2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Books by Michael Moorcock in the eighties and nineties of the 20th century were read by fans of fantasy. At book sales, readers snatched up the writer's novels, with which all the shops that sold books were filled to overflowing. Recently, the writer has not published anything, so the younger generation does not know the name of Michael Moorcock.
This article is intended to highlight the writer's work and help revive his popularity among fans of science fiction literature.
Meet Michael Moorcock
First of all, let's get to know the outstanding personality of Michael Moorcock better before moving on to Eric from Melnibone.
The writer was born in England, in the town of Mitcham. Until 1993, he lived in London, but then moved to permanent residence in the US, Texas.
Father worked as an engineer, but he and his mother divorced when Michael was a teenager, and the future writer began to live on his own very early.
Moorcock served in the Air Force and then studied at an elite college in London. Music was Michael's main passion. He is likeand many of his peers, fell under the magnetic influence of the Beatles, and decided to create his own rock band. And Michael achieved his goal. His group "Hafkind" successfully performed on stage, and at first he would have been an active participant in it, then he wrote lyrics and music for songs.
Moorcock was the editor of the magazine of the Liberal Party, considered politics a very important tool in modern life. Later, Michael became an anarchist and even wrote a work in which he expressed his political views.
The writer began to seriously engage in literature when he was offered to cooperate with the publication of the fantastic direction "New Worlds". Prior to this, Moorcock was engaged in self-publishing, publishing short stories. Over time, he took over the magazine after the departure of friend and mentor Ted Carnell from the post of editor-in-chief.
Moorcock wrote several movie scripts out of necessity, for the money that helped keep the magazine from going bankrupt.
In 2010, Moorcock wrote the script for another season of Doctor Who.
The writer retired, in recent years he has been collecting old books, drawing and music. Moorcock is married and has two daughters and a son. Lives in Texas.
Michael Moorcock's Multiverse
In the mid-1970s, Moorcock conceived a cycle of novels whose characters could coexist in the same fantasy world.
The writer invented and introduced the concept of "multiverse" into literature. According to Moorcock's theory, the worlds are always in contact with each other, and the characters are able to move from one world to another.the other is to experience the events of different eras. The writer introduced the image of the Eternal Warrior, who is embodied in different ways in different worlds. The main characters of Moorcock's chronicles embody the eternal spirit of the Warrior, is his reincarnation in the "multiverse".
Space consists of spheres, which are closed spaces. Each sphere has its own life, unlike any other.
The center of the "multiverse" is the city of Tanelorn. It is like the biblical Eden, where people strive to go. Tanelorn represents freedom, peace, joy, bliss. Each of the heroes seeks to find a marvelous city in order to take a break from battles in the shade of trees and gain strength. The main characters of the book, eternal warriors, find themselves in Tanelorn after death and find what they could not find in other realms.
"Multiverse" lives by its own laws. The eternal warrior cannot rest, his destiny is to be born again and fight again where there is no balance. The eternal hero is a mortal person who is inhabited by one of the heroes of the "multiverse", and when the eternal warrior dies, a new soul settles in his body. If one of the parties violates the order of things in the world, the Eternal Hero appears who will stand up for the offended and restore the balance of power in the universe.
Books by Michael Moorcock
The writer's novels are mainly devoted to the Eternal Hero, around whom the plot of all Moorcock's books is formed.
There were many incarnations of the Eternal Warrior in the "multiverse", but the main characters, whoremembered by the reader, and participate in the most important battles for the world - four. The main layer of Moorcock's works is dedicated to these heroes.
- Hokmun Chronicles. Consists of two novels "Runestaff" (4 parts) and "Castle Brass" (3 parts).
- "Chronicles of Corum". Includes two novels - "Lord of Swords", "Silver Hand", each of which consists of 6 parts.
- Erikese Chronicles (4 novels).
- "The Saga of Elric of Melnibone". The most ambitious cycle for which the writer wrote 19 works.
In a similar vein of the tale of the Eternal Warrior, such works as "Chronicles of the Von Beck Family" and a number of stories, for example, "Saving Tanelorn" are written. In the stories, Moorcock describes stories of the world or characters that complete the story and broaden the horizons of fans of the "multiverse".
Moorcock wrote novels about space that bring him closer to Bradbury. Such titles include Time Drifters and The Chronicles of Kane from Ancient Mars.
The first written stories released by samizdat, Moorcock collected and combined into a cycle of heroic fantasy "Sojan". The stories follow the fantasy adventures of Sojang and his friends.
The history of the creation of the Elric saga
Moorcock thought over the image of Elric from Melnibone for a long time. He himself admitted this. He conceived Elric as an anti-hero, even the appearance of the character is opposed to the courageous charisma of Conan the Barbarian (strength - thinness, blue eyes - red eyes, black hair - white hair). According to Moorcock, readers are tired of irresistible machos capable ofdefeat the entire enemy army in one battle.
Elric from Melnibone Moorcock conceived as a hero, despite the fact that publicists write that Elric is a typical antagonist. Goodies - propaganda for young people and women, which made them believe that there are ideal people who need to be imitated. According to the writer, people cannot be exceptionally pure. Therefore, Elric seems to many readers a bad character, he is a hero, but different, special.
Moorcock acknowledged that Bertolt Brecht and his Threepenny Opera, as well as Paul Anderson and Fletcher Prett, who are the subject of the first novel about Emperor Melnibone, influenced the creation of the Elric chronicles.
Michael Moorcock began writing stories about Elric of Melnibone in the 1950s. John Corton helped the writer to think over the character. He sent in letters sketches on paper, as well as thoughts on the development of the hero.
Moorcock said that Elric is a very important character for him. The writer put a lot of experiences into it, internal conflicts that Moorcock himself had. He completely identified Elric with himself.
Chronology of reading books
19 works have been written about Elric of Melnibone, including stories and comics. But six books written in different years are considered classic novels. We propose to consider the order of books about Elric from Melnibone by Michael Moorcock for reading. Here is the list:
- Elric of Melnibone.
- "Wanderer on the Seas of Fate".
- "Fate of the White Wolf".
- "Sleepingsorceress.”
- "Curse of the Black Sword".
- Stormbearer.
Currently, the writer is working on a sequel to the Elric story. The Chronicles of Elric of Melnibone will include three more novels.
Albino Emperor
Elric is the emperor of the island of Melnibone, or Dragon Island. He has a very strange appearance: white skin, long ivory hair, he is very thin. His mother died in childbirth, leaving his father a small, helpless and sickly creature. Since then, Elric has kept his sluggish body alive with potions, herbs, and sorcery.
Elric has the power to summon demonic creatures, but he is very smart and conscientious. By the age of fifteen, Elric had studied all the books in his father's library. The emperor's reflections on the stupidity of many traditions in the kingdom arouses the hatred of some courtiers for him, among them his cousin Yirkun. Yirkun is very popular, they are afraid to argue with him and respected for his conservatism. Elric's cousin is power-hungry, so he is pursuing a cunning policy to dethrone his ugly brother.
In the first novel, Elric of Melnibone, the emperor competes with his cousin, whose sister, Cymoril, loves endlessly and wants to marry her. At the end of the confrontation between relatives, Imrrir, the capital of the island of Melnibone, dies in the fire. It was a beautiful city with high colorful towers, busy streets and rich ports. The ruined capital is eventually plundered by pirates from the Young Kingdoms.
Elric is weak in body, but he has a relic that cannot be compared toany we alth - the ring of Kings. Thanks to the ring, Elric is able to summon his patron - Arioch, the demon of Chaos.
Elric asks for Arioch's intercession so as not to lose to Yirkun. The demon gives Elric the Black Sword, which helps him win the duel with his cousin. The black sword gives the emperor great strength, but this invincible weapon feeds on the souls of the slain, and over time, Elric falls under the power of the sword, under the power of Arioch. Most of the novels deal with Elric's relationship with Stormbringer, as he named his sword. The Stormbringer wants to take control of Elric, absorbing the souls of all the people the emperor loves. But the last of the Melnibonians is not easily broken.
Elric novel ideas
Each book should carry a meaning, an idea, because books are written in order to leave a mark in the soul of the reader, influence him, change or direct him in the right direction.
Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone chronicle series has the following ideas:
- The lust for power can destroy the state.
- In order to achieve their political ambitions, people are ready to go to betrayals, lies, betrayals, unjustified cruelty.
- The country needs reforms, in its traditions and rules, the state can exhaust its strength.
- A destructive weapon that creates victory can destroy the owner of such a crushing artifact.
Melnibone Island is an allegory for Britain. Like Britain, he lost all the colonies, the royal power became formal, and the island state of Melnibone perishes in fire, afterlong domination over the world, and the power of emperors goes into oblivion.
Translations of the Elric saga
The history of translations of the Elric saga in Russia began in the early 90s and was translated in parts, in separate pieces. Usually only the beginning and end of Elric's adventures were translated. Therefore, critics did not understand how such a hero could arouse the interest of the reader if the story of his life was greatly curtailed. Until 1994, the translations were of terrible quality, and some were unreadable.
The best translations of the Elric saga are currently recognized as complete translations of A. Lidin's novels (North-West Publishing House, 1998) and G. Krylov's translation (Eksmo, 2005).
Krylov's 2005 translation came out with several translation errors, so in 2008 Moorcock's fans, translator and professional poets made a number of edits to the text and published works in a new form.
Comics, music and movies
The Elric character has inspired and continues to inspire illustrators, musicians and filmmakers to bring the character to movies, music and comics.
Comics. They started publishing comics in 1972. Philip Russell's comics are known, who released three comics on the world of Elric. Elric also appears in the famous DC comics world. In 2011, the BOOM studio began to publish another comic book about the albino emperor.
Music. Created by Moorcock, the group "Havkvind" released albums, where compositions dedicated to Elric were performed. Also the image of the last emperor withthe Melnibone Islands are used by groups such as Blue Öyster Cult, Blind Guardian, Domine.
Cinema. There is evidence that there was an attempt to create an animated film that told the story of Elric, however, for unknown reasons, it was not completed. A trilogy about Elric is currently in development by Universal Pictures.
Also, the world of Michael Moorcock and, in particular, the image of Elric, are used in many role-playing computer games.
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