Michael Moorcock is best known for his albino warrior-mage prince, Elric of Melniboné. A mystical anti-hero with a powerful sword and a bizarre appearance, Elric was very much the Drizzt Do-Urden of the Seventies. Of course, Moorcock’s influence on fantasy goes far beyond the creation of one albino brooder. He began editing and writing fantasy and science fiction while still in his teens, and eventually became the editor of New Worlds, a British magazine very similar originally to America’s Astounding Science Fiction or the earlier Weird Tales. As the editor, Moorcock was a founding father of the ‘New Wave’ movement, a movement dedicated to introducing politics and leftist social theory to science fiction while creating controversial, literary works.
Moorcock’s fantasy writing had a deep impact on early role-playing. Elric’s sword, Stormbringer, was infamous for being the perhaps the single most powerful magic item in the original Deities & Demigods, its legend grew when later printings of that book removed the Melnibonean and Cthulhu mythos for legal reasons. Moorcock’s concept of a ‘Multiverse’ of different planes was obviously influential in early AD&D concepts of the planes, especially early concepts such as the ‘wheel’ diagram in the back of the 1st edition AD&D Player’s Handbook. [edit: Listen to Moorcock himself talk about his concept of the Multiverse and the Eternal Champion, and why he prefers fantasy to science fiction, here.]
Arioch! Arioch! Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!
Perhaps his most important contribution to role-playing, however, is the idea of Law and Chaos as primary ethical identities. In Moorcock’s stories Good and Evil essentially do not exist, rather there is only Law and Chaos. The Eternal Champion, the protagonists (in varied forms) of all Moorcock’s writings, is torn between these two primordial forces as he tries to force balance between the two. Elric of Melniboné is the best known version of the Eternal Champions, but Moorcock has explored the idea thoroughly with other versions.
Moorcock later returned to his most popular character with a series of novels, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989), The Revenge of the Rose (1991), The Dreamthief's Daughter (2001), The Skrayling Tree (2003), and The White Wolf's Son (2005). These novels focused generally on Elric and the Eternal Champion concept, often having a distinctly different feel then his earlier Elric works.Elric is the last emperor of Melniboné, a sickly albino who rules an ancient empire in its final decadent days long after its glories have passed, as the human Young Kingdoms surge forward to take its place. Melnibonéans are immoral, devoted to the gods of Chaos and strong in magic, defended by their alliance with ancient dragons. Elric's cousin, Yrkoon, a 'proper' Melnibonéan sought to over throw him, a conflict characterized by Elric's own ambivalence, poor decisions, and the acquisition of the legendary Chaos swords, Stormbringer and Mournblade (wielded, briefly, by his cousin Yyrkoon against him). Elric is aided intermittently in the quest by Arioch, one of the Chaos lords, who is clearly no one that should be trusted. But he allows Elric to gain Stormbringer, and Stormbringer saddles Elric with a curse, the blade devours the souls of its victims and feeds that power to Elric, allowing him to forgo the sorcerous drugs he normally requires to maintain his strength. But the perverse blade seems to prefer to devour Elric's friends and lovers whenever possible this becomes the central theme of the series and is amply described in the novels and short stories.
The sword, which is a metaphor for addiction. The symbiosis between man and sword is the most distinctive and iconic aspect of the Elric tales, it is later sung of in the Blue Öyster Cult song, "Black Blade."
It had been a few decades since I read the Elric books, and I am afraid they remained as angsty and juvenile as I remembered. I prefer the middle four original novels, as their episodic nature hearkens back to the Sword and Sorcery tales Moorcock was deconstructing. Moorcock's world-building is too weak to provide a proper foundation for the society of Melniboné itself and the first novel especially suffers greatly as a result. Nonetheless, the series contains some excellent concepts and scenes scattered throughout.
Moorcock is also known as the author of 'Epic Pooh', a 1978 review essay on the field of epic fantasy which famously compared C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's work to A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh tales. As a critical essay of fantasy literature the article is rather basic and marred by Moorcock's personal biases, especially his views of Great Britain as an imperial power. In light of the essay, it is easy to see how he intends decadent, corrupt Melniboné as criticism of his native Great Britain - an island empire albeit one where superior magic replaces superior technology as it conquers and exploits more primitive continental nations. Despite his later reaction to Tolkien and Lewis, however, the essay "The Secret Life of Elric of Melniboné" makes it clear that Poul Anderson and R.E. Howard are Elric's direct inspirations.
Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei is the Eternal Champion in two of Moorcock’s trilogies, though these short novels can also be found compiled into very readable omnibus editions. The Knight of Swords (1971), The Queen of Swords (1971), and The King of Swords (1971) were released individually and in two collections as The Swords Trilogy and Corum: The Coming of Chaos. The Bull and the Spear (1973), The Oak and the Ram (1973), and The Sword and the Stallion (1974) have been released in two collections as well, The Chronicles of Corum and The Prince with the Silver Hand.
"'If they valued what they stole, if they knew what they were destroying,' says the old Vadhagh in the story, The Only Autumn Flower, 'Then I would be consoled.'"
Corum is a member of the Vadhagh, an ancient race of elf-like beings that barely notices its own destruction at the hands of the Gods of Chaos and their agents, the Mabden (humans). Though they nurse a hatred for the similar Nhadragh, the Vadhagh spend their time in philosophical and artistic pursuits, isolated from one another and unaware as one by one their widely separated homes are destroyed. An urbane, educated, wry hero, Corum is a far cry from Elric, though equally given to brooding. He is the last of his race, and thinks in many ways more like the Mabden than the Vadhagh. Like Elric, he suffers tragedy, in his case a maiming at the hands of Mabden torturers. This allows him to use two great magical artifacts, the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll. Possibly the original templates for the Hand and Eye of Vecna of AD&D fame, these artifacts provide him great power at a great cost.
The first trilogy depicts Corum’s attempts to revenge the destruction of his people, and to free the Fifteen Planes from the gods of Chaos, including a grotesque avatar of Elric’s patron deity, Arioch. The second trilogy, set long after the first, is heavily influenced by Celtic mythology. Corum witnesses the slow transformation of his world into Earth, or at least an alternate Earth, and readers see that his story, and the history of his race, is the original inspiration for the legendary sidhe. This transformation is framed within a struggle against the Fhoi Myore, the Cold Gods, who represent the ancient Celtic myths of the Fomorians.(This blog includes an excellent description of the first Corum trilogy and the world it is within.)
Both heroes represent the same message: a theological attack on the possibility of gods and a narrative argument for radical atheism. Moorcock’s writing is mannered, erudite, and self-conscious; he fits firmly within the world of the radical social movements of the Sixties when the personal was political and the political was theological. Law appears somewhat less reprehensible than Chaos in his milieu, but rebellion is his preferred dogma. His clear prose is heavily influenced by poetry and his descriptions of the other-worldly are vivid and surrealistic.
The mood of the Corum stories is often as melancholic as Moorcock’s other works, and yet Corum is granted long periods of true happiness. This serves to make his later losses more poignant, and allows a glimmer of warmth and light into Moorcock’s otherwise bleak, beautiful multiverse. This can reinforce the theme of corruption, as Corum’s sorrows are caused by nature and his greatest foes are no more than various aware agents of impersonal universal forces. Corum’s natural immortality ultimately causes him as much sorrow as his unnatural maiming. The conclusion is also a beginning, and less nihilistic than most of Moorcock’s other writings. Still, it is telling that Moorcock returned to write more and more on Elric, yet seldom revisited Corum.
All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
