Mage said:
I am reading it write now in 'chronological' order and am loving it. Just wanted to know how the RPG would be different, and is good so far.
The absolute best thing about the early Elric books is that you could read one in a day if you went at it hard.
Mage said:
I've started on 'Elric of Melnibone', and the book also contains 'The Fortress of the Pearl', 'The Sailor on the Seas of Fate', 'The Dreaming City', 'While the Gods Laugh' and 'The Singing Citadel'.
Pretty good choices. Elric at the End of Time is absolutely hilarious, not the normal Elric story, though.
Of all the Elric stories, the section that really stood out as a teenager reading it was one scene where Elric was in a torture chamber asking questions of the torturer who was casually talking and going about his business, when he took a knife, twisted it between a man's legs and threw a lump of flesh into the fire, as the tortured person groaned. I thought it was so understated and such a casual, matter-of-fact description that it really struck a nerve.
That's what the Elric books are about. Casual cruelty, a decaying empire, a mad sword and a man who destroys everything he loves. Despite that and despite the fact that they know he will kill them, he is surrounded by companions who help him even though they know they are doomed by him. Dark fantasy at its very best.
Mage said:
I like it so far, but hope to God that the movie is not cack.
Which brings me to my last question:
Why in all things holy have I only heard of Elric in the last year and never seen it in a bookshop until just a few months ago? Why is there some crap fantasy out there that is critically accalimed but really unoriginal Politically Correct Excrement, and getting more attention than Moorcock?
I started reading it in the seventies, when I was a teenager. Back in those days, you could buy a paperback for 50p or something, so I could get a book every week with my pocket money. They had pretty much two shelves back then devoted to the various Moorcock books, Elric, Corum, Cornelius, End of Time, Hawkmoon and the other one-offs (Von Bek really came later). He seemed to go out of fashion in the late eighties until you hardly saw anything any more. Then they brought out compendiums that were good if you didn't have most of the books. Von Bek had a few books, so did Colonel Pyatt and a gew new Elric books, but I didn't think they were as exciting as the earlier ones. Recently, they went completely out of fashion, so you hardly saw the compendiums, which is a great shame.
Hopefully a new generation can rediscover Elric and the other Moorcock books.
[Spoiler Alert]
The different Eternal Champion stories had links that were perhaps real, perhaps imaginary. So, Elric and Corum both had Arioch, but Corum killed him. Elric had Stormbringer but Corum turned the black Sword down. Elric At the End of Time had Arioch, after a fashion, perhaps it was the same Arioch in different places. Cornelius had everything and went everywhere and did everything. Elric had a lost love, doomed by his actions. Cornelius had a lost love, doomed by his actions, but she was his sister.
[End of Spoiler]
I went back and reread the Elric series last year and they are as good as they ever were, so it wasn't just a teenager's excitement over something different.
So, yes, read the Elric books. If you liked the Fantasy side then read Corum. If you liked them for the weirdness then read Cornelius. If you liked Elric at the End of Time then read the End of Time series. If you liked some of those then read Hawkmoon. If you liked the history style of the Von Bek stories then read the Colonel Pyatt ones. If you liked Cornelius then read Mother London, although it isn't fantasy of the same type as the Cornelius stories. If you liked all of those, then your taste must be fine.
