May Books 32) Elric, by Michael Moorcock

[nwhyte]

I've read a certain amount of Michael Moorcock, but until now no Elric, so have filled that gap in my knowledge of sff classics. This is the Fantasy Masterworks edition which brings together The Stealer of Souls and Stormbringer, which I think are the first two Elric books published though apparently several more were subsequently inserted into the

Comments

[rosaguestlist]

As I recall, Moorcock really hates Tolkein, which is a definite point in his favour.

- K

[gareth_rees]

You might find Death is no obstacle by Colin Greenland interesting. It's a collection of interviews Greenland made with Michael Moorcock, covering the latter's career and work up to 1992.

Moorcock is very clear about what he is doing in his pulp fantasy, and the techniques he used to write it:

I divide my total 60,000 words into four sections, 15,000 words apiece, say; then divide each into six chapters... In section one the hero will say, “There’s no way I can save the world in six days unless I start by getting the first object of power”. That gives you an immediate goal and an immediate time element, as well as an overriding time element. With each section divided into six chapters, each chapter must then contains something which will move the action forward, and contribute to that immediate goal.

Very often it’s something like: attack of bandits - defeat of bandits - nothing particularly complex, but it’s another way you can achieve recognition; by making the structure of chapter a miniature of the overall structure of the book

[nwhyte]

That's very interesting. Because I tend to read two or more books at a time, I like to break them down into blocks of fifty pages or so as I switch between them, and it struck me as I read Stormbringer especially that Moorcock had made this process very easy for me.

[londonkds]

Moorcock's later Elric books are interesting for the more ambitious writing and especially for the way that after some years of feminist consciousness raising he started to write the character as being relatively emotionally functional and morally trustworthy when he's acting as a female character's henchman. See in particular The Fortress of the Pearl and The Revenge of the Rose. (This is complicated by the fact that there are probably now more Elric compilations than there are editions of the individual novels floating around, most of which collect the books in order of internal chronology rather than writing.)