Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Forty years on and still going strong, 27 Oct 2003
When all the other fashionable fantasy of our time is forgotten three writers will be remembered and read -- Tolkien, Peake and Moorcock. And perhaps the most interesting of these is Moorcock, since he has written such a wide variety of fiction, including some of the best literary fiction of our time. If you want to find out about his fantasy, this is probably the best collection to begin with. It is about as fat as the average first volume of a Tolkien-clone but contains an amazing amount of substance. Read with the second volume (Stormbringer) it forms an epic which knocks all others out of the ring (and I'm
including LOTR). Elric's father, Sadric, has already begun the rot before the series opens, finding himself unable to sacrifice the usual number of brides and bridegrooms to bring good luck to his own wedding. This, many at court believe, has meant that his wife not only gave birth to a feeble albino, but died herself. Now that albino sits on the Ruby Throne of Melnibone and his subjects wonder whether he will restore the old customs or continue the rot. In particular his cousin Yyrkoon and Yyrkoon's sister (Elric's betrothed) are curious about this,
for Cymoril, the sister, loves Elric while Yyrkoon not only hates him, he covets the throne of Melnibone, pledged to return the Empire to its former glory, through sorcery, cruelty and compacts with the forces of evil. So the saga begins, with Elric forever ambiguous, yet still having many of the traits of the unhuman Melniboneans, not least a penchant for cruel slaughter. This trait will be emphasised when he at last discovers Stormbringer, the black runesword which drinks souls and passes their vitality on to Elric himself, allowing him to sustain himself without drugs or charms.
My advice is to dive in with this book and then read Stormbringer. When you've done with the two omnibuses there are still two fine Elric novels to be read, which develop the ideas both dramatically and intellectually (for Moorcock is that rare thing, an intellectual fantast working in a popular mode). In
my humble opinion The Dreamthief's Daughter is one of the finest Elric novels, yet only written a couple of years ago, while The
Skrayling Tree is its worthy companion. If you are not familiar with Elric, now's the time to start. Moorcock has been called the Boss fantasy writer by many greater critics than me. I assure you, you won't be disappointed.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As good as it gets, 8 Nov 2006
I decided to reread all the Elric stories this year, having completed the latest trilogy, and while it's true that the writing of this book can be uneven (given that it was written over a long period of time) it still holds up very well. These are the books which changed our expectations about heroic fantasy. Elric is a hero tormented with ambiguity, still very representative of modern times. The fundamental argument of the books is one which is still very much in the forefront of our thinking, these days: How to survive in a violent world without turning to violence ourselves, how we should use our knowledge, whether our 'magic' brings us a better world or whether it merely complicates. And the pace of the writing is superb. You plunge straight into Elric's world and are absorbed immediately in vividly described alien cultures, with characters who represent every shade of human complexity. Moorcock remains one of the Big Three of heroic fantasy writing, with Tolkien and Robert E. Howard, and has still to be bested.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
BRILLIANT, 15 May 1999
By A Customer
I have actually read most of the stories in this collection before, the first story, Elric of Melnibone, I was reading for the third time. It is not your usual "Tolkien" style fantasy, although unlike Michael Moorcock I loved "The Lord of Rings", but I do dislike most of Tolkien's imitators intensely. The 1st story must be one the best fantasy stories ever written, it is quite short but it contains a lot of action, and Michael Moorcock's world is far more original than your typical pseudo medieval Europe setting, I just wish that he would flesh it out a bit more. On the other hand that might be part of the fun, I wasted many hours as a teenager imagining the world of Melnibone, and drawing the various characters. I did notice that Elric's earlier stories are far more fun than the later ones, they are straightforward fantasy adventures, although with a much harder "edge" to them than anything currently available, his newer stories i'm not really sure about, they are somewhat (dare i say it) tedious, and they seem to repeat ideas from other stories. But overall this book is brilliant, for those of you who are wasting their time with books by inferior writers like Terry brooks and David Eddings, drop them, and go out and buy this one.
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