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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Elric of Melnibone is an interesting book, I’ve never really read anything quite like it. The book is short, only about 140 pages and is perhaps one of the most fast paced books I’ve ever read in adult fiction.
The story is pretty good but the clip that it is told at is unlike anything else I’ve read. Honestly I loved the pace it was exciting throughout and was a quick read that also felt epic at the same time without the girth of most fantasy epics.
The world that Moorcock created seems vast and by design so much of it is left unexplored because you are left wanting to read future stories and to see the growth and expansion of the world around Elric.
Elric’s conflicted sense of self identity as an emperor who comes from a savage yet cultured race makes him intriguing. His humanity is viewed as insanity compared to the rest of his race. The book is short, sweet and strong, I look forward to reading more.
The story is pretty good but the clip that it is told at is unlike anything else I’ve read. Honestly I loved the pace it was exciting throughout and was a quick read that also felt epic at the same time without the girth of most fantasy epics.
The world that Moorcock created seems vast and by design so much of it is left unexplored because you are left wanting to read future stories and to see the growth and expansion of the world around Elric.
Elric’s conflicted sense of self identity as an emperor who comes from a savage yet cultured race makes him intriguing. His humanity is viewed as insanity compared to the rest of his race. The book is short, sweet and strong, I look forward to reading more.
Michael Moorcock wrote his first short story featuring Elric of Melniboné in 1962; from then to this (1972), he wrote a total of thirteen, mostly published in Science Fantasy Magazine. Those stories began in media res, and this novel is both the first full novel to feature Elric, and his origin story. Moorcock seems to change his mind about the “correct” reading order every few years (e.g. publication order or internal chronology), and a cynic might suggest that this allows him to periodically republish everything in a new, “official” form that his loyal fans must buy to “experience the stories as the author intended.” This is often named as the place to start (in this reprinting it's called Book One, as you see), but I'm not sure it is.
In the decayed and decadent land of Melniboné, once a world-spanning empire, now greatly reduced (in his Hawkmoon novels, the evil empire is named “Granbretan”; Moorcock is slightly more subtle here), the people are “cruel and clever and to them ‘morality’ means little more than a proper respect for the traditions of a hundred centuries.” Musical performances, for example, are done by torturing slaves who have been surgically altered to only produce one note; all that kind of thing. But their most recent emperor, Elric, reads philosophy, and questions the point of all of this. Not enough to do much of anything, as far as I can determine (there's a very uncomfortable scene where he watches some people being tortured--'With a poorly disguised yawn he leaned back and watched as Doctor Jest ran fingers and scalpel, tongue, tongs and pincers over the bodies'—while waffling about how it seems a shame, but really, they brought it in themselves, and anyway, what can he do?) but enough to bring him into conflict with his traditionalist cousin, who wants the throne for himself.
The result is an extremely metal D&D adventure. That's not an insult really—it's all very fun—but given the constant republications with fawning introductions that treat these stories with a reverence that most people might reserve for religious texts, I guess I was a little let down. Maybe it's because, by setting itself up as a prologue, this book fails to have a lot of the stuff you might expect to find in an Elric novel—it really is very conventional high fantasy, in spite of its heavy metal setting, and it irritates me that it constantly winks at the reader and tries to gain credit for stuff that doesn't actually happen in this novel. That is, for example, when Elric gains the cursed sword Stormbringer, with which he will kill numerous friends and loved ones, he appears to get it under control. We, the reader, are supposed to be reading those passages through the lens of dramatic irony, because we know from other stories how little control he has, but what actually happens, in this novel, is that he does get Stormbringer under control, and nobody dies, and nudging us and going “I bet bad things are going to happen in the future, though!” feels like a poor substitute for showing us bad things happening. This is why I suggest that, internal chronology aside, this is not a good starting point—as a conventional, D&D style adventure, it's perfectly fun, but for any emotional impact beyond that, it needs its readers to be already bought into Elric and his tragedy.
In the decayed and decadent land of Melniboné, once a world-spanning empire, now greatly reduced (in his Hawkmoon novels, the evil empire is named “Granbretan”; Moorcock is slightly more subtle here), the people are “cruel and clever and to them ‘morality’ means little more than a proper respect for the traditions of a hundred centuries.” Musical performances, for example, are done by torturing slaves who have been surgically altered to only produce one note; all that kind of thing. But their most recent emperor, Elric, reads philosophy, and questions the point of all of this. Not enough to do much of anything, as far as I can determine (there's a very uncomfortable scene where he watches some people being tortured--'With a poorly disguised yawn he leaned back and watched as Doctor Jest ran fingers and scalpel, tongue, tongs and pincers over the bodies'—while waffling about how it seems a shame, but really, they brought it in themselves, and anyway, what can he do?) but enough to bring him into conflict with his traditionalist cousin, who wants the throne for himself.
The result is an extremely metal D&D adventure. That's not an insult really—it's all very fun—but given the constant republications with fawning introductions that treat these stories with a reverence that most people might reserve for religious texts, I guess I was a little let down. Maybe it's because, by setting itself up as a prologue, this book fails to have a lot of the stuff you might expect to find in an Elric novel—it really is very conventional high fantasy, in spite of its heavy metal setting, and it irritates me that it constantly winks at the reader and tries to gain credit for stuff that doesn't actually happen in this novel. That is, for example, when Elric gains the cursed sword Stormbringer, with which he will kill numerous friends and loved ones, he appears to get it under control. We, the reader, are supposed to be reading those passages through the lens of dramatic irony, because we know from other stories how little control he has, but what actually happens, in this novel, is that he does get Stormbringer under control, and nobody dies, and nudging us and going “I bet bad things are going to happen in the future, though!” feels like a poor substitute for showing us bad things happening. This is why I suggest that, internal chronology aside, this is not a good starting point—as a conventional, D&D style adventure, it's perfectly fun, but for any emotional impact beyond that, it needs its readers to be already bought into Elric and his tragedy.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Oh boy I just fell in love with this. I WANT to say I loved this book because of the flawed protagonist and the deep, intelligent exploration of morality in extreme social power structures... and that is all so brilliantly done, but I think what I really connected to was the absolutely irresistible setting. This world feels unlike anything I've read before (and I've read a lot of fantasy bollocks). A dangerous fairytale wonderland. At once dark fantasy and bright fantasy. Painted on canvas by a master of impasto with bright, vivid strokes of colour. It just feels otherworldly in all the right ways, but this is grounded by the strong focus on the humanity of these fictional people. I'm never completely comfortable with these characters, I can never bring myself to fully agree with their actions or their points of view... and I love that.
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Sword-and-Sorcery Deep Dive Pt. 2 !
Reading Elric is like reading the source material for all modern fantasy, and it’s just really good. It feels familiar, like you’ve read this kind of story before, a million times, but it’s also maybe better than all the stuff that came after it, certainly not worse. There’s, like, nothing wrong with it. It’s just all-around solid. Nothing cringey happened. Nothing really felt problematic (though as a famously male fantasy reader I’m open to being corrected here). The world was fascinating and mysterious and kind of terrifying.
Of the Holy Trinity of S&S (Howard the Father, Moorcock the Son, Leiber the Holy Ghost), I think Moorcock may be the one I would like to spend the most time with.
Fun aside, I think Elric’s sword Stormbringer is maybe the first of a long line of sentient vampiric swords throughout fantasy, a trope I’ve always been a big fan of. Think Charon’s Claw (DnD), Nightblood (Cosmere), maybe Frostmourne (Warcraft). Moorcock’s other influences on fantasy as a whole are numerous from what I understand.
Highly recommend !
Reading Elric is like reading the source material for all modern fantasy, and it’s just really good. It feels familiar, like you’ve read this kind of story before, a million times, but it’s also maybe better than all the stuff that came after it, certainly not worse. There’s, like, nothing wrong with it. It’s just all-around solid. Nothing cringey happened. Nothing really felt problematic (though as a famously male fantasy reader I’m open to being corrected here). The world was fascinating and mysterious and kind of terrifying.
Of the Holy Trinity of S&S (Howard the Father, Moorcock the Son, Leiber the Holy Ghost), I think Moorcock may be the one I would like to spend the most time with.
Fun aside, I think Elric’s sword Stormbringer is maybe the first of a long line of sentient vampiric swords throughout fantasy, a trope I’ve always been a big fan of. Think Charon’s Claw (DnD), Nightblood (Cosmere), maybe Frostmourne (Warcraft). Moorcock’s other influences on fantasy as a whole are numerous from what I understand.
Highly recommend !
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a lovely surprise. An instant comfort read for me. Plotting leaves alot to be desired, character work is utilitarian, but Moorcock's imagination is unmatched. Can't wait to dive into more!
This was such a romp. Kind of uneven in the middle but when the weird of the worldbuilding hit, it HIT.
Elric as a character is extremely intriguing to me, and the course he has been set upon for his character arc in this book seems fascinating to me. Corruption arcs are awesome and I can't wait to see where his goes.
The other characters are... there? They serve their respective tropes and roles well enough for me to ignore their lack of development.
The plot is simple, but since this feels very much like a set up book for further entries I can forgive it. There are a lot of players introduced who are definitely coming back later so excited for that! I love stories about immortals meddling with humans where their endgame is indefinable for mortal minds and this scratched that itch well.
Also the worldbuilding. Goddamn. I love this weird, weird world with nightmares at every corner.
If this is what peak pulp fantasy is, I cannot wait to dive deeper into the genre.
Elric as a character is extremely intriguing to me, and the course he has been set upon for his character arc in this book seems fascinating to me. Corruption arcs are awesome and I can't wait to see where his goes.
The other characters are... there? They serve their respective tropes and roles well enough for me to ignore their lack of development.
The plot is simple, but since this feels very much like a set up book for further entries I can forgive it. There are a lot of players introduced who are definitely coming back later so excited for that! I love stories about immortals meddling with humans where their endgame is indefinable for mortal minds and this scratched that itch well.
Also the worldbuilding. Goddamn. I love this weird, weird world with nightmares at every corner.
If this is what peak pulp fantasy is, I cannot wait to dive deeper into the genre.
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes