Before I begin my essay on Michael Moorcock’s first Elric novel, and how it has influenced how I view fantasy and the world, I’d like to announce Geekerati Media’s first giveaway.
I guess the only thing more perfect would have been if Moorcock had settled in Cross Plains. Anyway, thank you for a stirring piece -- you've made me want to reread the entirety of both Conan and Elric.
An amazing and complex analysis. Thank you so much for all of your work and insight. As a young man, I was a big fan of both Conan and Elric, eventually gravitating to the latter for the much more complex tapestry of the Eternal Champion (a concept that still fascinates me as a 60 year old).
Although my first exposure to the multiverse concept came through my beloved comic books (specifically DC Comics’ playful treatment of the concept), it was amplified several notches higher when Moorcock intermingled it with reincarnation in the person of the Eternal Champion. I was also reading the work of Joseph Campbell at the time, so all of these grand, multidimensional, multi-incarnate ideas combined into a sort of personal “Golden Age” in my fiction reading journey.
Of course, multiverses are now cool and, naturally, have been beaten into paste…but I still look back fondly to that time in my life when all these transcendent concepts were almost literally exploding out of the books I read.
I guess the only thing more perfect would have been if Moorcock had settled in Cross Plains. Anyway, thank you for a stirring piece -- you've made me want to reread the entirety of both Conan and Elric.
I wish I’d said that. It is perfect.
An amazing and complex analysis. Thank you so much for all of your work and insight. As a young man, I was a big fan of both Conan and Elric, eventually gravitating to the latter for the much more complex tapestry of the Eternal Champion (a concept that still fascinates me as a 60 year old).
I'm a huge Eterma; Champion fan. The sadness of the Corum tales is my favorite arc, but Moorcock tells many a great tale in the series.
Although my first exposure to the multiverse concept came through my beloved comic books (specifically DC Comics’ playful treatment of the concept), it was amplified several notches higher when Moorcock intermingled it with reincarnation in the person of the Eternal Champion. I was also reading the work of Joseph Campbell at the time, so all of these grand, multidimensional, multi-incarnate ideas combined into a sort of personal “Golden Age” in my fiction reading journey.
Of course, multiverses are now cool and, naturally, have been beaten into paste…but I still look back fondly to that time in my life when all these transcendent concepts were almost literally exploding out of the books I read.