| Title | : | The Elric Saga Part I (Elric Saga, #1-3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 156865040X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781568650401 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 374 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1984 |
The Elric Saga Part I (Elric Saga, #1-3) Reviews
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The 2011 Re-read:
Elric of Melnibone: Elric, the sickly albino emperor of Melnibone, combats his cousin Yrkoon's machinations for his throne and winds up on a quest across dimensions for a pair of magical black swords.
In the long, long, long, long wait between volumes four and five of The Dark Tower, a friend of mine told me about Elric, an albino with a soul-sucking sword that kept him alive. Intrigued, I took advantage of my Science Fiction Book Club membership and bought the two collected volumes they had. I was not disappointed.
Elric was created by Michael Moorcock to be the anti-Conan. Where Conan is strong, Elric is sickly. Conan distrusts magic where Elric embraced it. Conan is noble while Elric is... less than noble some of the time.
The first book in this collection deals with Elric and Yrkoon battling for the Ruby Throne. Moorcock builds his multiverse world by world, taking Elric across planes and into encounters with elementals and Lords of Chaos in his quest to foil Yrkoon.
Moorcock manages an epic feel despite the small size of the individual books. Not only was it influential when it first appeared, it's still a damn good story. The dying culture of the Melniboneans and the magical system were both really interesting to me, both during the initial reading and in the subsequent re-reads.
Blood and souls for Arioch!
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate: After leaving Melnibone behind, Elric ventures into the Young Kingdoms. While exhausted on a lonely shingle, Elric boards a mysterious ship. What will he encounter on his voyage before he returns to Melnibone?
Sailor on the Seas of Fate is what hooked me and made me a permanent Moorcock fan. Moorcock introduces the concept of the Eternal Champion and introduces three of them: Erekose, Corum, and Hawkmoon, and does some foreshadowing of things to come. Smiorgan Baldhead is introduced and Elric and Arioch become further entwined. Elric travels to even more planes and explores the ancestral home island of the Melniboneans. Good stuff!
Weird of the White Wolf: Elric leads the Sea Lords of the Purple Towns against his own homeland, Melnibone, seeks The Dead God's Book, and braves the Singing Citadel.
The tragedy and the cosmic scope of the Elric saga become even more apparent with the Weird of the White Wolf. How many other fantasy tales feature an emperor in exile committing genocide on his own people? Elric accidentally slays Cymoril, betrays his Sea Lord allies, and abandons his new lover to roam the world with his new friend Moonglum. The Cosmic Balance is introduced, Elric does more plane-hopping, and tangles with more entities beyond the mortal ken. By the end, he's apparently done with adventuring... until the next volume!
The 2022 Re-read:
Eleven years and several emotional centuries later, I'm rereading the Elric books. I just throw some thoughts in this section since I've already covered a lot up above.
In the ensuing eleven years, I forgot how much I enjoyed this saga. There are some nuances I may not have picked up on in previous reads or just understand them better with my accumulated wisdom and decrepitude. Elric turning his back against the traditions of his people could be interpreted as the conflict of Chaos vs. Law, progress vs. stagnation in this case. There is also an unsubtle gay subtext to Elric and Yrkoon fighting inside the Pulsing Cavern with giant black swords.
Anyway, I finished Elric of Melnibone earlier and it does a lot of heavy lifting for the rest of the series. There are already hints about the saga's ending. It's also a damn fine adventure tale in its own right. Elric is kind of a dumbass regarding Yrkoon but it fits his character.
Sailor on the Seas of Fate is still an ass kicker, with its team-up of various Eternal Champions and the first of Elric's many betrayals. I've forgotten so much of this stuff.
The final book, Weird of the White Wolf, brings Elric closer to his destiny in adventures with wingless girl and Moonglum, a thief that will be his companion for adventures to come, in addition to making the enemy of Theleb K'aarna and the sorcerers of Pan Tang.
Twenty two years after I first read it, this remains one of my favorite epics. I'm bumping it up to five stars. It's not perfect but it's much loved in my house. -
Elric of Melnibone - 4/5
Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. Born as a crippled albino do to inbreeding, he's kept alive only by powerful drugs and potions. Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful nation depends on him alone. Elric's cousin Yyrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne by lethal force. Thus begins a power struggle between Elric and his wicked cousin, both wielding incredibly powerful swords by the names of Stormbringer and Mournblade.
It's a straightforward sword and sorcery tale, the characters are simplistic and the plot is all about badass dudes with swords fighting monsters, getting revenge and looking awesome while doing it. It takes pride in its simplicity and isn't afraid to flaunt its flashiness. Its prose and settings are heavily influenced by classic fantasy and horror such as Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery tales. It's a fun read.
***
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate - 4/5
Forced to flee his city of Melnibone, Elric and his sorcerous blade Stormbringer journey through barren hills to the edge of a black sea. Elric finds a dark ship and begins a voyage that will bring him face-to-face with all the champions Time can summon--and more. Leaving his cousin Yrkoon sitting as regent upon the Ruby Throne of Melnibone, leaving his cousin Cymoril weeping for him and despairing of his ever returning, Elric sailed from Imrryr, the Dreaming City, and went to seek an unknown goal in the world of the Young Kingdoms where Melniboneans were at best, disliked.
Elric of Melnibone goes on an acid trip adventure into the past, the future and different versions of the present on the back of an ancient, magical ship. With his evil sword Stormbringer guiding the way, Elric explores the young kingdoms and past kingdoms in hopes of finding what the old kingdoms lack, specifically the fallen kingdom of Melnibone. The answer is humanity, something that could both restore the old kingdoms to their former glory or even destroy them entirely if handled unwisely. After all, what's more dangerous than magic, monsters and evil swords than humanity itself?
Accompanying Elric on his journey throughout time are Erekose, Dorian Hawkmoon, and Corum Jhaelen Irsei. All four of them are different iterations of the same person, (almost like if Link from the Legend of Zelda were to go on a journey with every version of himself that's ever existed in the chronology of the series) and you can bet that this makes for an insanely trippy adventure with lots of monster slaying badassery. It's like one of Lovecraft's dream quest tales written in the style of Conan.
It was challenging to follow at first, but once the ball got rolling and it was made clear what was going on it became smooth sailing to the finish line. Elric finally experiences some much-needed character growth after a certain terrifying act involving his evil sword forces him to reflect on who he is and what he wants.
***
The Weird of the White Wolf - 4/5
Elric made an incredibly foolish and selfish decision at the end of the first book, and now it's finally come back to bite him where it hurts. Imrryr, the dreaming city; Yyrkoon, the hated usurper; Cymoril, Elric's beloved, all have fallen to the fury and unearthly power of the albino prince Elric and his soul devouring sword Stormbringer because of a choice he made that unknowingly set his own downfall in motion. With no other options left, Elric confronts his doomed fate in the haunted era he's trapped in.
This was the best of the Elric saga so far because Elric finally starts to display evil tendencies. His sword has always had a mind of its own, but now the wills of Stormbringer and Elric have blurred together. Elric is a slave to his evil sword, it takes away the things he loves one by one and drives the prince mad. Elric becomes more selfish, brooding, impulsive and scornful, hating his sword, his dirty soul and the wretched destiny he can't escape from.
The battles are bloodier and the setting is even more grim. It seems the harder Elric tries to break free from his cruel fate, the more harsh, chaotic and unforgiving his life becomes. -
Elric of Melnibone is an interesting character. Michael Moorcock’s antihero is a different sort of literary character, truly unlike any traditional fantasy hero I’ve encountered so far. He is a study of a contradictory character. He behaves in ways that sets him apart from the ordinary and it is his intent to always go against the grain. He is a physically weak albino who needs drugs to sustain him, yet he rules a nation without peer. He elects to show mercy to a traitor, if only to go against his and his people’s more bloodthirsty tendencies. He wields and masters dark magiks, yet he is a vassal to his patron Chaos Lord. He wields a magical runeblade as much as it wields him. He values friends, but he is often so quick to betray them.
This volume contains the first three novels of Elric. This is fortunate find amidst a pile of random hardcovers in a bargain bookstore. I’ve heard how Moorcock is a great influence on my favorite writers like Neil Gaiman and Walter Simonson that I just need to sample his work. This is just the book for that.
The first book, titled Elric of Melnibone, sets up the main character very well. It gives us his origin, a rival and love interest. It hints of a much richer history that goes beyond the immediate lineage of the character. It also gives us his patron, the Chaos Lord Arioch whose appearance would recur in these books and his most important companion, the magical runeblade, Stormbringer, which would be a blessing and curse to the wielder.
The second book, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, has our antihero on a great adventure, actually three of them that span space and time. The first novel introduced us to an alternate dimension, here Moorcock amps it up and gives us a multiverse of parallel earths.
In The Weird of the White Wolf, the third book, the writer completely changes his status quo. By removing his ties to Melnibone, he has become a true adventurer, with no roots to hold him and no safety net to fall back on.
This can be made into a great comic book and I understand how it influenced a lot of writers in the genre. There were a few graphic novels published some years back, and I would definitely be hunting for those and as well as books on the further tales of Elric. -
This is "anti-fiction" (bad term, but oh well). Michael Moorcock wrote this series to be a reversal to cliches of the genre inspired by Tolkien and the like. Main character Elric is written as a direct antithesis to Conan the barbarian. This makes The Elric Saga... wait for it... good!
That being said, it is also kind of creepy. Elric is a "tragic hero" who losses everything, gradually. In this unstable world, Moorcock's characters seek some semblance of order. They rarley find it, but that is what makes his books fascinating. Mr. Moorcock knows how to destroy his characters by turning their needs against them. What kind of a person writes like that? -
I have read a lot of Michael Moorcock. The first time I read these books it was seperatly in the older paper back editions. I chose this fomat as it make fewer entries and is newer.
I didn't put a date below because I first ran across Elric in the 70s and this volume is much more recent...didn't want to confuse things. I still have some of the older volumes on my shelf, but not all. I try to keep most of the Eternal Champion books in my library.
Elric is probably the best known and most iconic character MM has produced in his prolific career.
Elric...what can one say??? If you look up "tragic" in the dictionary you should see his picture. His life exemplifies "life is tough and then you die"....of course you have to add on, "before you die you get to see everyone you love die to..and in most cases you killed them. As a matter of fact, you not only killed them you managed to drain them of their life essence, possibly their soul, and live on it." Talk about a downer of a hard life, yet somehow these are amazingly good stories. Some of the best of the Eternal Champion cycle.
Elric is one of the most iconic characters in all of fantasy fiction. There's a reason, don't miss the Saga of Elric of Melnibone. -
OK, a little backstory. I read the books that make up this collection many years ago when I was in High School. I thought it was an amazing series, with Elric and his magic sword that ate souls. I decided that I would revisit these books since my library had this bound collection. And all I have to say is that they did not stand up to the test of time for me. Not sure why, I enjoyed them well enough then, why not now? I am thinking that maybe it was back then there was not a lot of fantasy novels to chose from where I lived, and with all the amazing writers now, Moorcock's novels just don't stand up.
I know that Moorcock wrote that Elric was written to make fun of the fantasy tropes that were in the books then, to make him a hero anti-hero. I see where he went with that now, I did not then. It is just that I remember it being more well written, but in reality it is not. It is a fine book, just not as amazing as I remember. Sometimes you really cannot go home again. Still, it was a way to pass the time. It is just that it took me longer to finish since I would put it down and not really feel the urge to pick it up again for a few days. Nothing really bad, but not that great either.
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Written review from:
http://commontouchoffantasy.com/book-...
Video review:
http://youtu.be/jVV8RsryTZc
The Elric Saga Part I by Michael Moorcock is the first three Elric centered books that include Elric of Melnibone, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, and The Weird of the White Wolf. Extremely influential during its time, Elric is one of the pillars of fantasy that a lot of contemporary writers speak about, and the first real antihero in fantasy that bucked traditional fantasy tropes.
2/5(ok) Rescored from a 3, it was just ok.
Type of Story: Darker anti-hero fantasy that reads like individual novellas
Plot – 3(Fine)
Characters – 3(Fine)
Setting/World Building – 3(Fine)
Writing Style – 3(Fine)
Heart & Mind Aspect – 3(Fine)
Short Summary:
Elric of Melnibone is the emperor of a race of people that are feared throughout the world. They use dragons, they summon demons for aid, and have strong sorcery. Elric, is different than his kin though, he has more of a curiosity for the outside world, and fights his own conscious. Melnibone is on a downward decline and his cousin Yyrkoon wishes to usurp Elric, and bring back the brutality that Melniboneans are known for. Because of Elric’s failing health and the reliance he has on using drugs to give him strength, Yyrkoon is able to successfully take the throne from Elric, and also drive Elric away from his love Cymoril. Elric is now on a mission of revenge against his cousin but requires the assistance of a dark sword, Stormbringer, that has its own willpower and thirst for the souls of which it kills, to sustain Elric’s strength.
The later stories of Elric are all about his travels. He believes that the world can teach him something of how to restore Melnibone as a powerful leader in the world. Elric soon finds that his inherent personality from his evil race is something that even he has a hard time overcoming. His stories are ones of redemption, revenge, his weaknesses, guilt, and his inability to conquer the darkness in his own heart.
Why you should read this book:
Michael Moorcock is one of the most influential fantasy writers with his Elric character. Elric is one of the first antihero fantasy characters that was created to go against the fantasy tropes created by Tolkien. Elric is an incredibly flawed character because of his race and he is constantly fighting a battle within himself. This causes Elric to be a character that might seem to be contradictory in his actions. At one moment he wants to do what is right and really help people, while the next he is blood thirsty with rage. This creates an interesting dichotomy in his character which is sometimes difficult for the reader to understand because at times it seems that Moorcock is almost being indecisive with the character. Once the reader understands that it is the character that causes a lot of the randomness during the story, and not the author, it becomes something completely different. It almost becomes a study on the duality of man, the good and evil, that lies within all men’s hearts.
For an older book, some of it written as early as 1961, and other parts written in the 70’s, it is pretty similar to recent author’s work. The two book series that I feel are inspired by Elric the most and similar are R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt series and Mark Lawrence’s The Broken Empire trilogy. Both authors write an antihero type of character that is similar to Elric and has serious flaws in character. Even though Drizzt is more of a pure hero, his background as a Dark Elf is very similar to Elric’s background as a Melnibonean. Jorg, from The Broken Empire trilogy, only knows of a certain way to live, and that is very reminiscent to Elric. Moorcock’s style of writing is ahead of its time. It is crisp and easy to read without being dumbed down to appeal to a fantasy audience in the 70’s that might not be associated with this type of writing style. Moorcock could easily have written this same series today, in the same style, the same way he did 40 years ago, and it would appeal to many readers.
The last reason you should read The Elric Saga is the action is fantastic. I wouldn’t say this is a violent book but Moorcock does not hold back on his descriptions. Within the first few pages of Elric of Melnibone, a spy is tortured for information, and body parts are cut off. Stormbringer, which is a character all on its own and one of the most amazing swords in fantasy literature, has no problems taking off people’s heads, or almost cutting people in two. At no point is there a description of the action in The Elric Saga that isn’t a descriptive fight. I personally love descriptive fights in my fantasy books because I want to know how the characters won. Elric’s use of conjuring demons, gods, beasts, elementals, and more to help him fight is a blast to read. Even though it might seem like his power to call on assistance from gods is over-powered, their help always comes with strings attached. Elric’s interactions with the gods, demons, elementals, ect., are always interesting because it opens the reader up to more information about how this world works.
Why you might not like this book:
As influential as Michael Moorcock’s The Elric Saga is, its main negativity is the time in which it was published. The saga is three different books included in the first part. Each of these books has 3 different parts within themselves. This part 1 saga was created in 1977 as the start to the saga’s official internal chronology. Before that, these stories within the stories, were written at different times, and in a different order. A lot of the stories were novellas in magazine issues or anthologies. Because this was put together as a collection of shorter works, even though chronologically it matched up with each other, the flow of this Saga is just all over the place.
Some stories are great onto themselves, while others are extremely confusing, and only make sense years later after Moorcock released more stories. Elric of Melnibone, the first book is relatively straight forward, but even that book’s tone changes from each other individual book within it. The Sailor on the Seas of Fate are individual stories that are connected around being on a ship. The first one, The Sailing to the Future, includes a list of characters from Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion Sequence, that embark on an adventure that makes little to no sense in relation to Elric’s saga itself, but makes sense when viewed from the viewpoint of Moorcock’s work as a whole. The Weird and the White Wolf has a great opening book, The Dreaming City, about Elric’s final fight with Yyrkoon, but the other stories aren’t on the same level.
Overall, I was disappointed in the way this book flowed. Even though the content wasn’t necessarily bad, it felt like I was reading many individual short stories. Some captured my interest while others didn’t.
Recommendation:
I feel that Michael Moorcock’s body of work is best looked at together, as many parts of a whole. Only reading the first part of The Elric Saga, I believe that is is well enough written, and interesting enough for me to continue reading his work. I want to get a better overall view of these worlds that he has created.
If you want to read something that has influenced a lot of contemporary writers that write antiheroes, I recommend Michael Moorcock’s Elric series. Elric is a great character, the writing style is solid, and the plots are entertaining but it is very novella like in reading. If I am to read more of Moorcock’s work, I will treat it more like short stories, instead of a straight through novel. Now that I know what to expect, I do plan on continuing with the Elric series, and then checking out more of the characters involved in The Eternal Champion Sequence because Moorcock has my confidence. Also, the cover art for the Elric books was created by a then young artist named Michael Whelan, who is one of the best known fantasy artists in the world today. -
This is actually three books in one, two of which are in turn 3-4 four shorter stories collected together. If you are unaware that these stories were published individually before, then you may begin to tire of how each new section re-introduces who the main character is, like you have no idea who the last 200 pages have been about.
As for the content itself, I found it to be somewhat hit and miss with the success of the stories. The first novel, "Elric of Melnibone," was probably the best. It may be because it was the longest self-contained story within this volume, but it also contained some of the better writing. It inverts a number of fantasy tropes, with the main character being a physical weakling, invoking evil demons to his, and not killing the big bad guy at the end but actually trusting him. The characters are interesting and well developed, while still containing some of the grand scenes you would expect from fantasy. Moorcock does not necessarily pull this off brilliantly through any individual story, but he does it well enough to be original. Some of his other originality in the stories here have probably been copied and imitated, like the brooding anti-hero adventure, but this did not detract too much from the work.
What did detract from the other stories was their lack of characterization. Every story definitely contains adventure, detailed battles, and strong warriors facing fantastic beings, but the characters were hardly as well developed. They seemed to be around as a vehicle for the plot, not vice versa. This was most evident in "Sailor on the Seas of Fate," the middle part of the book. This collection also veers into weird science fiction in the first part. Elric's whole journey in these three parts seemed there to simply fill the requisite amount of manly fighting against supernatural beings. The third section of the middle section, "Sailing to the Past," did contain some interesting developments of Elric's past, but the other two were too weird and trippy.
The last third, "The Weird of the White Wolf," starts off strong. Apparently, I learned this after reading it, the "Dreaming City" was the first Elric story ever written. It contains some exciting writing and life-changing events for Elric, and the next story explores more of his inner philosophy.
The only stories I did not like were "Sailing to the Future," "Sailing to the Present," and "Singing Citadel." The rest of the stories, while not amazing, were good. "Dream of Earl Aubec" was an interesting diversion, but felt mostly out of place while still being the same old adventure with weird fantasy story.
I expected more from this book. There were some great parts; the battle scenes were always well described and exciting, the adventure aspect never got old, new and no two new and bizarre locations were ever the same. Moorcock has a great talent for creating memorable and original spectacle, from Elric himself to the town of Tanelorn or the Mist Giant. Seeing Elric change, not only in a number of stories themselves, but through the whole book was excellent to see as well; too often fantasy heroes remain statically the same through each and every adventure.
Overall though, the stories were only intriguing on a surface level. Much of the book is very masculine focused to the point where any female character introduced is guaranteed to want to sleep with Elric. Aside from Elric, the other characters were memorable but flat. I think part of the reason I expected more from this book was that I went into it thinking it would be stunning literary fantasy that sheds tropes created by Lord of the Rings and Conan and plows new ground. What I got was good fantasy with a dash of occasional philosophy or deeper themes and an actually changing protagonist. If you go into this book thinking it will be superbly amazing, it will disappoint. If you go into it thinking it will be like all the other generic fantasy novels you've read, you'll be pleasantly surprised. If you go in knowing it will be worth your time but not earth shattering, you would be correct. -
I have read this particular book numerous times and though Elric is gloomy and dour I find Moorcock's writing fascinating. He uses color a lot and writes interesting enough characters ( and some are just throwaway characters ) that you actually care about.
My favorite story in the whole book is Book One of The Sailor on the Seas of Fate in which Elric teams with his other three aspects on an adventure.
Moorcock set out to create a character the opposite of Conan. A thin, deficient albino prince who has to rely on a sentient sword for sustenance as opposed to a brawny muscled barbarian who purely relies on his wits and strength to resolve all his antagonists.
I always liked both heroes though Elric is considered more of an anti-hero. I favor Howard's Conan more. He has always been my favorite character in books and comic books. But I first found Elric I believe via First Comics comic book and next when I found out he teamed with Conan in a two part comic book series that I read first in a paperback with clunky panel placement due to the restriction on the paper size. But overall, it is always enjoyable for me to return to the albino prince. -
This book includes the first three of the old six book Elric series that Moorcock put out. I was seriously into Moorcocks Elric stuff as a teenager and now after rereading it after all these years I still consider this to be a classic in the fantasy genre. Elric is far from being a typical or cliched fantasy hero, in fact I would label him as an anti-hero. Instead of being a strong chivalric hero Elric is a foppish weakling albino who is kept alive only through the use of drugs and sorcery. He sits on the throne of a declining empire that takes pride in being cruel and unjust to the rest of the world. He comes into possession of a sword that is more or less a demon physically manifested into the form of a black bladed two handed sword. The sword, named Stormbringer, feeds on the souls of those that Elric kills giving Elric their lifeforce and energy. He becomes dependent on Stormbringer like a heroin addict to heroin, needing it and the souls of those that he kills just to function. So yeah like I said not exactly Sir Galahad here.
A very dark tale without being overly contrived. I'm surprised more of the black trenchcoat wearing goth/black metal/Marilyn Manson crowd of the younger generation hasn't caught on to the Elric stuff. I really enjoy Moorcocks Mulitiverse/Champion Eternal concept and would put those original Elric stories at the top of the Fantasy heap, second only to Robert E Howard and Tolkiens work. -
When I was a boy, I devoured Tolkien’s books and later Michael Moorcock’s work. Whereas Tolkien’s universe is a meticulous moral construct in which he renders good and evil in black and white, Michael Moorcock’s universe is grey and rife with antiheroes and indifferent gods. ‘The Elric Saga’ is the story of the albino emperor Elric and his sword Stormbringer, a demon in disguise who feeds upon the souls of its victims. This includes those closest to Elric, who loathes the sword but is helpless without the strength and vitality it gives him. Michael Moorcock’s prose may be pulp but his ideas are Shakespearian. The antiheroes he creates are tragic figures caught in a web of fate that even death won’t let them escape. Try imagining Tolkien having Frodo done in by the ring at the end of ‘The Return of the King’ and you’ll have some idea of what awaits you when you read ‘The Elric Saga.’
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You have no idea how much I wanted to love this book. The protagonist is an albino emperor who has no interest in his throne or the decadent, shallow lives of his people. He's also weak, relying upon drugs just to keep him standing. He ends up on quests in hopes of discovering what all the brooding his cold, black heart is about. I mean, a story made for me. But it was tough to get through. The world building is cool, Elric is amazing as a premise, but something really falls short in the execution. Things get formulaic fast. We are told Elric has a feeling or two here and there, but really, we have to take his word for it because he certainly doesn't let on. What is the good of a brooding character whose inner turmoil is something to which we are not privy at all?
The female characters are few, weak, and dispensable. I want so much to love this world of Chaos Gods and elementals and cursed swords that sing for blood, but, man, it reads so boring!
If I do read the second half of the saga, it will be in awhile because I just can't bring myself to go through that again right away. -
I attempted, but never made it through, this series as a kid, inspired its pantheon’s inclusion in the original Dungeons and Dragons Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia (the Melniboné mythos, along with H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos, were removed from subsequent printings - and my sister's ex-husband swiped my copy from a box in my parents' garage, the rat!). Now, mid-way through the first six books (the series has, over the last twenty years, grown to nine, er, eleven books – no wonder I’m series-phobic), and having read much more of Moorcock’s work, I better can appreciate melancholic Melnibonéan Monarch, his adventures, his inspirations (Anthony Skene’s Monsieur Zenith and the The Kalevala's Kullervo, and his integration into Moorcock’s overall Eternal Champion cosmology. Besides, it’s a fun, quick read, with lots of “hack and slash” action, memorable characters and monsters, and far fewer songs than Tolkien.
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Ahhhhh. The Anti Hero. I didn't know what that was until I read this as a teen. Elric was and is one of the greatest characters ever written. A drug dependent sickly albino who iz in love with his cousin who hates his own people. The owner of a daemonic soul swallowing sword that sustains him as he kills! Wow. One fucked up in the head guy. No wonder these story's were so influential on my early life. These story's inspired me as an artist, gamer, and musician. Enjoy all Moorcocks work. He is a very interesting person. He was in HAWKWIND with Lemmy and he played with BLUE OYSTER CULT. Rad!!!
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Really, this is just a review of Sailor on the Seas of Fate. I’d already read Elric of Melnibone before picking up this volume, and by the time I was done with Sailor, I had no desire to read The Weird of the White Wolf. Or, more accurately, by the time I was 20 pages into Sailor, I had no desire to read Weird.
As I said in my review of the first book, I really want to like Elric, but Moorcock doesn’t make it easy. And I don’t say that because Elric is some sort of anti-hero and I prefer a goody-two-shoes. Quite the opposite, in fact: I like characters with a mean streak. I’ve read things saying that Elric is supposed to be this awesome anti-hero, but I don’t get the anti-hero vibe at all from him. From Stormbringer, maybe, but definitely not from Elric.
I’m just gonna make this easier and go with some like/dislike lists.
Like
The action scenes. To be fair, I’m not sure if the action scenes are actually good, or if I just enjoyed them because they were the only time something actually happened in this book.
The imagery. For as horrible as his dialogue and storytelling are, Moorcock at least manages to create some visuals that’ll stick in your head. He’s good at describing settings, I’ll give him that.
Stormbringer. Is it sad that Stormbringer seems like the deepest character in this story, and it’s just a sword that hungers for souls? Ugh.
Elric’s potential. Elric could be awesome. A dude who’s physically weak but gains strength through his soul-sucking runesword? Yes, please! Unfortunately, there’s nothing particularly likeable about his character, and the awful dialogue makes him even harder to warm up to.
Elric’s pact with demons/spirits/gods/whatever. Elric’s ability to call on various lords offers some cool creative opportunities, like when he summoned the bug guy to bring a bunch of giant dragonflies down on his enemies. Nice.
Dislike
Elric’s pact with demons/spirits/gods/whatever. Yes, this point made both lists. While Elric’s pact offers some cool opportunities, it also acts as too much of an easy-out deus ex machina. Is Elric in a crappy situation? No problem. Just have him summon some god and everything will be fixed. Blurgh.
Oh, and why wouldn’t he just do this all the time, you ask? Well, that’s simple: because Moorcock will just conveniently limit Elric’s power anytime a reader thinks, “He should just summon a demon to get him out of this.” For example, Elric summoned the bug dude and the day was saved, but the next time he wanted to summon him, the bug dude was like, “Nope, already helped you once, not gonna do it.” It just seems like lazy writing. You can’t give your character ultimate power and then conveniently take it away anytime you decide you don’t want him to use it (only to bring it back later).
The dialogue. I can’t tell if it’s Moorcock that’s bad at dialogue, or if I just dislike this style. I mean, I definitely know that I dislike the style where people are saying “thou” and all that business, but I’m wondering if Moorcock’s is especially bad. I like my characters to sound like actual characters, not some goobers spewing crap that makes them seem more “epic” or something.
The names. Oh, lord, the names. “Elric” is fine. But the city of R’lin K’ren A’a? When I say that out loud, it sounds like I’m singing Irish folk music while choking on a chicken bone. “Nnuuurrrr’c’c” isn’t much better.
The general lack of substance. Sailor is split into three books. Each book has exactly one thing of significance that happens. So, over the course of Sailor, three things happen. And some of them don’t even have any bearing on what happens in the future. Why again did Elric, Erekose and those other guys band together to fight the living buildings? Oh, right. ‘Cause someone told them to. Mind you, their captain was never actually explained (or if he was, I wasn’t paying attention, which is entirely possible). He’s just some random guy who showed up, told Elric and the others what to do, and then they did it. WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE?
In the second book of Sailor, Elric and Smiorgan save some girl from some guy. I literally cannot even remember what happened to the girl. Did she die? Did they save her? Where did she go between books 2 and 3? I have no idea. But you know what? It apparently wasn’t that significant, as she was never mentioned in book 3 and hadn’t appeared in book 1. Her rescue was the main plot of book 2, and yet she appears nowhere else in Sailor. At least, I think her rescue was the main plot. I actually had to open the book just now to have even an idea of what had happened in book 2, because I completely forgot by the time I was done with book 3. That’s how insignificant she was.
I don’t even know what was going on in book 3. They went to some city from which Melniboneans had originally come, and there was some guy who was really old, and Elric decided to help the guy by pissing off his patron demon or whatever.
So, there are three things that happened in this book, and they were all pretty lackluster. And when we were building up to these three events, nothing interesting happened. And I don’t mean that I wanted to see more action. You don’t have to have action in a book to make it readable. But if you’re not going to have action, maybe you could have some—I don’t know—character development? I’ve read two Elric books, and all I know about him is that he’s physically weak, has a soul-sucking sword, and is motivated by . . . uh . . . a pursuit of knowledge, I guess?
Conclusion
Damn it, I wanted to like Elric. I really did. But the writing is just so terrible that I don’t think I can give another of his books a try. -
I took it into my head to reread a bit of Moorcock lately. The stories are fine, short and yummy.
And, oddly, not very dark at all, when you compare them to almost anything Neil Gaiman has written. Honestly, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is quite a bit more disturbing. Funny about that. In THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, one boy is at risk of being killed. In the Elric books, the hero lays waste to lives and souls, serving the evil lord of Chaos, Arioch. A couple of times, the existence of all Earth is up for grabs. But it's all a fun read. Nothing truly disturbing at all.
I guess part of it is that in Elric, you know who's evil and who's not. On television, it's not the level of carnage that makes something acceptable for network or restricted to pay cable. CRIMINAL MINDS has horrific torture porn, and it's on broadcast TV at 10 pm. What puts a show on cable is when you're not sure who's good and who's bad. It's the shades of gray. DEXTER is a serial killer, but we like him. That's disturbing. Take NEVERWHERE. Is the Marquis de Carabas a good man? Mmm, no, not really. Is Hunter?
Maybe that's why I read right through THE ELRIC SAGA BOOK ONE with great pleasure, and have no need whatsoever to pick up the next compilation. It doesn't leave me with anything. While Neil's stuff pops into my head at odd hours.
Not because Neil's trying to slip something by. It's all there, the gods, the fae, London Under. It's not an allegory. But it is a fairy story, in the Tolkien sense. It's a new myth. Or as Puck says in Sandman #19, "It never happened, but it's true!" -
A dark, lush, broodingly-beautiful fairytale of a book that is allegedly Moorcock’s anarchic answer to the religious and royalist myths of Tolkien, and the chauvinism, whether latent or blatant, of the Conan the Barbarian books and their numerous imitators. Elric is an unwilling adventurer, driven by kingship and cultural conditioning in an otherwise meaningless world. In a fantasy, such traits can be disconcerting, because they ask you to accept the challenges of the book’s hero as essentially absurd. This is as far from Spenserian allegory as it gets.
People tried to read Sauron as Hitler or Satan and even if Tolkien resolutely discouraged allegorical readings of his work, the moral order he sets up and works within is so secure that it renders a neat allegorical interpretation extremely tempting. Not so, the Elric books. There is some sense of radical—or perhaps merely existential—self-actualization running through the books, but even this is relatively unstable. The ride is all, the wheel of evil turning, grinding some to dust and liberating others to one more chance at discovering the truth of it all before oblivion consumes them. This is the intensely poetic, crepuscular world of the Elric sagas, whose absurdist odysseys are well worth the attention of any reader seeking—like Fox Mulder or Captain Ahab—to impose a habitable grid of truth on an increasingly chaotic and meaningless world. -
God is Elric a dummy. The first book, Elric of Melniboné, is a simple enough tale. Broad characters surround Elric, like his scheming cousin and his lady love. It's almost a rough draft prequel explaining how the albino prince got his soul-devouring black sword.
The two other books, Sailor on the Seas of Fate and Weird of the White Wolf aren't nearly so boring. They consist of short stories gathered as chapters as Elric travels the world, fighting alien sorcerers with other incarnations of himself culled from the time stream, finding lost cities, and defeating evil wizards. Sailor is better than Weird, as the tales flow better thematically.
Anyways, it's clear why Moorcock is so beloved. -
I get the whole anti-hero backlash thing Moorcock is going for here. Problem is, the story still falls flat. Paper-thin characters, nill character development, and disgustingly thin "coincidences" that move the story forward. Oh, and misogynistic to boot? This isn't worth the paper it was printed on.
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Moorecock is a classic, but I can't stand his prose. His hero is uninteresting and I don't like the constantly shifting setting. Fantasy? Sci-fi? He jumps around, and I don't find it engaging.
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Read originally in Jan. 2008
Re-read Oct. 2015
Elric of Melnibone - 4 stars
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate - 3 stars
The Weird of the White Wolf - 2 Stars -
Interesting for a quick read-through, but shallow and repetitive, with a big helping of all-the-women-throwing-themselves-at-the-protagonist syndrome.
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Very unique, it was a pleasant surprise how much I enjoyed this. These stories get in your head in an unusual way.
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You either love or hate Michael Moorcock. I love him.
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Review by the founder of Inkling Scrolls:
https://leonahenry.wordpress.com/2014... -
I was not ready for how good this collection of novels about Elric, 428th Emperor of Melniboné, was going to be. Michael Moorcock's Elric stories have been around for almost fifty years, but that sword-swinging albino still packs a punch.
The word that kept coming to mind was "original". While epic fantasy was one of my first loves, after you've read Tolkien everything else gets stale fast. Elric's quests are certainly epic, full of monsters and sorcery and sea battles, but each tale put a (usually tragic) spin on those standard fantasy tropes that have worn out their welcome. The Elric Saga Part I collects Moorcock's first three books about Elric.
Elric of Melniboné kicks things off with a unique twist. This is no origin story about a brave farm boy who becomes a hero. Elric is already Emperor of the island of Melniboné, already sitting on its Ruby Throne. Melniboneans are different from humans, not so much in appearance as internally. They have a natural skill for magic, but they are also vain and cruel. They predate humans, and see the "New Kingdoms" of Man on the mainland as an annoyance. You have a small nation of beings that act only in their own self-interest, and then, accidentally, Elric, their frail albino ruler, gets interested in morality. Its not like Elric has a conscience. He is Melnibonean after all. It is more like he reads about this whole "compassion" concept and wonders what that would be like. He knows his country is rotting from the inside, and after putting down an insurrection by his cousin Yyrkoon and gaining the soul-craving demon sword Stormbringer, Elric heads out into the wide world of Man to learn what he can learn.
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate recounts three seperate adventures. In the first, Elric learns that he is an incarnation of the Eternal Champion, a version of a warrior that exists in each reality of the Multiverse and fights to maintain the Balance between Law and Chaos. He teams up with three other versions of himself named Corum, Hawkmoon, and Erekosë to battle two buildings which are actually living creatures that want to destroy the Multiverse (which is way cooler than it sounds). In the next story, Elric does battle with a sorcerer from Melniboné's past and meets his temporary sidekick, Smiorgan Baldhead of the Purple Towns. The last quest has Elric hunting for the origins of the Melnibonean people in a dangerous jungle past the Boiling Sea.
The Weird of the White Wolf contains three Elric stories and one tale of Aubec, Earl of Malador, one of Elric's ancestors from the ancient past. In this book, Elric returns to Melniboné, finds his cousin has once again staged a coup, and burns the Dreaming City of Imryrr to the ground. While escaping, he totally leaves his buddy Smiorgan Baldhead to die without a second thought. The next story has him team up with a new partner, Moonglum of Elwher, on a quest for a grimoire of the Old Gods. The final story has Elric run afoul of the Pan Tang sorcerer, Theleb K'aarna, and ends with Elric and Moonglum in hot pursuit and craving vengeance.
Elric epitomizes the term "antihero". He is a cold-blooded warrior with no real attachment to anyone. He regularly summons demons and Arioch, Duke of Hell, whenever he gets into a bind. He is addicted to his sword, Stormbringer. It gives his weak body unnatural strength, but only when it has spilled blood and taken souls. If the demons don't help, Elric tends to kill anyone who is around, friend of foe, so that he has enough power to complete the task at hand. And I rooted for this guy the whole way through. I look forward to more journeys with the Last Emperor of Melniboné.
