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Gloriana (Fantasy Masterworks)
 
 

Gloriana (Fantasy Masterworks) (Paperback)

by Michael Moorcock (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (18 Oct 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0575073594
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575073593
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 88,995 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #11 in  Books > Fiction > Cult Authors > Moorcock, Michael

Product Description

Product Description
Gloriana rules an Albion whose empire embraces America and most of Asia. A new Golden Age of peace, enlightenment and prosperity has dawned. Gloriana is Albion and Albion is Gloriana; if one falls, so too will the other. And Gloriana is oppressed by the burden this places upon her - and by the fact that she remains incapable of orgasm. The maintenance of the delicate balance that keeps Albion and Gloriana thriving depends of Montfallcon, Gloriana's Chancellor, and on his network of spies and assassins - in particular on Quire, cold hearted seducer of virtue and murderer of innocence. When Quire falls out with Montfallcon, he forms an alliance with his greatest enemy and conceives a plan to ruin Gloriana, destroy Albion, the empire and the Golden Age itself. But even the utterly ruthless Quire does not fully understand what he has set in motion when he persuades the Queen to fall in love with him... Moorcock's masterly evocation of Gloriana's strange and secretive palace and of a vibrant London make this one of his most powerful and memorable novels.

About the Author
SALES POINTS * Part of the Fantasy Masterworks series * 'A great read...fiction writing at its best; a craftsman in full possession of his powers as Moorcock is here is a joy' Maxim Jakubowski, Vector * 'He is a giant. If you are at all interested in fantastic fiction, you must read Michael Moorcock' Tad Williams * 'Vastly entertaining' Science Fiction Review * 'A complex fantasy richly and convincingly textured' Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Locus * 'He casts a heady, enslaving spell' Ruth Rendell * A wonderful and brilliant fantasy set in a superbly realized alternate Elizabethan England.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (9)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An allegory of social responsibility, 5 Jan 2003
Unable to express her own passions, weighed down by her sense of duty, the sense that she embodies a virtuous State, Gloriana is unable to reach orgasm. Through the sinister and immoral Captain Quire, hired by her own chancellor to maintain the appearance of Albion's justice and gravitas, she learns that the State is not nearly as virtuous as she's been told and she finds fulfilment at last! Moorcock does a reverse on Spenser, whom he acknowledges in the front of the novel and whom he also parodies in the text, but this is not about Elizabeth so much as about England. A fine novel, which produces a perfect allegory without once pushing the themes down your throat. Like Philip Pullman, Moorcock is able to produce un-Christian parables, challenging the likes of C.S.Lewis without attitudinising or offering blatant arguments.
Written in the 1970s, winner of a couple of awards, short-listed for a Booker, this is a fine novel and one of the few outstaandingly literate works in this series. It ranks with Peake and is considerably subtler than Tolkien. The characters are delicious, the scenery gorgeous and the morality sharp as an assassin's dagger. Moorcock is a sophisticated moralist as well as a first-rate entertainer.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars So many books. Such high quality, 1 Feb 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Gloriana (Paperback)
There's a tendency, I think, to take Moorcock for granted because he has produced so much. 'Too much' as people say who mean they can't imagine reading it all. Yet what is unique about Moorcock is not his phenomenal output (Edgar Wallace and Barbara Cartland both easily break his record) but the extraordinary quality most of it retains. When you think of what he has turned out in the past few years, apart from Gloriana, you realise it includes some of the best books you have read in the past couple of decades! This book won the World Fantasy Award when that award was worth winning and it deserves all the awards and praise. Peter Ackroyd was a great enthusiast for the book and his own fiction carries odd echoes of Gloriana, not least a Platonic London and Judge Dee. For me this is the only peer to Peake and it seems to have been dedicated to Peake, so obviously Moorcock was writing a conscious tribute. Quire in his own way is as good and as complex a villain as Steerpike and Gloriana is a wonderful heroine, symbol of Britain (Albion) on one hand and complex, yearning woman on the other. There isn't a character who isn't fully drawn or a scene which doesn't have the richness and atmosphere of an Old Master. This book wasn't originally published in the fantasy genre and I think like Peake and T.H.White it belongs outside the general run. Moorcock's chief influences are German Romantics and French Existentialists, rather than genre writers, and these are enjoyed at their best in this gripping tale of blood, hate and high ideals. This should be the BBC's next epic. It's very sexy, too, in places! Feel the quality, feel the width. This is a gripping tale told on a rich and complex tapestry.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Best in the series yet, 5 Nov 2001
By A Customer
This is top quality stuff. Well up there with Peake, to whom it's dedicated. A queen whose lack of orgasm reflects her failure to find individual identity while she represents the State. Hers is a culture on the edge of enlightenment. Doctor Dee is here, as well as a Platonic London, and many other elements later found in Peter Ackroyd, a great admirer of this novel. It's well up to the best in the series so far, and a long way from Moorcock's hasty sword and sorcery epics.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Unfilfill'd Master
Yet another epic contribution to the world of speculative fiction from the modern master. Although not quite as perfect as some of his other works, this surprises for Moorcock's... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Pablo K

5.0 out of 5 stars Voluptuous
Despite the re-writes, this remains a beautifully realized vision replete with wonderful and believable characters (even the grotesques) that inhabit a universe somewhat at angles... Read more
Published on 20 Oct 2005 by Pilgrim

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book in either version!
The controversy about Gloriana revolves around the famous or infamous rape scene. I've read the book in both versions and while I must say I prefer the first version, I didn't... Read more
Published on 30 May 2002 by conny300

5.0 out of 5 stars Who cares ? This is a brilliant story.
This is a true classic. If you like LOTR but not Peake, then you'll probably hate this. If you are sick of LOTR hobbledegook, this and Titus Groan are the precious antidotes... Read more
Published on 12 Jan 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting phenomenon
Moorcock has talked about this phenomenon in an interview. Apparently the difference between the 1978 and the 1990 edition of Gloriana is a matter of a few lines in the... Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2001 by jugadora

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as Gormenghast
This is dedicated to Mervyn Peake and is in some ways an homage. It rises above its own ambitions to stand as one of the very finest fantasy novels of our time. Read more
Published on 7 Jul 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars Darkly, decadently hoping a Queen and Country will survive
In a world which might seem to be Elizabethan England the whole country holds it's breath in the hope that Gloriana their Queen will attain fulfillment. Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2000

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