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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Michael Moorcock

03:26 / 19.04.02

M. Moorcock: Is he a good writer??

08:32 / 19.04.02

Depends really .. he's certainly pretty talented, but he has written something like 100 books. Most of them are shlock, a few of them are absolute genius..

see here (assuming my html works):

an old Jerry Cornelius thread

09:44 / 19.04.02

Depends on what you mean by good. He's slightly entertaining, but he writes the same story over and over and over, changing only the characters, setting, major magical doo-dad, and hero's flaw. If you've read one of his "sagas" then you've read everything he's ever written. Note, I've oversimplified things a bit, but that's basically the deal with Moorcock. Decent writer, but needs to get more material.

11:11 / 19.04.02

Personally, I think he's wicked. I always enjoy his books, especially any of the Elric of Melniboné books, but at the same time I haven't read enough of his stuff to get bored. I read the Dreamthief's Daughter, his latest, a few weeks ago and enjoyed it immensely.

11:45 / 19.04.02

For me, invigorating but also quite confusing- the kind of thing you just need to let wash over you without getting too worried by the constant shifts of storyline and scenery- the Cornelius books have the characters constantly slipping through a range of alternative timestreams. But the freedom of it and all the kind of early 70s grooviness is part of the appeal. And there's not many writers doing stuff about time-travelling lesbian assassins. I've only read a couple of them, mind.
Haven't read the more fantasy-oriented stuff, but it comes highly recommended. My ex-flatmate left a whole stack of these absolute doorstop-sized tomes on my shelves, which all look completely mind-bending. You often see Gloriana on the shelves in occult-ish bookshops too, alongside things like Philip K Dick and Burroughs - so I suppose it has that fringey, genre-transcending appeal.

11:51 / 19.04.02

As Rizla mentions, he's written loads of quite pulp-y books, and it seems likely he knocked a few of them off pretty quickly to pay the rent or something.

12:47 / 19.04.02

he wrote an essay against the evils of *whimsy* for interzone yonks ago, and i love him for it. also presented a programme on 'positive or neu punk' way back and his attitude was top notch. read two of his books - loved one, didn't like the other.

15:31 / 19.04.02

Good timing with the thread. I read my first Moorcock novel (well, more of a novella) yesterday - Behold The Man. It has it's failings - the main character is, for the majority of the story, a self-interested little prick and as soon as you find out that it's about a young man going back in time to witness the crucifixion of Christ you know how it's going to end - but it's still entertaining enough.

How does it compare to his other work?

16:29 / 19.04.02

Behold the Man sounds like everything else he's written. Every main character seems to be a self-interested prick. Elric? Self-interested prick with a substance abuse problem. Corum? Self-interested prick missing an eye and hand who thinks he's better than everybody else. Hawkmoon? Has a jewel shoved in his forehead. Still a prick.

I guess Moorcock is a big proponent of the adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

16:30 / 19.04.02

I find myself having to agree with Trijhaos in that once you've read one Moorcock, you've pretty much seen what all his work has to offer. That said, I suspect Mr Moorcock is well aware that he's found his strength in one particular style and so has no problem with using it for every book.

16:38 / 19.04.02

I read all the Jerry Cornelius I could find a few years back after reading the 'Entropy in the UK' series in The Invisibles. I found a quartet of books, a collected series of short stories, and a book called the Opium General, that had "the final Jerry Cornelius" story in it. Did I miss any? Please let me know if there are more out there.

Loved them and then read something I think was called 'The Warlord of Time', which was a fun trilogy of this 19th century British officer that kept moving from alternate reality to alternate reality.
Top notch fun there. Ghandi frees South Africa, Stalin is a cossack warlord, and the USA is overrun by an African army set on freeing the slaves.

The last ones I read were the 'Dancers at the End of Time' which stars another J.C. reincarnation. Mad immortal people with unlimited power having fun, until JC falls in love with a 19th century woman from Bromsley, Kent.

Never read the fantasy books, and don't plan on it. If I remember I'm going to try and find Mother London soon, as I heard it's ace.

16:40 / 19.04.02

Maybe it's because I'm myself a self-interested little prick, but I found most of his serious books well-worth reading.

I would highly recommend:
Behold the Man (as mentioned, great if you have a messiah complex)
An Alien Heat (bored gods at the end of universe)
Final Programme (super cool secret agent, bisexuality, incest, the hollow earth)
Byzantium Endures (nutty realism)

17:23 / 19.04.02

I really dug the 'Dancers at the End of Time' series. Bored decadent gods at the twilight of existance.

He does write the same story over and over again, but if you read enough, you find that he knows it too, and even explains it in a meta-multiverse way. All his stories are in the same multiverse, and the repeated stories are different incarnations of the same characters. I like when he goes into that aspect. Though if you've read one Eternal Champian series, really you've read them all. Elric is a good run, I enjoyed the hell out of it when I was an agnsty teen.

17:31 / 19.04.02

Has anybody here read Blood: A Southern Fantasy? I can't really find much information on it. I know its supposed to fit into his little multiverse thing, but I'm not sure how. All I can find about it are reviews that either consider it the greatest thing since sliced bread or utter crap.

20:53 / 19.04.02

I read about half of it, then got bored.

I much preferred his recent books _Mother London_ and _King of the City_. Very densely written and full of enjoyable fun, at least until they go wildly off the rails.

Also, stop by the Fantastic Metropolis site, which has a number of recent MM stories. http://www.sfsite.com/fm

16:36 / 20.04.02

As Rizla mentions, he's written loads of quite pulp-y books, and it seems likely he knocked a few of them off pretty quickly to pay the rent or something.

legend has it he spent most of the 60s on uppers, banging out about one a week or something..

I read all the Jerry Cornelius I could find a few years back after reading the 'Entropy in the UK' series in The Invisibles. I found a quartet of books, a collected series of short stories, and a book called the Opium General, that had "the final Jerry Cornelius" story in it. Did I miss any? Please let me know if there are more out there.

Well there's 'The Adventures of Una Persson & Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century', which is absolutely terrific.

20:17 / 20.04.02

Well there's 'The Adventures of Una Persson & Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century', which is absolutely terrific.

I looked for that one for awhile. Thanks for the reminder to start again. Unlike PKD and others, it seems Michael Moorecock books are quite easy to come by second hand. Most used books stores seem to have a shelf or more of his books.

22:09 / 20.04.02

Think I foudn that in a book collected as A Cornelius Calendar; it comes in the same line as the Cornelius Quartet, and collects the second pile of four books. And was pretty interesting, if a little uninvigorating. Post-Invisibles (for me), it might be more interesting).

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:10 / 21.04.02

I've read three of those 'Eternal Champion' collections now, just finished 'Hawkmoon', and i don't know if I can be bothered to read any more. I think it's the introduction to the first set where Moorcock says something along the lines of 'the stories in this collection are a load of shit which i wrote very quickly', good sell there Mikey.

Maybe I'll try some of these non-Champ books of his.

21:34 / 22.04.02

Does anyone have a copy of a Jerry Cornelius handy? I was in Ladbrooke Grove wandering around on Sunday, trying to remember what number JC lived at. Couldnt' for the life of me remember.

14:21 / 23.04.02

He lives opposite a convent. The name of which i don't remember, but I'd kind of doubt there's more than one in Ladbroke Grove..

Another Cornelius related book I forgot to mention -

"The Entropy Tango - a novel of Jerry Cornelius amongst others"

I think it was written in the 80s .. I've got a 2nd hand copy which I haven't read yet .. it's got some great cartoon illustrations of the characters in it..