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Second Ether #3
The War Amongst the Angels
The lives of four friends are intertwined on many planes--in our conventional world, and in the special, infinitely wondrous Second Ether, a place where time has no bounds and life is a river of endless reinvention.
298 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
4 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,222 books3,795 followersMichael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 9, 2024
This book is an annoying work of genius. I guess I ought to explain this statement in depth, but I am not sure I can, because that was purely my emotional response to it. I could probably sit down and analyse why it is brilliant (the concepts, the non-linear structure, the stylish prose, the powerful nostalgic affect of the allusions) and I could also outline intellectually why I think it was a difficult and not really very enjoyable book (maybe for the same reasons), but I am strangely reluctant to do that. The way I simply feel about it is so strong that it colours my response entire.
I almost abandoned reading it at many points. At the halfway stage I began to regard it as the worst, or one of the worst, of Moorcock's books. But I kept going, partly because I always read everything Moorcock writes and have been doing so since I was 17 years old, and also partly because many of the characters were engaging enough in certain scenes to hold out the promise that the novel would improve. And it does improve. The last quarter of the book is much better than what has gone before. Nonetheless, this was a strenuous reading experience and one I am glad I won't have to repeat.
Moorcock has set up a complex universe (or multiverse) that is so intricate that it seems impossible to pull all the threads together and tie them up neatly. This is an account of the struggle between the forces of Law and Chaos and it can be argued that telling of such a fight for a cosmic balance requires an unbalanced approach, as the advantage swings first one way, then the other. I am not wholly convinced by the non-linearity. There were times when I wasn't sure who was actually narrating the thing, whether it was Jack or the Rose or someone else. Confusing! Difficult! But glorious in parts. As I was reading it, I found myself yearning for Moorcock's simpler, purer visions, the worlds of Corum or Elric, the self-contained fantasia of Gloriana, and yet the prose here is muscular, literary, rich. I still find myself in two minds about this novel, and both those minds are also undecided.
I almost abandoned reading it at many points. At the halfway stage I began to regard it as the worst, or one of the worst, of Moorcock's books. But I kept going, partly because I always read everything Moorcock writes and have been doing so since I was 17 years old, and also partly because many of the characters were engaging enough in certain scenes to hold out the promise that the novel would improve. And it does improve. The last quarter of the book is much better than what has gone before. Nonetheless, this was a strenuous reading experience and one I am glad I won't have to repeat.
Moorcock has set up a complex universe (or multiverse) that is so intricate that it seems impossible to pull all the threads together and tie them up neatly. This is an account of the struggle between the forces of Law and Chaos and it can be argued that telling of such a fight for a cosmic balance requires an unbalanced approach, as the advantage swings first one way, then the other. I am not wholly convinced by the non-linearity. There were times when I wasn't sure who was actually narrating the thing, whether it was Jack or the Rose or someone else. Confusing! Difficult! But glorious in parts. As I was reading it, I found myself yearning for Moorcock's simpler, purer visions, the worlds of Corum or Elric, the self-contained fantasia of Gloriana, and yet the prose here is muscular, literary, rich. I still find myself in two minds about this novel, and both those minds are also undecided.
November 19, 2017
This was probably the hardest "Eternal Champion" book to read to date. This sequence was written later than the "classic" Moorcock stuff and it shows. It feels much more "literary", and, given my own rather sporadic knowledge of English literary classics, I felt kind of lost a lot of the times.
It works like this: you have the initial novel- "Blood: A Southern Fantasy", which is this alt-Earth, kind of post-apoc, with a pseudo-US collapsing, where the main cast of super-gamblers plods along, looking for spiritual salvation and meaning. The world is very New Weird, and the language can be difficult to parse, and it feels like there's symbolism everywhere. AT THE SAME TIME, running parallel to this story is an endless comic strip adventure of the Second Ether, and the brave Chaos Engineers who battle the forces of the Singularity - which is a pulpy space opera that we've briefly encountered before, which is difficult to explain, but is entertaining to read. Eventually the 2 plots start intersecting, and then things get very meta, throwing up a potential revelation that the whole thing is an allegory that links up to the very beginning, AKA "The Warhound and the World's Pain". Then the story ends.
What follows as a "sequel" Fabulous Harbours is a collection of short stories. Many of these were also collected in the "Metatemporal Detective" collection, so there's a lot of overlap between the 2. Since "Metatemporal detective" isn't part of the Gollanz re-print edition, this is the reader's chance to get familiar with Sexton Begg and Messieur Zenith- Moorcock's genius detective-acrchetype and his white albino nemesis (who is, as we know from an earlier story in one of the Elric collections, a projection of Elric). The short stories focus on the Sporting Club Square in London as a location- which came up in other works before, but never as a focal point. Here, Moorcock goes into a lot of details about the Begg clan (who are actually anglicized descendants of the von Beks), and a number of themes are replayed consistently, with Rose von Bek (who is also THE Rose from Elric's journeys- like I said, things get very meta)being one of the big players.
And then finally, there's the titular War Amongst the Angels , where the meta is taken to the max, as the whole thing is a memoir by Rose van Bek, nee Moorcock. There's a huge focus on London tramways (streetcars), and gangs who used to rob them (?) which is a point where I felt totally out of my depth and it seemed like I'm missing some crucial context. Anyhow, beyond that, the Second Ether is back, and the whole book (eventually) leads up to Rose gathering the "real-Earth" versions of the major multiverse players to bring them all to the Second Ether for a dramatic showdown of gambit pileups. The ending is actually quite good, and on its own (tramway-missing context notwithstanding), I probably would've given the last book a 4, or even a 5. But "Blood" was really hard work getting into, and that brought down the overall experience for me, a lot.
It works like this: you have the initial novel- "Blood: A Southern Fantasy", which is this alt-Earth, kind of post-apoc, with a pseudo-US collapsing, where the main cast of super-gamblers plods along, looking for spiritual salvation and meaning. The world is very New Weird, and the language can be difficult to parse, and it feels like there's symbolism everywhere. AT THE SAME TIME, running parallel to this story is an endless comic strip adventure of the Second Ether, and the brave Chaos Engineers who battle the forces of the Singularity - which is a pulpy space opera that we've briefly encountered before, which is difficult to explain, but is entertaining to read. Eventually the 2 plots start intersecting, and then things get very meta, throwing up a potential revelation that the whole thing is an allegory that links up to the very beginning, AKA "The Warhound and the World's Pain". Then the story ends.
What follows as a "sequel" Fabulous Harbours is a collection of short stories. Many of these were also collected in the "Metatemporal Detective" collection, so there's a lot of overlap between the 2. Since "Metatemporal detective" isn't part of the Gollanz re-print edition, this is the reader's chance to get familiar with Sexton Begg and Messieur Zenith- Moorcock's genius detective-acrchetype and his white albino nemesis (who is, as we know from an earlier story in one of the Elric collections, a projection of Elric). The short stories focus on the Sporting Club Square in London as a location- which came up in other works before, but never as a focal point. Here, Moorcock goes into a lot of details about the Begg clan (who are actually anglicized descendants of the von Beks), and a number of themes are replayed consistently, with Rose von Bek (who is also THE Rose from Elric's journeys- like I said, things get very meta)being one of the big players.
And then finally, there's the titular War Amongst the Angels , where the meta is taken to the max, as the whole thing is a memoir by Rose van Bek, nee Moorcock. There's a huge focus on London tramways (streetcars), and gangs who used to rob them (?) which is a point where I felt totally out of my depth and it seemed like I'm missing some crucial context. Anyhow, beyond that, the Second Ether is back, and the whole book (eventually) leads up to Rose gathering the "real-Earth" versions of the major multiverse players to bring them all to the Second Ether for a dramatic showdown of gambit pileups. The ending is actually quite good, and on its own (tramway-missing context notwithstanding), I probably would've given the last book a 4, or even a 5. But "Blood" was really hard work getting into, and that brought down the overall experience for me, a lot.
June 7, 2008
This is not one of Moorcock's best. Although part of one of his long cycles (the Von Bek cycle) that are only for true dedicatees, this book can also be read as part of the English fantasy genre that arose out of Milton's Paradise Lost. Every 'goth-minded' schoolboy thrilled at Satan's line, 'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven'. This isn't the transgression of American libertarianism but is embedded in English culture as the struggle between God and the Light-Bringer. Milton's unintended effect was to build a glamorous lobby for resisting faith-based pretensions in every generation that had grown up under the old school curriculum. Moorcock's book contains the usual oddities and incoherences and assumes more suspension of belief than is good for anyone trying to maintain their sanity - but it is worth reading as an entertaining way station to the Pullman trilogy (two parts genius, one part abject failure). This genre may now have exhausted itself but Moorcock has played his role in keeping a dissenting cultural tradition alive as (insofar as the fantasy genre is regarded with disdain) literary samizdat.
November 28, 2015
One of the greatest works of modern literature.
I am a long time Moorcock reader. I have followed the Champion through the many incarnations and struggles. As a writer, Moorcock has always experimented and pushed boundaries that others never even approach. This book is his greatest achievement to date. The Second Ether is an elusive and enigmatic level of reality that brings Moorcock's multiverse into contact with all worlds. Part prose, part poetry, and a great excursions into improvisational literary jazz. This novel is one that has lingered in my mind for many years.
I am a long time Moorcock reader. I have followed the Champion through the many incarnations and struggles. As a writer, Moorcock has always experimented and pushed boundaries that others never even approach. This book is his greatest achievement to date. The Second Ether is an elusive and enigmatic level of reality that brings Moorcock's multiverse into contact with all worlds. Part prose, part poetry, and a great excursions into improvisational literary jazz. This novel is one that has lingered in my mind for many years.
July 30, 2013
Well, I've slept on it, and I think The War Amongst the Angels is definitely Michael Moorcock messing with his readers. The novel is told as an autobiography of the Rose, a world hopping character from a number of his previous novels including the last 2 in the Second Ether series. However, Moorcock is playing around a lot. We don't know who is narrating often enough, and it switches from Rose to Jack Karaquazian, to omniscient narrators telling tales of Dick Turpin, an immortal Robin Hood figure who robs the privatized electric trams of the BBIC (internal combustion being a dead end technology, learned during the Second World War). The novel is quite dense for the first half, being all about Rose's life in post-war England and her time riding with Dick Turpin. There are occasional asides about the multiverse that are recounted as though they are absolutely normal (a nice touch).
Moorcock is compelling for the most part. He writes great characters and is playful enough, but the novel doesn't really go anywhere. It's unclear how characters come to the conclusion that the war in heaven is having an effect on earth. Having read Blood I know the significance of Biloxi but it's easy to miss. The moves in the Game of Time are unclear, as are the scale spanning characters. It's suitably alien but not grounded enough for us to care. The ending is disappointing. The trilogy only vaguely builds to the confrontation between the Singularity and the Chaos Engineers, between Law run rampant and Chaos allied with the Just, and the reconciliation between God and Lucifer. There is a fight, but the stakes are so nebulous, and the description of the war so unclear we have to be frequently told that something happened and it was significant. Moorcock is all about the effect on the psyche of betrayal and shocking reversals, but it isn't felt. This could be him just having a laugh at the expense of his readers, or pushing some anti-narrative agenda.
As a whole, a disappointment. It's a novel filled with bizarre asides, nebulous events, and pointless cliffhangers. At one point Captain Quelch appears on the island the main characters have settled on, and he basically just leaves in the next chapter--we are assured he was there for a purpose and it was sinister. Ulrich transcends his destiny as the eternal champion by being stabbed by his sword that is Lucifer but because of the Grail he is resurrected immediately and that reverses the flow of souls and he gets his back. There's no explanation, it's like a poorly translated Anime. The novel ends with a gathering for a funeral of a character who died in Blood and was resurrected in The War Amongst the Angels on one page and in the next is dead again, the narrative jumping ahead to a point after he has lived a full life, married another characters lover, and the Rose is now married to Captain Quelch in another guise.
Moorcock is a good writer, that's always evident, but this book is pushing something ineffective. I get that it's not trying to be epic, despite the multiverse spanning war. Don't expect something trippy or super weird, it's mostly mundane, and baffling because of the narrative shifts and frequent spells of ordinary life. Blood stands alone as an interesting novel. This meanders and ends with a whimper.
Moorcock is compelling for the most part. He writes great characters and is playful enough, but the novel doesn't really go anywhere. It's unclear how characters come to the conclusion that the war in heaven is having an effect on earth. Having read Blood I know the significance of Biloxi but it's easy to miss. The moves in the Game of Time are unclear, as are the scale spanning characters. It's suitably alien but not grounded enough for us to care. The ending is disappointing. The trilogy only vaguely builds to the confrontation between the Singularity and the Chaos Engineers, between Law run rampant and Chaos allied with the Just, and the reconciliation between God and Lucifer. There is a fight, but the stakes are so nebulous, and the description of the war so unclear we have to be frequently told that something happened and it was significant. Moorcock is all about the effect on the psyche of betrayal and shocking reversals, but it isn't felt. This could be him just having a laugh at the expense of his readers, or pushing some anti-narrative agenda.
As a whole, a disappointment. It's a novel filled with bizarre asides, nebulous events, and pointless cliffhangers. At one point Captain Quelch appears on the island the main characters have settled on, and he basically just leaves in the next chapter--we are assured he was there for a purpose and it was sinister. Ulrich transcends his destiny as the eternal champion by being stabbed by his sword that is Lucifer but because of the Grail he is resurrected immediately and that reverses the flow of souls and he gets his back. There's no explanation, it's like a poorly translated Anime. The novel ends with a gathering for a funeral of a character who died in Blood and was resurrected in The War Amongst the Angels on one page and in the next is dead again, the narrative jumping ahead to a point after he has lived a full life, married another characters lover, and the Rose is now married to Captain Quelch in another guise.
Moorcock is a good writer, that's always evident, but this book is pushing something ineffective. I get that it's not trying to be epic, despite the multiverse spanning war. Don't expect something trippy or super weird, it's mostly mundane, and baffling because of the narrative shifts and frequent spells of ordinary life. Blood stands alone as an interesting novel. This meanders and ends with a whimper.
May 19, 2019
In this culminating novel of the Second Ether series you’ll find abrupt switches in character narration, dense description of location and fictional background, but also exciting pulp sequences based on folklore and golden age comic books, as well as a mind-bending treatment of an abstract, cosmic battle. Moorcock throws multiple manifestations of his Eternal Champion and associates into the grand scheme.
Interestingly the story remains open-ended (as it must), but at the same time achieves the self-contained natural order so closely linked to the subject matter of Chaos theory that Moorcock applies to his Multiverse.
The key players go on playing the game of time as comes naturally to them after having successfully carried out an ages-long-planned strategy to maintain the Cosmic Balance between the encroaching side of Law/extreme conservatism/entropy, and Chaos/liberalism/freedom.
Beware: you might want to do some homework in advance to better appreciate the themes in this series, otherwise you may find yourself an outsider, confused but possibly mildly amused. I would suggest starting with the Eternal Champion or Elric series to first understand Moorcock’s fantasy Multiverse. Then, even Moorcock readers would be well-served reading Gleick’s Chaos Theory (or at least a Wikipedia article) to see how Moorcock applies this relatively new science so readily to his own model of the universe.
Interestingly the story remains open-ended (as it must), but at the same time achieves the self-contained natural order so closely linked to the subject matter of Chaos theory that Moorcock applies to his Multiverse.
The key players go on playing the game of time as comes naturally to them after having successfully carried out an ages-long-planned strategy to maintain the Cosmic Balance between the encroaching side of Law/extreme conservatism/entropy, and Chaos/liberalism/freedom.
Beware: you might want to do some homework in advance to better appreciate the themes in this series, otherwise you may find yourself an outsider, confused but possibly mildly amused. I would suggest starting with the Eternal Champion or Elric series to first understand Moorcock’s fantasy Multiverse. Then, even Moorcock readers would be well-served reading Gleick’s Chaos Theory (or at least a Wikipedia article) to see how Moorcock applies this relatively new science so readily to his own model of the universe.
December 28, 2020
This took forever to read and at times I found myself simply wondering WTAF is going on. Theories about what’s what and why and who percolate as you push on with a highly non-linear story. This is slow reading. But then a theory holds more promise, and you start making connections, and you’ve read most of Moorcock’s other books including the Cornelius books and the Elric books and the Corum and Von Beck books. In fact a good grasp of Moorcock’s life and writing really helps.
The end result is brilliant, and really rewards the reader in a many-layered and recursive way. I’m glad I persisted until the point I couldn’t put it down.
The end result is brilliant, and really rewards the reader in a many-layered and recursive way. I’m glad I persisted until the point I couldn’t put it down.
December 3, 2020
A romance in a fantasy England. Set largely in a 20th century, this is a story about tales and games. A place where Dick Turpin and other highwaymen hold up and rob trams. Where 1950's sci-fi stories are a mirror reflection on a cosmic level and New Orleans gamblers play surreal games for the highest stakes. The story winds its way to a climax that is part Paradise Lost, part Stormbringer.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2022
Moorcock has achieved something extraordinary with the Second Ether Trilogy.
I found all 3 books fairly tough going; the ever changing prose and narrator, the non linear storyline, the vaulting imagination, ambition and abstraction that defies conventional description.
And it's all very meta - Moorcock is completely at ease sending up his own mythology and persona.
But it's with this book that Moorcock's over arching plot comes together, each narrative and twist along the way folding neatly into his multiverse creation, pulling together the threads of the fantastical multi-faceted tapestry he began weaving decades and decades ago.
Warhound' was the first 'adult' Moorcock book I read many years ago, and what Moorcock achieves in the final chapters here is revelatory, using a clever description of Dick Turpin's 'interpretation' of his experience to explain the showdown between Law vs Chaos that exists at the heart of all of Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories. Or maybe that's just my interpretation of events; earlier in the series a character describes experiencing a mountain ambush that occurs identically in Warhound, albeit under different circumstances and with different protagonists. The various incarnations of the Eternal Champion each interpret or 'experience' the same event according to their own dimension of reality; one Champion experiences riding a living inter-dimensional spaceship. Poor Dick Turpin's inexperienced brain rationalizes the experience in a way he can comprehend without going insane: he's riding a tram not an inter-dimensional spaceship.
Cleverly and intentionally (?) the 'slog' of reading this trilogy mirrors each of the Eternal Champions own journey through time and space. Sam Oakenhurst's arc in particular is a savage one as he comes to grips with various incarnations of himself and others and his resolution at the end of the book mirrors our own, as the final chapter becomes something more conventional and easy to grasp.
I'm still basking in the glow of the completing this book, and at the moment I would say this is easily one of the best stories I've ever read. It's grueling, beguiling and captivating and incredibly smart, and it works on so many levels, not least because it works with each and every one of Moorcock's Eternal Champion books in one way or another.
And just like Moorcock's chaos engineers, the book asks just as many questions as it provides (multiple versions) of answers.
I found all 3 books fairly tough going; the ever changing prose and narrator, the non linear storyline, the vaulting imagination, ambition and abstraction that defies conventional description.
And it's all very meta - Moorcock is completely at ease sending up his own mythology and persona.
But it's with this book that Moorcock's over arching plot comes together, each narrative and twist along the way folding neatly into his multiverse creation, pulling together the threads of the fantastical multi-faceted tapestry he began weaving decades and decades ago.
Warhound' was the first 'adult' Moorcock book I read many years ago, and what Moorcock achieves in the final chapters here is revelatory, using a clever description of Dick Turpin's 'interpretation' of his experience to explain the showdown between Law vs Chaos that exists at the heart of all of Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories. Or maybe that's just my interpretation of events; earlier in the series a character describes experiencing a mountain ambush that occurs identically in Warhound, albeit under different circumstances and with different protagonists. The various incarnations of the Eternal Champion each interpret or 'experience' the same event according to their own dimension of reality; one Champion experiences riding a living inter-dimensional spaceship. Poor Dick Turpin's inexperienced brain rationalizes the experience in a way he can comprehend without going insane: he's riding a tram not an inter-dimensional spaceship.
Cleverly and intentionally (?) the 'slog' of reading this trilogy mirrors each of the Eternal Champions own journey through time and space. Sam Oakenhurst's arc in particular is a savage one as he comes to grips with various incarnations of himself and others and his resolution at the end of the book mirrors our own, as the final chapter becomes something more conventional and easy to grasp.
I'm still basking in the glow of the completing this book, and at the moment I would say this is easily one of the best stories I've ever read. It's grueling, beguiling and captivating and incredibly smart, and it works on so many levels, not least because it works with each and every one of Moorcock's Eternal Champion books in one way or another.
And just like Moorcock's chaos engineers, the book asks just as many questions as it provides (multiple versions) of answers.
August 16, 2022
Yet another Moorcockian apocalypse, of the sort which has just delivered increasingly diminishing returns as his career has progressed. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
July 7, 2024
A hard slog, probably Moorcocks worst work. 1.5/5.
April 16, 2026
An epic, literate, and flawed masterpiece. It has moments of prose that rivals anything you've ever read, but has episodes of lifeless and confounding narrative that will have you wanting to DNF this 3rd volume of the 2nd Ether trilogy.
The first 120 pages drift around in a non-linear format, shifting from time to time, switching between two 1st-person and an omniscient 3rd-person narrators. To make matters worse, all three sound the same--which means they all sound like Michael Moorcock. If he had spent more time signalling these temporal and voice changes, this could have been one of his standout fantasy novels and the 2nd Ether trilogy a fresh rebirth of the Eternal Champion cycle.
The final 170 pages become a more-or-less straight-forward narrative that brings the action to a muscular and satisfying conclusion.
I must say that having read the frustrating "Corsairs of the Second Ether" interludes of Blood: A Southern Fantasy made this book more enjoyable.
I'm always amused by Moorcock's portrayal of himself in his meta fiction moments. But I'm still trying to figure out what Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickcock are doing in this story.
Ultimately, one's enjoyment of this book will depend on your reaction to the first two 2nd Ether books (though the second one can be passed over if in a hurry). It also seems that some vital info is contained within The Revenge of the Rose, an Elric book I barely remember. Maybe it's time to revisit the books that made me a Moorcock fan back in the 80s.
The first 120 pages drift around in a non-linear format, shifting from time to time, switching between two 1st-person and an omniscient 3rd-person narrators. To make matters worse, all three sound the same--which means they all sound like Michael Moorcock. If he had spent more time signalling these temporal and voice changes, this could have been one of his standout fantasy novels and the 2nd Ether trilogy a fresh rebirth of the Eternal Champion cycle.
The final 170 pages become a more-or-less straight-forward narrative that brings the action to a muscular and satisfying conclusion.
I must say that having read the frustrating "Corsairs of the Second Ether" interludes of Blood: A Southern Fantasy made this book more enjoyable.
I'm always amused by Moorcock's portrayal of himself in his meta fiction moments. But I'm still trying to figure out what Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickcock are doing in this story.
Ultimately, one's enjoyment of this book will depend on your reaction to the first two 2nd Ether books (though the second one can be passed over if in a hurry). It also seems that some vital info is contained within The Revenge of the Rose, an Elric book I barely remember. Maybe it's time to revisit the books that made me a Moorcock fan back in the 80s.
December 18, 2008
Perhaps this is companion to some other eternal champion or other muti-verse series, but standing alone, it's a mess. There is just enough narrative good bits to keep it from one star. It's mishmash pulp, mediocre writing at best. The Second Ether, "walk the moonbeam" crap is hippie puke. There are assuredly a bunch of witty puns and references here in the mix, but who cares? Hawkwind was long ago Mr. M, if any edge remains within you, it isn't represented here...
June 11, 2014
An interesting alternate take on the multiverse, but much of its very domestic, and it also treads back on New Wave grounds, and as a result, I don't think it has the strength of Blood, the first book in this series.
Read
August 23, 2008isbn,original
November 23, 2009
See the comments on Blood.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews