Recommended...?

[ladyflorange]

I'm reading Elric of Melnibone... my first Moorcock, and I'm really enjoying it. Finding it really different from the other stuff I've read (a LOT of Gemmell, Eddings, Goodkind etc) Just wondering what anyone would recommend to read next? Thanks! xx

[Jack]

Try Stormbringer, its Elric part 2...Well that and it has dragons.

Other good ones are Corum, The eternal champion, Hawkmoon and Von Beck.
My personal favorite being The Eternal Champion, Erekose is enjoyable as a character as he is forced to remember every single reincarnation that he goes through. Which makes him a bit on the mad depressive side - Which is always fun with a hero.

[Whippet]

Elric is my fave but the Knight of the Swords, Queen of the Swords and King of the Swords are wonderful.
I think I am correct in saying he won some serious literary prize for 'A Cure for cancer', very cool London centric stuff.

[Rahl Windsong]

This author has a unique style. The only book of his that I have read is Von Bek, which if you read the biblog it seems like the book I had was a compilation of all the "Von Bek Family" books.


****spolier****




















It was a very interesting tale of a man, Von Bek, who was damned. He wanted some sort of salvation from being damned so he made a deal with the devil. The devil wants to be forgiven by God and this is why he makes the deal with Von Bek.

Rahl

[j. d. worthington]

For Moorcock's lighter side, you might try The Dancers at the End of Time, an omnibus containing An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End of All Songs; delightfully manic, with a serious message or two woven in. There are others I'd recommend as well -- some have been mentioned by others already -- but best to know what you're looking for, as Moorcock's work is quite diverse. Hope you enjoy.

[Brys]

Yes - Dancers at the End of Time is an excellent novel, very funny, but also has a serious message as you say. At the moment it's my favourite Moorcock novel, but then I've still read very little of Moorcock (just Elric, Hawkmoon, Gloriana and Dancers at the End of Time).

[j. d. worthington]

If you've not read the other Elric books, there's another posting for the correct reading order of the stories within the series. And if you're talking Moorcock in general -- ooof! Depends on what you're looking for. If for dark and brooding, the Erekose, Corum, and Hawkmoon books in straightforward fantasy; The Ice Schooner, The Black Corridor, The Shores of Death, Dying for Tomorrow (Moorcock's Book of Martyrs; story collection), Behold the Man, Breakfast in the Ruins.... Ironic comedy: The Cornelius Quartet (The Final Programme, A Cure for Cancer, The English Assassin, The Condition of Muzak), The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius, The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century, etc.; for a wide variety within a series, there's the von Bek books, beginning with the fantasy of The War Hound and the World's Pain, on through such things as London Bone (story collection) and Lunching with the Antichrist (story collection). For outright comedy, there's the 5 books of The Dancers at the End of Time. For contemporary novels with a tinge of "magic realism", Mother London, King of the City, the Pyat novels (Byzantium Endures, The Laughter of Carthage, Jerusalem Commands, The Vengeance of Rome -- though these can be a tough read; Pyat is not a likable character, he makes Elric at his nastiest look like a sweetie, seldom outright violent, but what a can of worms for a mind!!! But they are beautifully written).....

I once set out my own preferred order for his books, but that tends to vary with each reader. The Hawkmoon books -- at least the final three -- tend to thematically tie everything together with the end of the Eternal Champion cycle, but reading them before you've read some of the others really doesn't matter; in Moorcock's "multiverse" (I use the quotation marks in deference to Chris) there's an element of chaos and randomness, so that things don't necessarily happen in the ordered pattern we might perceive -- that's part of the philosophical underpinnings to his work. If you'd like a list of his fiction, pm me, and I'll send you such; the man's prolific, so if you get really interested, you've got a lot of reading ahead. Otherwise, just pick and sample.

Ones to avoid unless you're a true Moorcock nut: Sojan, Elric at the End of Time (except for the two Elric short stories), The Golden Barge (though I must admit to a strong fondness for this; it was Moorcock's first -- written -- novel), perhaps the Michael Kane books, as they're pastiche ERB, though more Moorcockian as they go on, becoming infused with his more serious concerns (and they're very short reads).

[Tau Zero]

Originally Posted by Whippet

Elric is my fave but the Knight of the Swords, Queen of the Swords and King of the Swords are wonderful.

These are the first 3 (of 6) books of Corum. Based on my personal preference, read the Corum books next. I think they're fantastic!