Michael John Moorcock - Elric of Melnibon

[clong]

Elric of Melniboné /The Elric Saga I /1

The Elric saga seems to hold a key place within the canon of dark fantasy, comparable to the place of Tolkien in the pantheon of the high fantasy of elves, coming of age quests, and epic battles of good against evil. In the preface to the version I read, Moorcock described his early Elric stories as a kind of reaction against Tolkien, a return to the fantasy roots of Edgar Rice Burroughs leavened with a healthy dose of the American Beats and French Existentialists. He also acknowledges the influence of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword.

This first book tells the story of how Elric was transformed from a sickly but contemplative king into an itinerant adventurer. It is a quick read, with a plot that moves from scene to scene with hardly a pause for breath. The various settings are inventive and intriguing and at times surreal, without really giving the sense of a cohesive whole that fits together in any way.

The characters are rather one dimensional. Elric is a thoughtful hero in a violent, unthinking world. His cousin will do anything to take the throne that he believes should have been his. Elric's love interest seems to exist for the sole reason of needing to be rescued. The Gods deal with mortals only to further their own internecine machinations.

I picked this up to check out the top rated series at iblist. And it's easy to see why readers enjoy these stories. I will definitely plan to read more.

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[Darb]

IMHO, the Elric saga works best in a Graphic Novel format - it's a very stylish and visually oriented work, whose lean and terse text loves to be drawn. Moorcock has probably inspired more fantasy artists to take up brush and pencil than any other author. I have some framed original watercolors featuring Elric in my house, by Heather Bruton.

I'm long overdue for a re-read.

[Darb]

Ok, although this is not precisely on-topic for Elric, it is sorta on-topic for Arioch, the God of Chaos, in Moorcock's Melnibonean universe.

This is an excerpt, dating back to Sept 19th, 1999, from my brewing journal, about a batch of Belgian Abbey Ale (a replica of Chimay Blue-Label, which I'd unwisely named "Arioch Abbey Ale") that exploded all over my living room:

[quote]Naming this beer after the Melnobonian God of Chaos was prophetic. I've heard stories about how people have experienced fermentations so violent that the beer's exploded violently out of their carboy, but I've never experenced it ... until now. I had (past tense) a 6 gal carboy of Belgian Dubbel (aka "Monk's Brown Ale") fermenting like mad in the livingroom. Unfortunately for me, I disregarded my own advice and left in my regular-sized (1/4â€