Moorcock: Three Reviews
«THE WHITE WOLF'S SON»
«WIZARDRY & WILD ROMANCE»
«NEW WORLDS: AN ANTHOLOGY»
THE WHITE WOLF'S SON
Michael Moorcock. Warner, $24.95
352p. ISBN: 0-446-57702-02 (June 13, 2005)
Although acquainted with the Eternal Champion, my initial introduction to
Moorcock was through books like AN ALIEN HEAT, THE HOLLOW LANDS, and THE END OF
ALL SONGS, as well as GLORIANA and, later on, MOTHER LONDON. Eventually I caught
up somewhat with Elric and Jerry Cornelius then flirted a bit with Pyat. I
approached THE WHITE WOLF'S SON with some trepidation fearing I would be lost.
Instead, I found answers to question I did not know I had. Readers previously
unfamiliar (or somewhat baffled) with the "multiverse" created by Moorcock get a
metaphysical short course; those already knowledgeable are exceedingly well
served.
The complex plot begins when a menacing stranger appears
near twelve-year-old Oonagh von Bek's family manse in Yorkshire. She quickly
finds herself providing hospitality for a band of oddly familiar and strangely
heroic men. Before much more can happen, the earth tilts under Oonagh's feet and
she finds herself in the World Below. A handsome foxy gentleman, Lord Reynard,
befriends her, but with the villainous Gaynor the Damned and Klosterheim after
her, she soon needs more protection. The bad guys want to destroy the universe
in order to "remake it in their own image" and think Oonagh is part of the key
to their success. Elric of Melniboné plays a major role as does Oona, the
Dreamthief's daughter (and Oonagh's grandmother). Many Temporal Knights and
avatars of the Eternal Champion appear as the adventure spans the multiverse and
several versions of Mirenburg to reach its climax in the Dark Empire of
Granbretan. Although told from the viewpoint of young Oonagh, it is filtered
through her later adult perspective.
Moorcock breaks "novel-writing rules" with glee in THE WHITE WOLF'S SON
and it only enhances the story rather than detracting from it. Multiversal
character Una Persson, for instance, stops the action entirely when she drops in
to deliver a great deal about Elric's Dream of a Thousand Years to a character
who much resembles the author. The breakneck adventure is also interspersed with
considerable philosophizing, but the pace never lags. There are far too many
characters, but the reader never loses focus. Moorcock makes it all work and
astounds with a grand finale the serves as both beginning and conclusion to an
epic fantasy saga that will really never end.
WIZARDRY & WILD ROMANCE
Michael Moorcock. Monkeybrain, $18.95
206p. ISBN: 1-932265-07-4 (November 2004)
Anyone seriously interested in fantasy of any sort should, of course, read this
updated collection of Moorcockian criticism. Writers, scholars, and reviewers
cannot be considered even minimally informed unless they've digested it. If
there is such a thing as an Ur-document of non-Tolkienesque fantasy it is his
essay "Epic Pooh," but that's not all this compilation presents. "Origins"
offers a succinct but sweeping look at the foundations of fantasy. "The Exotic
Landscape" brilliantly enunciates the importance of the connection between
character, setting, and imagery in fantasy. Evolution of fantastic "Heroes and
Heroines" is included as well as an appreciation of the comedic in "Wit and
Humor." Fantasy is essentially a Second Romantic revival, we are told in
"Excursions and Developments", and its commercialization and influence are
summarized. (Moorcock does not muse on the consequences of the current trend in
commercial publication that strips publishers of their power and cedes it to
marketers. But who does?)
The addition of a number of recent reviews further updates and extends his
views. Moorcock's opinions demand thought and often provoke reaction, but even
at his most devastating, they are supported not only with intelligence and
knowledge, but blessed with wit and conveyed with style. Those who disagree with
him seldom equal his erudition and ease of understanding. Decked in a wonderful
John Picacio cover, enthusiastically introduced by China Mie&eacville, and
primly (if no less positively) afterworded by Jeff VanderMeer, this Monkeybrain
Books edition should be in every library in the English-speaking world (and many
outside it) as well as in your own personal collection.
NEW WORLDS: AN ANTHOLOGY
Edited by Michael Moorcock. Thunder's Mouth, $18.95
386p. ISBN: 1-56858-317-6 (November 2004)
NEW WORLDS: AN ANTHOLOGY was first published in the UK in 1983, but this is the
first US edition. Intended not a "best of" but as a "sampling" of typical
material, the earliest of the 21 stories, eight articles, and single poem dates
from 1964 and the latest from 1977. More than a third of the total dates from
1967 and 1968, pivotal years of chaos and exuberance that rocked the world.
"New Worlds" was a British magazine (then an anthology
series) that became identified as the nexus of science fiction's "new wave"
during the 1960s and 1970s. The new wave's most revolutionary accomplishment
was, perhaps ironically, to reintegrate science fiction with literature as a
whole. What the "New Worlds" writers accomplished, as editor Michael Moorcock
puts it in this edition's new introduction, was a unification of the
once-separate worlds of the generic and general. "[T]hose worlds," he writes,
"are no longer incompatible and are, indeed, now, generally, indistinguishable."
In fact, read today and taken as a whole, much of this fiction sometimes
seems bland. It's a little too much like modern mainstream fiction in which
nothing very interesting takes place. Other stories are of historical interest
but no longer carry their original impact. When "Running Down" was first
written, for example, M. John Harrison's eloquent prose was probably
breathtaking. Now, it stands only as the original pattern for the more brilliant
work that came after. "The Eye of the Lens by Langdon Jones" was wildly
experimental in its day. It seems a bit tedious now. Norman Spinrad's druggy "No
Direction Home" was once impressively original, but it has not worn well. Pamela
Zoline's "The Heat Death of the Universe," still delivers its message with its
juxtaposition of entropy and housewifery, but is now classic rather than au
courant.
Ballard's "The Assassination Weapon" is a landmark piece that has
retained its impact, but, as part of THE ATROCITY EXHIBIT is now iconic. And how
do you now respond to a story like "Angouleme" by Thomas S. Disch? On one hand,
the story of well-to-do child-murderer wannabes reads more like fact than
fiction now. On the other, if you've read Samuel R Delany's "The American Shore:
Meditations on a tale of science fiction by Thomas M. Disch-Angouleme" then you
are overly aware of the story.
Any magazine or anthology is, ultimately, judged and remembered by the
best and most memorable of its material. We may read scores of stories in the
issues of magazine "X," but we will fondly recall what a great rag it was by the
singular stories that stand out -- not the overall content or even a fair
sample. "New Worlds" published stories like "Time Considered as a Helix of
Semi-Precious Stones" by Samuel Delany, "A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison" by
Harlan Ellison, JG Ballard's "Billennium", and Zelazny's "The Keys to December",
and much more. This re-issue is historically interesting; perhaps a "best of New
Worlds" is also called for.
The eight nonfiction pieces included were, for me, of particular
interest. Daphne Castell in 1964 on "The Realms of Tolkien" based around an
interview with the writer before he became an adjective; an incisive John Clute
on James Blish; JG Ballard on MEIN KAMPF; John Sladek railing against von
Daninken's CHARIOTS OF THE GODS in 1969. M. John Harrison rants about the (then
recent) regrettable triumph of fantasy over reality, a topic he now rants about
with more clarity. James Colvin provides a lesson for all of us pubic
opinionizers in "A Literature of Acceptance," a gem of well-written opinion
that, in retrospect, proves rather mis-guided in spots. ("Zelazny's LORD OF
LIGHT is self-indulgent, infantile, self-conscious derivative, escapist
fantasy...is pretty near unreadable...altogether a very embarrassing book
indeed.") Christopher Finch writes on Eduardo Paolozzi's art 20 years before he
became Sir Eduardo and David Harvey addresses "The Languages of Science." It
leaves one to wonder where equivalent material is being consistently published
today.