In the elaborate fictional cosmos Michael Moorcock has created, Elric and the various vonBeks are all aspects of the Eternal Champion who fights for the Balance, preventing both Law and Chaos from dominating the universe and trapping it in either barren sterility or pointless fecundity. Elric, the albino sorcerer and last prince of the inhuman empire of Melnibone, was the creation of Moorcock's adventurous pot-boiling inventive youth, just as the vonBek family featured in the heroic fantasies of his more thoughtful middle-life.
In
The Dreamthief's Daughter, he brings together Elric and Ulric vonBek, last scion of the family, and we finally learn the sin for which the perpetual villain Gaynor the Damned was doomed: Nazi occultists are searching for the Grail and the Black Sword and must be prevented from attaining them. Ulric seeks allies wherever he can find them, including Oona, who wanders through dream realities and with whom he falls in love. This is fast-moving phantasmagorical stuff with ambiguously virtuous heroes and baddies whose villainy and charm is total. Moorcock's immensely powerful visual imagination and sense of the innate drama of crucial scenes make this a breathtaking read.
--Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
Through his long career, every form that Michael Moorcock has touched he has changed. Science Fiction was never the same again after New Worlds. The space story was changed through The Black Corridor and Behold the Man examined religion. He has put his unique stamp on mainstream novels like Mother London, King of the City or the Pyat sequence. And he has done the same for fantasy. Before Moorcock, there was nothing like this. After Moorcock, there was a lot like this -- but nothing which really has the flavour of the original, full strength old Master. This Elric book is a gem. I really hadn't expected to like it as much as I did. This really isn't the old mixture as before. This is a refined and intelligent supernatural adventure, full of love, magic and philosophy. It is the familiar Moorcock mix and it doesn't come any headier. This zoomed by and sent me straight back to the first Elric books. If you've never read Elric -- this is a fine place to start. The finest single Elric tale remains Stormbringer! but this runs it a very close second. The dragons are gorgeous, too, and the Nazi theme has more to do with an examination of perverse romanticism (and by extension sword and sorcery fiction) than it has to pointing out who the bad guys of the 1930s were. The great thing about this novel is that you can enjoy it on so many levels and they're all stimulating! Recommended! TT
