The Singing Citadel: Four Tales Of Heroic Fantasy by Michael Moorcock

The Singing Citadel: Four Tales Of Heroic Fantasy Reviews

• 
  Peter Coomber

  Four interesting stories, proving that he can write.
• 
  James Oden

  Its hard for me to honestly rate Michael Moorcock's writing. Anyone would have to agree that what he writes is pulp fiction, but it is in my opinion some of the best pulp fantasy to ever be produced. His prose is incredibly readable and his characters and the arcane world they live in draws you in immediately. Perhaps it is his keen sense of tragedy that keeps you riveted (and that sense of tragedy is no better personified than by his character Elric of Melnibone). The action is of course great, but I think it is this hope that somehow the good will overcome, that his characters though psychically torn will know peace, that hooks you so hard. Sadly, and you suspect this from the very first read, the good does overcome but always at a bitter price. It is as if these torn heroes that Moorcock creates must face some form of morbid crucifixion over and over again.
  
  
• 
  Greg Kerestan

  As the Elric saga goes, this is decidedly side-story material, but these four novellas strengthen Moorcock's world-building and establish the varied characters who, first introduced in solo adventures, will become Elric mainstays in future adventures. "The Greater Conquerer" is the most interesting here, as it welds the alternate-universe fantasia of the Elric stories to real-world alternate history, painting Alexander the Great as a man possessed by the chaos demons of Melnibone.
• 
  Tone

  Kind of a Moorcock sampler.
  The first three stories were incorporated in his Elric books and the last one was only so-so.
• 
  Joe Stamber

  Uneven collection of strange fantasy tales from the master of them.
• 
  AndrewP

  Four short stories