Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Variety and quality, 14 Mar 2003
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. It's as if Elizabeth Bowen, J.R.R.Tolkien and Anthony Burgess were all combined in a single writer. In a just world this book would be at the top of anyone's list and selling like hotcakes, it is so much better than most of what there is to offer. The opening story is a subtle one, about a widow living alone who hears an odd rustling in her pantry. This is followed by stories of the Clapham Antichrist, who has had a vision and wants to tell the world, a young woman's hatred of a local priest, and why she hates him, the discovery of a strange, valuable material in the earth of London and various others. All are surprising and subtle and the work of a master storyteller. If you enjoy the best short story writers, you will find Moorcock matches them, at very least. Sometimes, in my view, he betters them.
I even bought two extra copies to give to friends.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still the same Moorcock magic, 12 Jul 2002
By A Customer
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 are excellent literary stories worthy of anyone writing English fiction today.
They have a chracteristic interest in human character, a depth and warmth to them, even at their darkest, which makes them linger in the mind long after you have read them. My own favourites are London Blood, in which an old lady from South London (where I'm from) reminisces about the past and some
frightening moment with her fathr as a girl. The area is brought to life as vividly as Mr Moorcock brings his fantasy landscapes to life. I also enjoyed Doves in the Circle, about an odd sort of love affair between two Irish immigrants in a run-down area of New York and I was particularly moved by A Winter Admiral, an very short story, about a lady living on her own in a cottage in the country, which packs a strong emotional punch. This is definitely a book, like Mother London, to recommend to people who don't read fantasy stories but do like top quality modern fiction.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Old-fashioned visions, 12 Jan 2002
By A Customer
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.
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