Elric of Melniboné

[Anonymous No.15627137]

What is the consensus here on Micheal Moorcock and his work? And what do you consider his best set of books or characters?

[Anonymous No.15627228]

>>15627137
Am also curious about this, bump.

[Anonymous No.15627317]

Love the Elric series, Gothic and dark. Very simple writing style and straight storytelling perfect if you just wanna relax. Usually goes scenery, battle, tragic ending and there's some bigger arc too. The themes in the books, being a sickly outsider, chaos vs order, the cursed black rune blade resonate through time and are classic fantasy tropes now.
Definitely recommended, fun read just don't expect some complicated heavy literature. It's one guy with a sword, linear progression.

[Anonymous No.15627549]

>>15627228
Eh, I’ll bump as well.

[Anonymous No.15627771]

>>15627137
His stuff is better suited to comic books, which is why the comic book adaptations of his books are more enjoyable than his books. That said, his universe is interesting and worth checking out; I just recommend the comic books over the books themselves, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.15628032]

>>15627137
I read one of the books that had the first 3 Elric stories in it. I really liked it. I like how magic works in that universe, don't know if it's low or high magic but it mostly relies on power from other supernatural beings rather than cast le fireball.

I'd like to read more Elric stories, he's a really interesting character. Genociding his own race is pretty cool. Losing his hot cousin gf is good tragedy. I liked the motivation that romance had in that series more than I usually do.

[Anonymous No.15628309]

>>15627137
I like his work, that’s basically all I have to say here.

[Anonymous No.15628563]

The first book is the only one I enjoyed. The setting is pretty cool, Elric feels a true antihero but the series I read (the seven book series) quickly lost the novelty.
His pathos is turned into a long running joke, the stories develop into the same formulas, different settings, new characters, many forgettable thots, the same writing and dialogue. There were a few interesting parts, like when he gets the sword, the trip to hell and that chapter about the Eternal hero, but it's so pulpy I never felt like reading anything else by Moorcock.
Perhaps I should have spaced my reading a bit more. It's what I'm doing with the Dying Earth.

[Anonymous No.15628702]

>>15628563
let's hear about the Dying Earth. Better stuff than Elric, although Moorcock is not bad.

[Anonymous No.15628709]

>>15627137
Its fans love Moorcock, that's all I know

[Anonymous No.15628759]

is this like the Conan canon in the sense that there's no definitive reading order? i've been meaning to check it out, but have no idea where to start

[Anonymous No.15628967]

Elric is best witcher

[Anonymous No.15630283]

>>15627137
I dropped the book when Elric summoned the sea spirits with their land-boat. That was just too much for me.

[Anonymous No.15630532]

>>15628967
Heh.

[Anonymous No.15630551]

>>15627137
Great ideas and evocative world details. Fast, sloppy writing and uneven quality. Good "new SF" pulp that eventually creates a huge story-cycle structure. A bit like Fritz Lieber, but with more pathos and less humour. As he shifts from a writer of short stories for pulp mags and becomes a writer of big novels, they get less satisfying but more complex.

[Anonymous No.15630569]

>>15630283
Why would that be "too much" when you're reading high fantasy set in a magic-heavy world?
P. Craig Russell did some great comic adaptations (and some lesser artists did some that range from tolerable to terrible).

[Anonymous No.15630590]

>>15628759
You could read some of the early stuff out of order, but beyond that, it's definitely best to do them in order from Elric as king to the end of the universe. Reading lists abound online.

[Anonymous No.15630610]

>>15628759
Ignore the publication order (it's a mess), and read them like this (other stories not noted here can be read whenever):
Book 1: Elric of Melnibone (1972)
Book 2: The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)
Book 3: The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976)
Book 4: The Weird of the White Wolf (1961)
Book 5: The Sleeping Sorceress (1970)
Book 6: The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
Book 7: The Bane of the Black Sword (1962)
Book 8: Stormbringer (1963)

[Anonymous No.15630623]

>>15628563
>His pathos is turned into a long running joke
I agree, it just becomes ridiculous, especially with classic lines like:

"I should admit that I scream in my sleep sometimes and am often tortured by incommunicable self-loathing."

Good ideas with bad execution: that sums up Moorcock's work.

[Anonymous No.15630745]

>>15630623
Elric is so emo he can't really be parodied. There's a reason all the teen D&D virgin nerds (longing for a hot woman to come into their moody self-indulgence and pull them off to adventure and sex) love him.

[Anonymous No.15631868]

>>15630551
Those are some nice ass spines.

[Anonymous No.15632233]

>>15631868
It's the best "just Elric" collection lately. The full Eternal Champion series are out of print now and I didn't have the cash for them.

[Anonymous No.15632255]

>>15627137
never read it but he seems like a mary sue

[Anonymous No.15632302]

>>15627137
He's an obnoxious faggot and dimwit too dumb to understand Winnie the Pooh.

[Anonymous No.15632670]

>>15632255
Christ, no. He's a sickly, indecisive, moody, amoral, drug-taking bloodthirsty self-loathing killer. He's the greatest fantasy anti-hero.

[Anonymous No.15632740]

>>15630569
That's the moment I learned it was 'high fantasy', and that's the reason I put it down. The writing was fine up until that point, but I prefer lower magic settings.

[Anonymous No.15633446]

>>15632740
Ah, I see. Yes, Moorcock was quite high indeed.

[Anonymous No.15633671]

>>15627137
Michael Moorcock is probably the best popular writer of the 20th Century. The Elric series needs to be understood as a reaction against the shallow fantasy lit of its time. But Moorcock is not at his best in his early period of reaction despite the value of The Prince with the Silver Hand and the other 'Eternal Champion' novels. His better works, as so often is the case, are his lesser known books. The Colonel Pyat novels starting with Byzantium Endures is phenomenal, his novel Mother London was also widely praised. The City in the Autumn Stars is a fantastic alchemical novel. Gloriana is a profound post-Shakespearean accomplishment. For my money 'Blood, A Southern Fantasy' is his highest accomplishment.

[Anonymous No.15634532]

>>15633446
Moorcock is quite the high lad.

[Anonymous No.15634933]

I was really into his work when I was a teenager, I've read everything by him. Gloriana is by far his best work. The first Corum trilogy and several of the Elric books are fun though.

[Anonymous No.15635585]

>>15632302
Sometimes you gotta separate the art from the artist.

[Anonymous No.15636035]

>>15633446
Do you know who's the illustrator? Some of those covers look gorgeous. The bottom right reminds me a little of the Japanese cover for TBoNS.

[Anonymous No.15636229]

>>15627137
I only read the first book, but I found that it was too short. Lack of brevity is certainly a problem with fantasy nowadays, but for this it was too much. Elric goes from being king, nearly drowned in the ocean to being a demonic summoner in the space of four or five chapters. It definitely had a good story and excellent ideas, but I felt like Moorcock didn't expand on them well enough.

[Anonymous No.15636535]

Moorcock changed fantasy forever with Elric and is a big reason why Zelazny wrote
The Chronicles of Amber, so yeah, can't help not to love it.

[Anonymous No.15636542]

>>15636229
His work from the 60s was rough and not as good as what's to come, but I'd say that you should still read the series in its entirety because it gets better and the pay off in Stormbringer is so fucking worth it.

[Anonymous No.15636588]

>>15636542
Hm, alright. I'll give it a second go anon.

[Anonymous No.15636591]

>>15636035
Yoshitaka Amano. I'd recognise that distinctive artstyle anywhere. He's a great artist.

[Anonymous No.15636746]

>>15627771
Not unfortunate, Moorcock agrees

[Anonymous No.15636827]

>>15627137
I like Elric but the prose is nothing special. Worth a read but it's not high literature or anything.

[Anonymous No.15637118]

>>15633671
Having enjoyed Mother London and Gloriana, I will take the rest of your suggestions seriously. Thanks, anon.

[Anonymous No.15637393]

>>15632302
>Epic Pooh
Ahahha! How could I forget?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Pooh

[Anonymous No.15638657]

>>15637393
Huh, well that’s interesting.

[Anonymous No.15638690]

>>15627137
Remember reading the Corum books when i was a young teenager. The universe somewhat upset me, well, the chaos gods did, which I can't really say about any other fantasy I've read at that time.

It does something different and does it well. The eternal champion bs is however just too damn heavy, and for that alone I could never go back to it.

[Anonymous No.15638693]

He used to be based, but he got old and cucked, so that he rewrote the ending of at least one book because Andrea Dworkin told him too. After that he was careful not to offend the SJWs. Cringe.

[Anonymous No.15639431]

>>15635585
>art
Lmao.

[Anonymous No.15641163]

>>15639431
Yup.

[Anonymous No.15641919]

>>15636591
Thanks for the info.

[Anonymous No.15642374]

>>15637118

[Anonymous No.15642417]

>>15627137
that's the one. fuck. i feel like a chump whenever i see this piece from brom.

when i first started writing fantasy i came across this artwork and based a character off it. he wasn't an albino or anything but he had pale skin and pale hair. back then i would use various galleries on geocitees or from searching altavista (any one remember the altavista search engine?) and then make portrait pics for BG1 and 2 and play around with them for a week or so to come up with the kind of character they were to become in the writing. put so much time into that character only to eventually learn it was already a well established IP.

because of that i vowed never to read any elric media.

years later and i still shake my head whenever i see that fucking pic.