Into the Media Web: Selected Short Non-fiction, 1956-2006 [Hardcover]

What a magnificent, and indeed gigantic, book this is! Into the Media Web is a beautifully designed, 720-page object with high production values. But it is the excellent content which really makes it worth every penny, and more, of its price.

Like Alan Moore, who provides an excellent foreword, I have been a fan of Moorcock's fiction for some decades. During that time I have read quite a bit of his non-fiction here and there; book reviews and other articles in magazines and newspapers, pieces from fanzines collected in books of his short stories, etc.. Moorcock is known as a prolific writer. I had no idea, though, just how much of this journalistic material he had produced. This book, huge though it is, is only a selection of some of that writing, not a complete collection.

The variety is phenomenal, as one might expect from a writer whose published work spans fantasy juvenilia, pulp detective fiction, fantasy and science fiction which transformed and revitalised both fields, and mainstream novels. There is some autobiography (raw and revealing), many book reviews, and introductions to books by other writers. There is an editorial from the comic Tarzan Adventures which Moorcock edited when still a teenager, and several fanzine pieces from the same era, on diverse topics such as SF, jazz, and fandom itself.

There are pieces from and about the revolutionary science fiction magazine New Worlds, which Moorcock edited in the 1960s. During his tenure, writers like J G Ballard, Brian Aldiss and Norman Spinrad (among many others) were given free rein to produce exciting new kinds of SF, truly breaking new literary ground. Moorcock himself found a daring new authorial voice in the pages of New Worlds, and also wrote a variety of articles in its pages. His original 1968 essay Into the Media Web is included here, and essays on both his greatest creation of that era, Jerry Cornelius, and his fantasy progenitor, Elric of Melnibone.

There are also pages about literary and artistic friends of Moorcock's like Mervyn Peake, Jack Trevor Story, Angela Carter, Jim Cawthorn and Ted Carnell; and about Moorcock's enthusiasms for Victorian and Edwardian SF, for writers like Leigh Brackett, and many others, which really bring their subjects to life.

As well as all this important stuff, there are thoughtful essays about life's little trivia; sex, drugs, rockn'n'roll (& skiffle!) and more than a little bit of politics (from a writer whose journeys through the Liberal party, leftish anarchism and feminism can be glimpsed herein).

Editor John Davey writes of the difficulty of deciding how to order all this material. Eventually he decides on alphabetical order by title of each piece, an eccentric choice which works to stir the pot of this delightful collection, defying most casual attempts at thematic or chronological reading. Into the Media Web is a book which can be read straight through (though not in one sitting!) or randomly sampled over and over again; either way it is a lucky dip in which none of the prizes is naff. In this the book does of course reflect both its name and its superb design, borrowed from the famous diagrammatic map of the London Underground. There are some intelligent exceptions to this scheme; the New Worlds extracts are laid out together, and if an entry is mainly about one person, that person's name appears in bold on the content page listing, which is helpful. One might cavil that such a large and diverse collection really should have an index, but Davey has achieved a nice balance between Order and Chaos in laying the book out, as befits his subject.

From its 720 pages shines the personality of a brilliant writer, a voracious reader, a perceptive and constructive critic, an important editor, an astute political thinker. More, you will find herein laid bare the heart and mind of a very human being; Michael Moorcock, whom, if a gentile were allowed to call him a true mensch, I most certainly would.