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nwhyte's review against another edition
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1230921.html
mnem's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
riduidel's review against another edition
3.0
J'ai du un peu louper mon ordre de lecture d'Elric, puisque j'ai encore un tome à lire avant celui-ci qui est évidement le dernier.
En effet, c'est dans ce tome que le Chaos, par l'entremise des sorciers de Pan Tang, tente de prendre le contrôle total de la Terre. Et le Chaos, ici, c'est la mutation et la plus abjecte des stagnations. Franchement, c'est un destin dégueulasse.
Heureusement, Elric est là, et au prix de tous les sacrifices, et après bien des péripéthies, sauve la Terre, et notre histoire, du Chaos.
Ce tome est assez chouette, et l'histoire ménage son lot de rebondissements, de sacrifices épiques, et de méchants ... vraiment pas sympas.
Mais ce qui en fait surtout le talent, c'est les dernières pages qui voient le terme sacrifice prendre tout son sens. J'avais beau le savoir avant d'entamer cette relecture, j'ai quand même été ému par cette conclusion.
Et c'était chouette ! Bravo à Moorcock de réussir, à trente ans d'intervalle, de me faire revivre ces émotions aussi fortes que tristes.
En effet, c'est dans ce tome que le Chaos, par l'entremise des sorciers de Pan Tang, tente de prendre le contrôle total de la Terre. Et le Chaos, ici, c'est la mutation et la plus abjecte des stagnations. Franchement, c'est un destin dégueulasse.
Heureusement, Elric est là, et au prix de tous les sacrifices, et après bien des péripéthies, sauve la Terre, et notre histoire, du Chaos.
Ce tome est assez chouette, et l'histoire ménage son lot de rebondissements, de sacrifices épiques, et de méchants ... vraiment pas sympas.
Mais ce qui en fait surtout le talent, c'est les dernières pages qui voient le terme sacrifice prendre tout son sens. J'avais beau le savoir avant d'entamer cette relecture, j'ai quand même été ému par cette conclusion.
Et c'était chouette ! Bravo à Moorcock de réussir, à trente ans d'intervalle, de me faire revivre ces émotions aussi fortes que tristes.
jgkeely's review against another edition
3.0
"I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas." -Michael Moorcock
With this simple sentence, Moorcock reveals something troubling and endemic to the fantasy genre: that not enough fantasy authors start out with fantastical ideas. There are a lot of big writers out there (with really big books) who don't have very big ideas. But perhaps that shouldn't surprise us, since their ur-inspiration, Tolkien, has a remarkably vast amount of skill sadly limited by a very small vision, while Moorcock is the opposite: a man with grandiose visions who is sometimes limited by his meager skill.
Certainly, Moorcock is capable of some pretty, frilly prose, and shows in this story, as in the tale which opens Elric's saga, that he is capable of providing a consistent tone and driving plot. But, at his core, he is still (at least through the early Elric stories), a pulp writer, and he admits as much in the introduction to 'Stealer of Souls', talking about how many of the stories were rushed, how some were written for money, that many disparate stories were combined to make saleable novels, and how most of these stories were explorations of ideas that he would only fully develop in later series.
I admit I appreciate this straightforward humility much more than the pretension of many in the genre, and as usual, it is the most humble author who tends to produce the best work--it is almost as if some level of restraint and self-awareness was vital to being a skilled writer. Though not all of his experiments work out so well, like Leiber, the earlier writing seems to have the most drive and vitality. While this dark, mythic vision of Ragnarok might be the conclusion of Elric's tragedy, it actually comprises some of the earliest stories.
Like the introductory story of the series, this one has a consistent arc of plot and tone, and is much more concerned with Elric's psychological struggles than some of the others, where he is more standoffish and archetypally mythic.
There is also an interesting crossover here between Elric's story and the historical myths that inspired him--namely the Song of Roland, and it is an interesting choice on Moorcock's part to create a literal connection to his inspirations instead of merely a symbolic, allusive one. It is another sign of his authorial inventiveness and boldness to delve suddenly into pastiche and give his mythic world a very real connection to his reader's reality.
Once again, I am struck by the fact that, reading the entirety of the original Elric tales, I have grossed about eight-hundred-fifty pages, and in that space, have gotten a character's life: his several loves, many companions met, befriended, lost, and mourned, empires destroyed, mythical realms explored, and a worldwide war begun, waged, and concluded. In many other fantasy series, I might still be waiting for the plot to actually pick up.
Already I have gotten a depth and breadth that exceeds many longer works, and that is despite the fact that several of the Elric stories are experiments that never quite concluded, and thus acted as filler. I know that Elric is not quite an 'Epic Fantasy' (though it does have some epic scope), but it seems to me that too few authors actually have enough ideas to actually fill a series the length of the average epic.
Moorcock does have a wealth of ideas, many of them promising and unusual, and it's unfortunate that Moorcock never quite explores them all, though he has said that for him, the Elric stories were just the opening forays for concepts he would develop more fully later, and so I look forward to reading those later books and seeing how his promising concepts play out when he has the opportunity to put more time and thought into them. One complaint I had with the stories was that the interesting magical cosmology of the world never seemed to manifest in the characters, who tended to be more mythical than psychologically complex, and if, in the future, Moorcock is able to rectify this, it would deepen his fantasy immensely.
The conclusion is impressive, and if all of the stories had the same drive, continuity of tone, and depth of psychology, it would be a much stronger series. As it stands, it is an interesting experiment, an exploration of fantastical concepts that, if not as focused as we might hope, at least present a unique, inspiring vision of what fantasy can be.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
With this simple sentence, Moorcock reveals something troubling and endemic to the fantasy genre: that not enough fantasy authors start out with fantastical ideas. There are a lot of big writers out there (with really big books) who don't have very big ideas. But perhaps that shouldn't surprise us, since their ur-inspiration, Tolkien, has a remarkably vast amount of skill sadly limited by a very small vision, while Moorcock is the opposite: a man with grandiose visions who is sometimes limited by his meager skill.
Certainly, Moorcock is capable of some pretty, frilly prose, and shows in this story, as in the tale which opens Elric's saga, that he is capable of providing a consistent tone and driving plot. But, at his core, he is still (at least through the early Elric stories), a pulp writer, and he admits as much in the introduction to 'Stealer of Souls', talking about how many of the stories were rushed, how some were written for money, that many disparate stories were combined to make saleable novels, and how most of these stories were explorations of ideas that he would only fully develop in later series.
I admit I appreciate this straightforward humility much more than the pretension of many in the genre, and as usual, it is the most humble author who tends to produce the best work--it is almost as if some level of restraint and self-awareness was vital to being a skilled writer. Though not all of his experiments work out so well, like Leiber, the earlier writing seems to have the most drive and vitality. While this dark, mythic vision of Ragnarok might be the conclusion of Elric's tragedy, it actually comprises some of the earliest stories.
Like the introductory story of the series, this one has a consistent arc of plot and tone, and is much more concerned with Elric's psychological struggles than some of the others, where he is more standoffish and archetypally mythic.
There is also an interesting crossover here between Elric's story and the historical myths that inspired him--namely the Song of Roland, and it is an interesting choice on Moorcock's part to create a literal connection to his inspirations instead of merely a symbolic, allusive one. It is another sign of his authorial inventiveness and boldness to delve suddenly into pastiche and give his mythic world a very real connection to his reader's reality.
Once again, I am struck by the fact that, reading the entirety of the original Elric tales, I have grossed about eight-hundred-fifty pages, and in that space, have gotten a character's life: his several loves, many companions met, befriended, lost, and mourned, empires destroyed, mythical realms explored, and a worldwide war begun, waged, and concluded. In many other fantasy series, I might still be waiting for the plot to actually pick up.
Already I have gotten a depth and breadth that exceeds many longer works, and that is despite the fact that several of the Elric stories are experiments that never quite concluded, and thus acted as filler. I know that Elric is not quite an 'Epic Fantasy' (though it does have some epic scope), but it seems to me that too few authors actually have enough ideas to actually fill a series the length of the average epic.
Moorcock does have a wealth of ideas, many of them promising and unusual, and it's unfortunate that Moorcock never quite explores them all, though he has said that for him, the Elric stories were just the opening forays for concepts he would develop more fully later, and so I look forward to reading those later books and seeing how his promising concepts play out when he has the opportunity to put more time and thought into them. One complaint I had with the stories was that the interesting magical cosmology of the world never seemed to manifest in the characters, who tended to be more mythical than psychologically complex, and if, in the future, Moorcock is able to rectify this, it would deepen his fantasy immensely.
The conclusion is impressive, and if all of the stories had the same drive, continuity of tone, and depth of psychology, it would be a much stronger series. As it stands, it is an interesting experiment, an exploration of fantastical concepts that, if not as focused as we might hope, at least present a unique, inspiring vision of what fantasy can be.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
skeloten's review against another edition
4.0
While the fantasy genre is not for want of epics, what sets this apart for me is moorcock's stripped down approach. Eric's breakneck journey through hell on earth is both introspective & fantastically gory.
terminatee's review against another edition
5.0
Good, but I'm awfully tired of this overworked theme of heroes as playthings of the gods.
michaelstearns's review against another edition
4.0
Oooh, the soul-stealing sword! Oooh, the appealingly cadaverous albino prince! Oooh, the machinations of the agents of chaos! Can't really remember what the fuck happened in these books, but wow, I loved 'em at the time.
And really dug the Michael Whelan covers, though his portraits of Elric were pretty screamingly inconsistent.
And really dug the Michael Whelan covers, though his portraits of Elric were pretty screamingly inconsistent.
xterminal's review against another edition
4.0
Michael Moorcock, Stormbringer (DAW, 1977)
Moorcock, in his acknowledgements, calls Stormbringer the first novel he ever wrote. (Much of what has come before in this series, in truth, is collections of shorter works.) It makes sense, in that Stormbringer, the last of the classic Elric novels, is a more coherent piece of work than those that have come before it, and is thus an easier read despite its being forty to seventy pages long than the other books in the series.
As the novel opens, Elric, Moonglum, and Zarozinia, with some other old friends and a large delegation from the southern and eastern continents, are trying to figure out what to do about Jagreen Lern, the sorceror king of the island nation of Pan Tang. Lern has allied himself with Elric's old masters, the Lords of Chaos, and Lern and his army are taking over the planet, piece by piece, with Chaos reshaping the planet into formless mass wherever it goes. The Lords of Law are stuck behind barriers raised by Chaos, and unable to communicate with earthbound folk; is the fate of the world sealed?
Of course not, this is fantasy literature.
Much of the pleasure of reading Stormbringer comes from seeing all the elements of the previous five books wrapped up into one neat package. I have mentioned before Moorcock's inability to foreshadow without hitting one in the face with a week-old herring with "FORESHADOWING" writ large in purple gothic script, but the effect of that is lessened greatly when the payoff is so much fun.
There are, once again, two factors which keep Stormbringer from a leap from the world of good, solid fantasy into the world of immortal literature. The first is the final battle between Elric and Jagreen Lern, which takes place over, essentially, the whole novel. The ability to draw such a thing out to almost two hundred pages is a rare quality in itself, but one cannot read of war on such an epic scale in a fantasy setting and not compare it to the final battle in Tolkein's The Return of the King; whereas much writing in any genre would be found wanting when compared to that scene, it seems more so when the subject matter is so parallel. Second, after it's all over, there is the inevitable denouement (as there must be in any classic tragedy). Again, Moorcock has set it up well, and with slight modifications it would have stood up to the rest of the novel; in fact, the rest of the series (and one of the tests of a truly great series is whether its last scene is a fitting, and well-scripted, ending to the whole schlemiel). Unfortunately, the last line of dialogue in the novel is unforgivably cheesy. All the more so because it's followed up with a perfect last sentence.
But the series ends, all is right with the world, and the reader must sit back and marvel at how well executed the whole thing is. Astounding, to say the least. ****
Moorcock, in his acknowledgements, calls Stormbringer the first novel he ever wrote. (Much of what has come before in this series, in truth, is collections of shorter works.) It makes sense, in that Stormbringer, the last of the classic Elric novels, is a more coherent piece of work than those that have come before it, and is thus an easier read despite its being forty to seventy pages long than the other books in the series.
As the novel opens, Elric, Moonglum, and Zarozinia, with some other old friends and a large delegation from the southern and eastern continents, are trying to figure out what to do about Jagreen Lern, the sorceror king of the island nation of Pan Tang. Lern has allied himself with Elric's old masters, the Lords of Chaos, and Lern and his army are taking over the planet, piece by piece, with Chaos reshaping the planet into formless mass wherever it goes. The Lords of Law are stuck behind barriers raised by Chaos, and unable to communicate with earthbound folk; is the fate of the world sealed?
Of course not, this is fantasy literature.
Much of the pleasure of reading Stormbringer comes from seeing all the elements of the previous five books wrapped up into one neat package. I have mentioned before Moorcock's inability to foreshadow without hitting one in the face with a week-old herring with "FORESHADOWING" writ large in purple gothic script, but the effect of that is lessened greatly when the payoff is so much fun.
There are, once again, two factors which keep Stormbringer from a leap from the world of good, solid fantasy into the world of immortal literature. The first is the final battle between Elric and Jagreen Lern, which takes place over, essentially, the whole novel. The ability to draw such a thing out to almost two hundred pages is a rare quality in itself, but one cannot read of war on such an epic scale in a fantasy setting and not compare it to the final battle in Tolkein's The Return of the King; whereas much writing in any genre would be found wanting when compared to that scene, it seems more so when the subject matter is so parallel. Second, after it's all over, there is the inevitable denouement (as there must be in any classic tragedy). Again, Moorcock has set it up well, and with slight modifications it would have stood up to the rest of the novel; in fact, the rest of the series (and one of the tests of a truly great series is whether its last scene is a fitting, and well-scripted, ending to the whole schlemiel). Unfortunately, the last line of dialogue in the novel is unforgivably cheesy. All the more so because it's followed up with a perfect last sentence.
But the series ends, all is right with the world, and the reader must sit back and marvel at how well executed the whole thing is. Astounding, to say the least. ****
brian's review against another edition
5.0
Here ends the saga of Elric of Melnibone.
Chaos begins to tip the balance of the world in its favour, and Elric is tasked with restoring it.
A rather introspective and downbeat way to end the series, but it fits in with sagas of old where the hero has to make sacrifices to achieve the result.
This is still my favourite book cover of all time.
Chaos begins to tip the balance of the world in its favour, and Elric is tasked with restoring it.
A rather introspective and downbeat way to end the series, but it fits in with sagas of old where the hero has to make sacrifices to achieve the result.
This is still my favourite book cover of all time.
hammard's review against another edition
3.0
Moorcock's novels always seem to be very much of their time. Original enough and competent enough to wow people when they were written but today the ideas are so suffused into our culture and have been better articulated, Moorcock's iterations are a struggle. Many of the ideas in Stormbringer had been already been used (by Tolkein and Anderson among others) and would become standard narrative tools over the next decades.
Moorcock style is palatable but not great. He also has a strange trend towards nihlism, which often directly contradicts the narrative direction he's established.
However, these are still an entertaining enough collection of tales and probably the best of his writing.
Moorcock style is palatable but not great. He also has a strange trend towards nihlism, which often directly contradicts the narrative direction he's established.
However, these are still an entertaining enough collection of tales and probably the best of his writing.
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