornelius stories have shown how finely tuned he is to world events -- some of them have an uncanny prescience.
This is where the Reminiscences of the Third World War first appeared, too, along with The Great Rock and Roll Swindle which Moorcock wrote in collaboration with the Sex Pistols. This is a writer who has made it his business to go to the places and events which are amongst the most crucial to this century -- whether it be his immersion in the world of sex, drugs and rock and roll, or his respectful fascination with the world of Islam.
If you want to know the concerns of the next ten years, don't read the 'futurists', read Moorcock, who has always insisted he is merely recording his own experience. This is a key Moorcock title but the short stories were swiftly collected elsewhere and it's a great shame we can't get the essays any more. Someone should publish a book of Moorcock's political and literary essays, including his profiles of Andrea Dworkin, Harlan Ellison, Maeve Peake and Angus Wilson which appear here, too. I'd like to see a copy of The Retreat from Liberty, his long political essay which predicted the fall of Thatcher and the decay of the Tory
Party in the UK. He also predicted how the USA would become increasingly dysfunctional as less and less real information got through to the US public through their common media. In a less self-centered age, Moorcock would be hailed as the modern H.G.Wells. Get this book and find out why!

This volume is not strictly a sequel to _The Warhound and the World's Pain_, since it takes place 150 years later. The hero is not Ulrich von Bek but his descendent, Manfred. The world, and the von Beks, have changed much in this interval- or have they? Instead of holy war tearing Europe apart, it is now the Terror and the spirit of Regicide that threatens to destroy it. Indeed, Manfred von Bek is a man of this new world. He has rejected Magic and the Mysteries (though he was once initiated into the Illuminati.) His Gods are now Revolution, The Rights of Man, and Science. Or rather they were, until his dreams of an enlightened utopia died in the blood filled gutters of revolutionary Paris. Now, he is now simply a wandering cynic out to secure his own fortune by any means necessary.

At least he was all this before a chance encounter with the Dutchess of Crete. This fascinating creature becomes an obsession with him. Indeed, he begins to doubt his own sanity in his relentless search for her. While he, himself, represents democracy, reason, and cynicism, the elusive countess is the symbol of royalty, magic, and idealism. Indeed she seems to be the mirror of everything he is not, or has renounced. It is almost like this mysterious, androgenous creature is his own female soul- his anima....

In his heated pursuit across Europe, the Ritter von Bek finds himself drawn to Mirenberg, which is paradoxically both the most magical and the most enlightened city in all of Europe. It is also the meeting place for the greatest gathering of alchemists that the world has ever seen. It is here that von Bek tries to cool his obsession for the countess, while filling his own pockets. It almost works, until one night he is abducted and taken to the catacombs deep beneath the city. It is here that he learns that the old tales concerning the Grail, and the Devil, are not foolishness after all. Moreover, he is about to find that the doors to the Mittlemarch are once again open to one of his ancient blood....

An omnibus edition from Millenium the Tale of the Eternal Champion 4, with an introduction.

Moorcock notes that this is one of the only times he used a historical type of setting for a series, because he was stuck with a not so good Cornish-English dictionary, partly.

Corum Jhaelen Irsei, the Prince in the Scarlet Robe, is one of the last of the Vhadhagh, a race that is a precursor to the Mabden, or man.

The Lords of Chaos are not too pleased with Corum, as he is siding with the men, which could do bad things to their power base. You would not expect any less from The Eternal Champion, though.

4 out of 5

Corum has gained himself a new moniker in this book, The Prince of the Silver Hand, thanks to a bit of an accident with one of his arms that required some mystical aid to restore an arm to usefulness.

He is moving up the ladder, and has to take on the Queen this time, to try and protect his own plane. The ever faithful Companion to Champions is with him, pet included.

3.5 out of 5

Another important installment of the Eternal Champion series, and the third book in the first Corum trilogy.

Corum Jhaelen Irsei, ever resourceful, has taken out the Queen of the Swords, and now has to face the most powerful of this suit, the King.

An omnibus that includes the Swords trilogy, with an introduction.

He is most definitely not without help and resources, as here, he joins to become the ultra-hero Three-Who-Are-One, with both Elric and Erekose.

5 out of 5