- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Scribner; New edition edition (7 May 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0684861453
- ISBN-13: 978-0684861456
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 468,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A mesmerising collection of stories from 'the master storyteller of our time' [Angela Carter] Stories of London's past, present and future, of brave old ladies, beatific unfrocked vicars, Irish-Americans, and the seedy side of the London tourist trade combine in this showcase of Moorcock's narrative talent. Moorcock, like Dickens, paints his characters larger than fiction and his similar affection for the weak and the marginalised, and his faith in their powers of self-renewal, make this collection worthy of the comparison. 'He is,' said Angela Carter in the Guardian, 'the master storyteller of our time'.
About the Author
Michael Moorcock was born in England in 1939. He has written many novels and has won the GUARDIAN Fiction Award for CONDITION OF MUSAK and was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize for MOTHER LONDON. In recent years he has achieved an international reputation and is now recognised as a major contemporary novelist. A longtime resident of London, he now lives near Austin, Texas, with his wife.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you thought King of the City a bit of a slam dance through the eighties and nineties but loved Mother London, you won't be disappointed with London Bone, which is much more the Moorcock of Mother London -- some of the stories are perfect little cameos. I was struck by how many of these stories were written from female viewpoints (about half) and what sympathy and understanding they revealed for 'ordinary' women. Angus Wilson in Late Call is the only other man I can remember writing this well about women in this way, though Roddie Doyle was also very good. There is nothing hugely dramatic about these women's lives but the stories are about a particular moment, sometimes dramatic, sometimes, as in A Winter Admiral, eloquently undramatic (this was one of several stories that made me cry). Almost all Moorcock's characters are ordinry Londoners struggling to get through, usually pretty cheerfully, and in only a couple of the stories is there a hint of fantasy. Moorcock will often lead you to expect fantasy -- and then give you a solid, and moving, dose of very real life. This would make a fine introduction to Moorcock, if you're daunted by his vast, but never sprawling, novels.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a must for all those like me who can't get enough of Moorcock's London fiction. He and Iain Sinclair (and possibly Peter Ackroyd) are by far and away the best writers on London and Moorcock is the most generous of them, imbuing his work with a warmth and enjoyment of people which you rarely find in modern fiction, certainly not in the London lads whose work seems to be a cult amongst cool boys, these days -- Self, Hornby, Amis and the rest. The first story is actually set in rural Oxfordshire and is about an old lady living alone who hears a sound in her closet. Moorcock misdirects us wonderfully and with a surprising, moving result. London Bone, the title story, is a wry satire on modern greed which sells its own heritage for immediate cash gains and loses something in the transaction. London Blood harks back to pre-war London and again has an old lady, this time looking back at her South London past. I know of no other writer who has given us such a broad AND deep picture of the capital. The Clapham Antichrist is another parable for our times, dealing with a vicar who is sacked by his church when he has visions. All the stories have the same clarity and humanity we associate with Moorcock who, of all modernist experimenters, seems to have the unsentimental heart of a great Victorian. As Angela Carter said of him somewhere 'his work makes that of the majority of his contemporaries seem mean and cautious in comparison'. I would recommend this book as one to give someone who has never read Moorcock before.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There's a strange quality to these stories. They have all the sturdiness of well-made Victorian pieces, yet they are dealing with modern life in a knowing and often very effective, not to say
affecting, way. Told often in very matter of fact styles, they contain an elegaic love for the best of the world and its people, while never ignoring the harsh realities of urban life. These are city stories by a confirmed urbanite. For a writer who started his career as a sort of souped-up Tolkien, this is refreshing, engaged and original in ways that are never flashy, always substantial and always full of the same affection for the marginalised and forgotten dwellers in the city's
sidestreets and quiet, unknown places where not only the old city survives -- but her old virtues. If you loved Mother London, as I did, and found King of the City a bit intense, you will be very glad to read and enjoy this book. It also contains a very informative essay at the end on all kinds of London writers who don't get mentioned by Peter Ackroyd in his biography -- which would make a splendid companion to this. Both Moorcock, Ackroyd and Sinclair celebrate the city which most people only get a hint of. Their habits of walking, talking and actually living in their city, observing its details, have some of the same application which made the romantic PreRaphaelites return to detailed reality. This is romantic, at root, but it has an underlying quality of common sense and common humanity which makes us fall in love with this generous, furious,
great-hearted English writer.
affecting, way. Told often in very matter of fact styles, they contain an elegaic love for the best of the world and its people, while never ignoring the harsh realities of urban life. These are city stories by a confirmed urbanite. For a writer who started his career as a sort of souped-up Tolkien, this is refreshing, engaged and original in ways that are never flashy, always substantial and always full of the same affection for the marginalised and forgotten dwellers in the city's
sidestreets and quiet, unknown places where not only the old city survives -- but her old virtues. If you loved Mother London, as I did, and found King of the City a bit intense, you will be very glad to read and enjoy this book. It also contains a very informative essay at the end on all kinds of London writers who don't get mentioned by Peter Ackroyd in his biography -- which would make a splendid companion to this. Both Moorcock, Ackroyd and Sinclair celebrate the city which most people only get a hint of. Their habits of walking, talking and actually living in their city, observing its details, have some of the same application which made the romantic PreRaphaelites return to detailed reality. This is romantic, at root, but it has an underlying quality of common sense and common humanity which makes us fall in love with this generous, furious,
great-hearted English writer.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
This is the real Michael Moorcock
This is the Michael Moorcock I have always preferred and which in my view deserves to be permanently on all the 'best of' lists. Read more
Published on 19 April 2003
Variety and quality
Michael Moorcock really is an astonishing writer, capable of the subtleties of character shown here and of epics which somehow defy their expectations but remain epics, nonethless. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2003 by John Conquest
Maverick genius
Like Anthony Burgess, Michael Moorcock is a generous Prometheus. A genius who can turn his hand not only to every form of fiction, but many forms of poetry and music. Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2002 by "lucyms"
Still the same Moorcock magic
None of these stories are the kind of full fledged fantasy you normally identify with Mr Moorcock and while I still go back and read those old, wild adventure tales, these really... Read more
Published on 11 July 2002
Wonderful, warm, stimulating, sardonic.
This is a wonderful collection of stories, showing Moorcock's wide range as a writer and displaying, as much as Mother London, his remarkable humanity. Read more
Published on 30 May 2002
The Master!
Apart from the very shortest, almost every story in this book contains the substance of someone else's novel. Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2002
Sweet and Sour
Moorcock's mastery of popular forms coupled with his first class intellect produce a set of stories like none others. Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2001 by "jugadora"
First time in paperback
Some of these stories did first appear in a small press US book called Lunching With The Antichrist but it's the first time UK readers have had a chance to read them and it is the... Read more
Published on 5 Oct 2001
Great title story, but we've already seen the rest
Yes, these are all great stories. It's too bad, though, that whoever edited this book decided to include so many pieces that have already been reprinted (and recently, at that) in... Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2001 by Armando Saldaña Salinas
Nothing else like it
These stories are so good, so full of rich ingredients and generous portions it feels a bit as if you've just left a restaurant called London Bone! Read more
Published on 8 July 2001
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