Background of Study
Introduction:
Michael Moorcock, 1939 – Writer Michael Moorcock was born December 18, 1939 in Mitcham, Surrey, England. Moorcock was the editor of the juvenile magazine Tarzan Adventures from 1956-58, an editor and writer for the Sexton Blake Library and for comic strips and children’s annuals from 1959-61, an editor and pamphleteer for Liberal Party in 1962, and became editor and publisher for the science fiction magazine New Worlds in 1964. He has worked as a singer-guitarist, has worked with the rock bands Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult and is a member of the rock band Michael Moorcock and the Deep Fix. Moorcock’s writing covers a wide range of science fiction and fantasy genres. “The Chronicles of Castle Brass” was a sword and sorcery novel, and “Breakfast in the Ruins: A Novel of Inhumanity” uses the character Karl Glogauer as a different person in different times. Karl participates in the political violence of the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, and a Nazi concentration camp. Moorcock also wrote books and stories that featured the character Jerry Cornelius, who had no consistent character or appearance. “The Condition of Muzak” completed the initial Jerry Cornelius tetralogy and won Guardian Literary Prize in 1977. “Byzantium Endures” and “The Laughter of Carthage” are two autobiographical novels of the Russian emigre Colonel Pyat and were the closest Moorcock came to conventional literary fiction. “Byzantium Endures” focuses on the first twenty years of Pyat’s life and tells of his role in the Russian revolution. Pyat survives the revolution and the subsequent civil war by working first for one side and then another. “The Laughter of Carthage” covers Pyat’s life from 1920-1924 telling of his escape from Communist Russia and his travels in Europe and America. It’s a sweeping picture of the world during the 1920’s because it takes the character from living in Constantinople to Hollywood. Moorcock returned to the New Wave style in “Blood: A Southern Fantasy” (1994) and combined mainstream fiction with fantasy in “The Brothel of Rosenstrasse,” which is set in the imaginary city of Mirenburg. MoorCock won the 1967 Nebula Award for Behold the Man and the 1979 World Fantasy Award for his novel, Gloriana. (Bowker Author Biography)
Literature Review
Created by Michael Moorcock in 1961 with the story “The Dreaming City”, Elric of Melniboné is one of the definitive characters in British fantasy fiction. A albino sorcerer and warrior with milk-white skin and hair, Elric is a magnetic antihero – cursed with a black sword which feeds on souls and bound to serve the capricious chaos deity, Arioch. In writing the Elric stories, Moorcock consciously worked to avoid repeating the high fantasy style of Tolkien – and in so doing inspired numerous subsequent imitators of his own.
While Elric is well-known to fans of fantasy, the character might even be a household name if the series were more approachable to read. Until relatively recently, the eight main novels in the sequence could be difficult to get hold of, and while the reissues by the publisher Gollancz are very welcome, they also leave something to be desired.
The Michael Moorcock Collection is a mammoth undertaking, as it comprises no less than 28 volumes, most of them containing multiple novels. Gollancz and the mastermind of the project, John Davey, deserve a great deal of credit for making Moorcock’s work more available. Unfortunately, in the case of the Elric books very little indication is given as to reading order, or the circumstances in which the stories were originally published. Stories are inserted into odd places, and a lot of frankly extraneous material is inserted – presumably to bulk up the thinner volumes.
Because the Elric stories were written out of sequence over a period of decades, and have been republished several times, there was already a high potential for confusion. Split into two parts, this introductory guide to the books lists and introduces them in order of their internal chronology. First, though, an introduction to the Pale Emperor himself.
Elric is a tortured antihero, the reluctant Emperor of the decadent and depleted empire of Melniboné. As a Melnibonéan, Elric is part of a long lineage of sorcerers and his people drew on a pact with the Lords of Chaos to build and maintain their empire. The forces of Chaos and Law, and the Balance between them, are the essential framework behind most of Moorcock’s sprawling fictional universe. Elric eventually learns that he is his universe’s incarnation of the “Eternal Champion”, with the cosmic purpose of keeping the energies of Chaos and Law in balance.
As the saga progresses, Elric learns more of his role as an Eternal Champion and the universes that exist alongside his own – he even meets a few of his counterparts, the Eternal Champions from other universes. Along the way he meets numerous allies and sworn enemies, and his evil sword Stormbringer is rarely without souls to feed upon for very long. While the White Wolf – as he is sometimes known – has goals of his own, he is inexorably drawn towards his ultimate destiny in the struggle between Chaos and Law.
Book 1: Elric of Melniboné (1972)
Things begin straightforwardly enough with Elric of Melniboné, the story set earliest in the timeline. Moorcock had already written numerous Elric stories by the time he published this book in 1972. Years earlier, he had written the end of the saga in the form of Stormbringer (1965), and so he eventually came around to writing its true beginning.
Written as a novel, as opposed to being made up of separate stories, the book serves as a prequel and a kind of origin story for Elric. When the book opens, our antihero is serving as Elric VIII, the 428th Emperor of Melniboné. His nation is decadent and decaying – while it once ruled the whole of the world, it is now reduced to controlling only the Dragon Isle itself. It does however exert some influence on the now-independent realms outside, known as the Young Kingdoms.
The book concerns the struggle for Elric to retain the Ruby Throne and his lover Cymoril – his rival in both is his own cousin, and Cymoril’s brother, Yyrkoon. These characters had a minor role in later books but are more developed here. Also introduced are Melniboné’s golden fleet, its army of dragons, Elric’s pact with the chaos lord Arioch, and his fateful encounter with the soul-eating black sword Stormbringer. All of these will be critical in the stories to follow.
Typical of Moorcock’s style of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Elric of Melniboné is a fast-paced, rollicking adventure. The chapters are short and action-packed, with major events occurring every few pages. This makes it an excellent, accessible introduction to the series.
Elric of Melnibone
The saga kicks off with Elric of Melnibone, introducing readers to a troubled ruler. Elric is physically weak, relying on drugs to maintain his existence. His cousin Yrkoon, a cunning rival, seeks the throne with malicious intentions. The conflict between Elric and Yrkoon unfolds as they wield powerful swords, Stormbringer and Mournblade. Elric embarks on a dimension-spanning quest to reclaim his throne while grappling with his moral compass. The political machinations, along with the complexities of his relationships, set the stage for tension and conflict. His attempts to navigate power dynamics reveal a sense of fatalism rooted in the chaos of his lineage. Ultimately, this book establishes Elric’s tragic character: a ruler caught between his desires and the responsibilities of leadership.
Actually, most of the novel (and indeed the series) walks that knife’s edge between “dramatic” and “over-the-top”. Even in its less assured moments, Moorcock’s prose tends toward the richly bombastic. This isn’t exactly a bad thing, per se (particularly as Moorcock is a good enough author that he rarely lets it get too ridiculously out of hand), but it does make for an interesting and by modern standards rather abnormal reading experience. The language used is gorgeously lush and resonant, and the imagery is made to match. This is a story that is in every way an epic, larger than life and rather proud of the fact. It can look a touch overwrought. That said, Moorcock generally has the eloquence to back up the bluster, and once I’d acclimated to the prose I found myself actually savoring the style. I realize some of what I’ve said may have readers marking this down as a ridiculously windy book full of thees and wherefores, but I actually encourage you to see the prose as an overall mark in the novel’s favor. You will not read much fantasy that sounds like this, and by the time the end of the series comes, you may be quite glad that Moorcock chose an epic style to match his events.
Literature Sample Collection
IV
The outlines of the coast were dim. They waded through white water and white mist, their swords held above their heads. Swords were their only weapons. Each of the Four possessed a blade of unusual size and design, but none bore a sword which occasionally murmured to itself as did Elric’s Stormbringer. Glancing back, Elric saw the captain standing at the rail, his blind face turned toward the island, his pale lips moving as if he spoke to himself. Now the water was waist-deep and the sand beneath Elric’s feet hardened and became smooth rock. He waded on, wary and ready to carry any attack to those who might be defending the island. But now the mist grew thinner, as if it could gain no hold on the land, and there were no obvious signs of defenders.
Tucked into his belt, each man had a brand, it’s end wrapped in oiled cloth so that it should not be wet when the time came to light it. Similarly, each was equipped with a handful of smoldering tinder in a little firebox in a pouch attached to his belt, so that the brands could be instantly ignited.
“Only fire will destroy this enemy forever,” the captain had said again as he handed them their brands and their tinderboxes.
As the mist cleared, it revealed a landscape of dense shadows. The shadows spread over red rock and yellow vegetation and they were shadows of all shapes and dimensions, resembling all manner of things. They seemed cast by the huge blood-colored sun which stood at perpetual noon above the island, but what was disturbing about them was that the shadows themselves seemed without a source, as if the objects they represented were invisible or existed elsewhere than on the island itself. The sky, too, seemed full
of these shadows, but whereas those on the island were still, those in the sky sometimes moved, perhaps when the clouds moved. And all the while the red sun poured down its bloody light and touched the twenty men with its unwelcome radiance just as it touched the land.
And at times, as they advanced cautiously inland, a peculiar flickering light sometimes crossed the island so that the outlines of the place became unsteady for a few seconds before returning to focus. Elric suspected his eyes and said nothing until Hown Serpent-tamer (who was having difficulty finding his land-legs) remarked:
“I have rarely been ashore, it’s true, but I think the quality of this land is stranger than any other I’ve known. It shimmers. It distorts.”
Several voices agreed with him.
“And from whence come all these shadows?” Ashnar the Lynx stared around him in unashamed superstitious awe. “Why cannot we see that which casts them?”
“It could be,” Corum said, “that these are shadows cast by objects existing in other dimensions of the Earth. If all dimensions meet here, as has been suggested, that could be a likely explanation.” He put his silver hand to his embroidered eye-patch. “This is not the strangest example I have witnessed of such a conjunction.”
“Likely?” Otto Blendker snorted. “Pray let none give me an unlikely explanation, if you please!”
They pressed on through the shadows and the lurid light until they arrived at the outskirts of the ruins.
These ruins, thought Elric, had something in common with the ramshackle city of Ameeron, which he had visited on his quest for the Black Sword. But they were altogether more vast-more a collection of smaller cities, each one in a radically different architectural style.
“Perhaps this is Tanelorn,” said Corum, who had visited the place, “or, rather, all the versions of Tanelorn there have ever been. For Tanelorn exists in many forms, each form depending upon the wishes of those who most desire to find her.”
“This is not the Tanelorn I expected to find,” said Hawkmoon bitterly.
“Nor I,” added Erekosë bleakly.
“Perhaps it is not Tanelorn,” said Elric. “Perhaps it is not.”
“Or perhaps this is a graveyard,” said Corum distantly, frowning with his single eye. “A graveyard containing all the forgotten versions of that strange city.”
They began to clamber over the ruins, their arms clattering as they moved, heading for the center of the place. Elric could tell by the introspective expressions in the faces of many of his companions that they, like him, were wondering if this were not a dream. Why else should they find themselves in this peculiar situation, unquestioningly risking their lives-perhaps their souls-in a fight with which none of them was identified?
Erekosë moved closer to Elric as they marched. “Have you noticed,” said he, “that the shadows now represent something?”
Elric nodded. “You can tell from the ruins what some of the buildings looked like when they were whole. The shadows are the shadows of those buildings-the original buildings before they became ruined.”
“Just so,” said Erekosë. Together, they shuddered.
At last they approached the likely center of the place and here was a building which was not ruined. It stood in a cleared space, all curves and ribbons of metal and glowing tubes.
“It resembles a machine more than a building,” said Hawkmoon.
“And a musical instrument more than a machine,” Corum mused.
The party came to a halt, each group of four gathering about its leader. There was no question but that they had arrived at their goal.
Now that Elric looked carefully at the building he could see that it was in fact two buildings-both absolutely identical and joined at various points by curling systems of pipes which might be connecting corridors, though it was difficult to imagine what manner of being could utilize them.
“Two buildings,” said Erekosë. “We were not prepared for this. Shall we split up and attack both?”
Instinctively Elric felt that this action would be unwise. He shook his head. “I think we should go together into one, else our strength will be weakened.”
“I agree,” said Hawkmoon, and the rest nodded.
Thus, there being no cover to speak of, they marched boldly toward the nearest building to a point near the ground where a black opening of irregular proportions could be discerned. Ominously, there was still no sign of defenders.
The buildings pulsed and glowed and occasionally whispered, but that was all.
Elric and his party were the first to enter, finding themselves in a damp, warm passage which curved almost immediately to the right. They were followed by the others until all stood in this passage warily glaring ahead, expecting to be attacked. But no attack came.
With Elric at their head, they moved on for some moments before the passage began to tremble violently and sent Mown Serpent-tamer crashing to the floor cursing. As the man in the sea-green armor scrambled up, a voice began to echo along the passage, seemingly coming from a great distance yet nonetheless loud and irritable.
“Who? Who? Who?” shrieked the voice. “Who? Who? Who invades me?”
The passage’s tremble subsided a little into a constant quivering motion. The voice became a muttering, detached and uncertain.
“What attacks? What?”
The twenty men glanced at one another in puzzlement. At length Elric shrugged and led the party on and soon the passage had widened out into a hall whose walls, roof, and floor were damp with sticky fluid and whose air was hard to breathe. And now, somehow passing themselves through the walls of this hall, came the first of the defenders, ugly beasts
who must be the servants of that mysterious brother and sister Agak and Gagak.
“Attack!” cried the distant voice. “Destroy this. Destroy it!”
The beasts were of a primitive sort, mostly gaping mouth and slithering body, but there were many of them oozing toward the twenty men, who quickly formed themselves into the four fighting units and prepared to defend themselves.
The creatures made a dreadful slushing sound as they approached and the ridges of bone which served them as teeth clashed as they reared up to snap at Elric and his companions. Elric whirled his sword and it met hardly any resistance as it sliced through several of the things at once. But now the air was thicker than ever and a stench threatened to overwhelm them as fluid drenched the floor.
“Move on through them,” Elric instructed, “hacking a path through as you go. Head for yonder opening.” He pointed with his left hand.
And so they advanced, cutting back hundreds of the primitive beasts and thus decreasing the breathability of the air.
“The creatures are not hard to fight,” gasped Hown Serpent- tamer, “but each one we kill robs us a little of our own chances of life.”
Elric was aware of the irony. “Cunningly planned by our enemies, no doubt.” He coughed and slashed again at a dozen of the beasts slithering toward him. The things were fearless, but they were stupid, too. They made no attempt at strategy.
Finally Elric reached the next passage, where the air was slightly purer. He sucked gratefully at the sweeter
atmosphere and waved his companions on.
Sword-arms rising and falling, they gradually retreated back into the passage, followed by only a few of the beasts. The creatures seemed reluctant to enter the passage and Elric suspected that somewhere within it there must lie a danger which even they feared. There was nothing for it, however, but to press on and he was only grateful that all twenty had survived this initial ordeal.
Gasping, they rested for a moment, leaning against the trembling walls of the passage, listening to the tones of that distant voice, now muffled and indistinct.
“I like not this castle at all,” growled Brut of Lashmar, inspecting a rent in his cloak where a creature had seized it. “High sorcery commands it.”
“It is only what we knew,” Ashnar the Lynx reminded him, and Ashnar was plainly hard put to control his terror. The fingerbones in his braids kept time with the trembling of the walls and the huge barbarian looked almost pathetic as he steeled himself to go on.
“They are cowards, these sorcerers,” Otto Blendker said. “They do not show themselves.” He raised his voice. “Is their aspect so loathsome that they are afraid lest we look upon them?” It was a challenge not taken up. As they pushed on through the passages there was no sign either of Agak or his sister Gagak. It became gloomier and brighter in turns.
Sometimes the passages narrowed so that it was difficult to squeeze their bodies through, sometimes they widened into what were almost halls. Most of the time they appeared to be climbing higher into the building.
Elric tried to guess the nature of the building’s inhabitants. There were no steps in the castle, no artifacts he could
recognize. For no particular reason he developed an image of Agak and Gagak as reptilian in form, for reptiles would prefer gently rising passages to steps and doubtless would have little need of conventional furniture. There again it was possible that they could change their shape at will, assuming human form when it suited them. He was becoming impatient to face either one or both of the sorcerers.
Ashnar the Lynx had other reasons-or so he said- for his own lack of patience.
“They said there’d be treasure here,” he muttered. “I thought to stake my life against a fair reward, but there’s naught here of value.” He put a horny hand against the damp material of the wall. “Not even stone or brick. What are these walls made of, Elric?”
Elric shook his head. “That has puzzled me, also, Ashnar.”
Then Elric saw large, fierce eyes peering out of the gloom ahead. He heard a rattling noise, a rushing noise, and the eyes grew larger and larger. He saw a red mouth, yellow fangs, orange fur. Then the growling sounded and the beast sprang at him even as he raised Stormbringer to defend himself and shouted a warning to the others. The creature was a baboon, but huge, and there were at least a dozen others following the first. Elric drove his body forward behind his sword, taking the beast in its groin. Claws reached out and dug into his shoulders and waist. He groaned as he felt at least one set of claws draw blood. His arms were trapped and he could not pull Stormbringer free. All he could do was twist the sword in the wound he had already made. With all his might, he turned the hilt. The great ape shouted, its bloodshot eyes blazing, and it bared its yellow fangs as its muzzle shot toward Elric’s throat. The
teeth closed on his neck, the stinking breath threatened to choke him. Again he twisted the blade. Again the beast yelled in pain.
The fangs were pressing into the metal of Elric’s gorget, the only thing saving him from immediate death. He struggled to free at least one arm, twisting the sword for the third time, then tugging it sideways to widen the wound in the groin.
The growls and groans of the baboon grew more intense and the teeth tightened their hold on his neck, but now, mingled with the noises of the ape, he began to hear a murmuring and he felt Stormbringer pulse in his hand. He knew that the sword was drawing power from the ape even as the ape sought to destroy him. Some of that power began to flow into his body.
Desperately Elric put all his remaining strength into dragging the sword across the ape’s body, slitting its belly wide so that its blood and entrails spilled over him as he was suddenly free and staggering backward, wrenching the sword out in the same movement. The ape, too, was staggering back, staring down in stupefied awe at its own horrible wound before it fell to the floor of the passage.
Elric turned, ready to give aid to his nearest comrade, and he was in time to see Terndrik of Hasghan die, kicking in the clutches of an even larger ape, his head bitten clean from his shoulders and his red blood gouting.
Elric drove Stormbringer cleanly between the shoulders of Terndrik’s slayer, taking the ape in the heart. Beast and human victim fell together. Two others were dead and several bore bad wounds, but the remaining warriors fought on, swords and armor smeared with crimson. The narrow passage stank of ape, of sweat, and of blood. Elric pressed into the fight, chopping at the skull of an ape which
grappled with Hown Serpent-tamer, who had lost his sword. Hown darted a look of thanks at Elric as he bent to retrieve his blade and together they set upon the largest of all the baboons. This creature stood much taller than Elric and had Erekosë pressed against the wall, Erekosë’s sword through its shoulder.
From two sides, Hown and Elric stabbed and the baboon snarled and screamed, turning to face the new attackers, Erekosë’s blade quivering in its shoulder. It rushed upon them and they stabbed again together, taking the monster in its heart and its lung so that when it roared at them blood vomited from its mouth. It fell to its knees, its eyes dimming, then sank slowly down.
And now there was silence in the passage and death lay all about them.
Terndrik of Hasghan was dead. Two of Corum’s party were dead. All of Erekosë’s surviving men bore major wounds. One of Hawkmoon’s men was dead, but the remaining three were virtually unscathed. Brut of Lashmar’s helm was dented, but he was otherwise unwounded and Ashnar the Lynx was disheveled, nothing more. Ashnar had taken two of the baboons during the fight. But now the barbarian’s eyes rolled as he leaned, panting, against the wall.
“I begin to suspect this venture of being uneconomical,” he said with a half-grin. He rallied himself, stepping over a baboon’s corpse to join Elric. “The less time we take over it, the better. What think you, Elric?”
“I would agree.” Elric returned his grin. “Come.” And he led the way through the passage and into a chamber whose walls gave off a pinkish light. He had not walked far before he felt something catch at his ankle and he stared down in
horror to see a long, thin snake winding itself about his leg. It was too late to use his sword; instead he seized the reptile behind its head and dragged it partially free of his leg before hacking the head from the body. The others were now stamping and shouting warnings to each other. The snakes did not appear to be venomous, but there were thousands of them, appearing, it seemed, from out of the floor itself. They were flesh-colored and had no eyes, more closely resembling earthworms than ordinary reptiles, but they were strong enough.
Hown Serpent-tamer sang a strange song now, with many liquid, hissing notes, and this seemed to have a calming effect upon the creatures. One by one at first and then in increasing numbers, they dropped back to the floor, apparently sleeping. Mown grinned at his success.
Elric said, “Now I understand how you came by your surname.”
“I was not sure the song would work on these,” Hown told him, “for they are unlike any serpents I have ever seen in the seas of my own world.”
They waded on through mounds of sleeping serpents, noticing that the next passage rose sharply. At times they were forced to use their hands to steady themselves as they climbed the peculiar, slippery material of the floor.
It was much hotter in this passage and they were all sweating, pausing several times to rest and mop their brows. The passage seemed to extend upward forever, turning occasionally, but never leveling out for more than a few feet. At times it narrowed to little more than a tube through which they had to squirm on their stomachs and at other times the roof disappeared into the gloom over their heads. Elric had
long since given up trying to relate their position to what he had seen of the outside of the castle. From time to time small, shapeless creatures rushed toward them in shoals apparently with the intention of attacking them, but these were rarely more than an irritation and were soon all but ignored by the party as it continued its climb.
For a while they had not heard the strange voice which had greeted them upon their entering, but now it began to whisper again, its tones more urgent than before.
“Where? Where? Oh, the pain!”
They paused, trying to locate the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Grim-faced, they continued, plagued by thousands of little creatures which bit at their exposed flesh like so many gnats, yet the creatures were not insects. Elric had seen nothing like them before. They were shapeless, primitive, and all but colorless. They battered at his face as he moved; they were like a wind. Half-blinded, choked, sweating, he felt his strength leaving him. The air was so thick now, so hot, so salty, it was as if he moved through liquid. The others were as badly affected as was he; some were staggering and two men fell, to be helped up again by comrades almost as exhausted. Elric was tempted to strip off his armor, but he knew this would leave more of his flesh to the mercy of the little flying creatures.
Still they climbed and now more of the serpentine things they had seen earlier began to writhe around their feet, hampering them further, for all that Mown sang his sleeping song until he was hoarse.
“We can survive this only a little longer,” said Ashnar the Lynx, moving close to Elric. “We shall be in no condition to
meet the sorcerer if we ever find him or his sister.”
Elric nodded a gloomy head. “My thoughts, too, yet what else may we do, Ashnar?”
“Nothing,” said Ashnar in a low voice. “Nothing.”
“Where? Where? Where?” The word rustled all about them. Many of the party were becoming openly nervous.
