Elric of Melniboné and Other Stories📖

This book is a compilation of sorts for an intro to Elric and his world. Elric’s stories, in particular the first ones to be published, were not published as novels, but in science fiction magazines. They later have been compiled into lots of different compilations in different ways. An anonymous hero(1) (1)They are anonymous now, as they apparently deleted their user. Fortunately, not the content. made a great summary on Reddit, which may be good to check for anyone interested in Elric. Without it, figuring out the order in which to read the stories, whether it matters at all, what to prioritize or basically just about anything, is quite difficult and a much bigger effort than it should be. And as different editions include different things, it’s easy to end up with a weird mish-mash.

The anonymous hero recommended going with the Gollancz(2) (2)Or Orion Publishing’s, which are the same ones, Orion owns Gollancz. paperbacks, which is what I have done. I’ll say, I’ll continue with them for now, but this first compilation is… well, not great in some aspects. For the rest of the review I’ll focus on the stories, as this review by Elena already sums up perfectly what to expect from the compilation itself and it also expresses how I also feel about it. There’s a digital edition with the same contents, as far as I have seen, by SF Gateway, which is to what the previous review refers to, but it applies just as well to the Gollancz edition. Even if you don’t read the review, a word of advice though: some of the several introductions(3) (3)Yep, several introductions, you read correctly. may have spoilers for important parts of the saga, so maybe skip them at first.

Master of Chaos #

The first story of the book is Master of Chaos(4) (4)With the subtitle Earl Aubec. , originally published as The Dream of Earl Aubec in the May 1964 issue of Fantastic magazine, maybe with some changes. It was first published in book form in 1977 in The Weird of the White Wolf.

It doesn’t feature Elric at all, but gives a bit of background on how part of the world comes to be and is a nice introduction. It’s quite short, but evocative and if someone were to read their first Moorcock story, they could do much worse than starting with this one(5) (5)Certainly it’s better than reading the twenty introductions from the compilation, IMO 😉. .

Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer (script) #

This is the script of the graphic novel of the same name. Yes, you read that right. No, I had never seen something like this.

When I saw this I looked for copies of the graphic novel and managed to find them. Then, read them interspersed with catching up with the script, curious to see how they related and how a comic script works. That part was actually interesting. You can read my review of the comics, but the script itself is readable alone. I do recommend, though, doing similar to what I did, reading both. Or simply reading the comics and just leaving it at that.

Elric of Melniboné #

The main part of the book. This story was published as a novel in 1972 as a prequel to everything that had been published until then.

It’s quite good, by itself and, I guess(6) (6)I say I guess because I haven’t read any other Elric yet, so maybe this presents a horrible first impression of the character, although it doesn’t seem so. to the character and his story. It starts with Elric already as Emperor of Melniboné, trying to do things as he feels are better, before things don’t go so much the way he would prefer.

Reading this after the comic (or the comic’s script) that precedes it is also interesting. The story in The Making of a Sorcerer is a direct prequel to this one, both chronologically and thematically. In the comic, Elric learns but barely changes. In the story, Elric does change, but you can tell more changes are coming in later stories. I do have an urge to get to know a bit more of what happens to Elric and his quest.

Aspects of Fantasy 1. Introduction #

This is the beginning of a series of essays by Moorcock that studies the fundamentals and history of what he calls Fantasy Fiction, and that nowadays I’d call speculative fiction. This first part was first published in 1963 in the October issue of Science Fantasy.

It details some characteristics of the genre and a brief history of it, starting from the Medieval Chivalric Romances.

I liked the essay itself and found it interesting, but it may be also that lately I’ve been reading a bit into literary theory and similar topics. I can imagine that in the 60s it would also have been surprising in the views it started to show. I look forward to reading the rest of the essays.

Introduction (To Elric Of Melniboné, Graphic Adaptation, 1986) #

Here Moorcock goes quickly over a history of Elric’s comic and graphic adaptations. You can tell he cares for it, and he says it so explicitly. I don’t think this provides a great insight into Elric or something similar, and not a lot is lost if not read, but it’s short, and seeing how much Moorcock cares for the graphic media may help explain a bit of how he tells stories. It’s for sure not boring, and as said, quite short.

El Cid and Elric: Under the Influence! #

Another essay, this one first published in 2008(7) (7)The book itself says 2007, but the Omnibus volume in which it was published seems to have been published in 2008. Not that it’s hugely important. in an omnibus volume, Elric: The Sleeping Sorceress. This one is very short, and complete by itself.

It tells of Moorcock’s fascination for El Cid (an 11th-century Castilian knight) and its influences in his work. This connects well with the Aspects of Fantasy introductory essay, as the stories telling the story of the Cid are one of the Chivalric Romances that he comments about there. The essay itself is a good one, although it’s easy to me to like it as I also like the figure of El Cid.

Overall #

Overall, and again not taking into account the issues of the criticism, as for the actual content of the book, I find it highly recommended for anyone that likes fantasy. The essays are not long and can be read too, but if someone doesn’t really want to they can just go with the stories. I’ll be recommending this a lot.