Elric of Melnibone - Softcover

Moorcock, Michael

3.97

405 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 091541905X ISBN 13: 9780915419050

Publisher: First Comics, 1986

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It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair that flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody. He is Elric, Emperor of Melnibone, cursed with a keen and cynical intelligence, schooled in the art of sorcery -- the hero of Michael Moorcock's remarkable epic of conflict and adventure at the dawn of human history. 5 CDs, almost 6 hours of AudioBooksPlus entertainment! Read by Jeff West. Included is a dramatic introduction read by Michael Moorcock over 10 mins in length.

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Review:

Elric of Melnibon� is a requisite title in the hard fantasy canon, a book no fantasy fan should leave unread. Author Michael Moorcock, already a major player in science fiction, cemented his position in the fantasy pantheon with the five-book Elric saga, of which Elric of Melnibon� is the first installment. The book's namesake, the brooding albino emperor of the dying nation of Melnibon�, is a sort of Superman for Goths, truly an archetype of the genre.

The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melnibon� follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga. --Paul Hughes

About the Author:

SALES POINTS * #17 in the Millennium Fantasy Masterworks series, a library of the most original and influential fantasy ever written * 'A work of powerful and sustained imagination which confirms Michael Moorcock's position as the most important successor to Mervyn Peake and Wyndham Lewis. The vast tragic symbols by which Moorcock continually illuminates the metaphysical quest of his hero are a measure of the author's remarkable talents' J.G. Ballard * 'He is a giant. If you are at all interested in fantastic fiction you must read Michael Moorcock' Tad Williams * 'He is the most important UK fantasy author of the 1960s and 1970s, and altogether the most significant UK author of sword and sorcery, a form he has both borrowed from and transformed' The Encyclopedia of Fantasy * 'The largest, most generous imagination in the Multiverse' Colin Greenland

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