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London Peculiar and Other Nonfiction
Voted by the London Times as one of the best writers since 1945, Michael Moorcock has long been considered one of the top names in science fiction and fantasy. Here, Moorcock has personally selected his best published and unpublished essays, articles, reviews, and opinions-all uncensored. Covering a wide range of topics including books, films, politics, reminiscences of old friends, and attacks on new foes, this collection is the definitive compilation for any serious fan of Moorcock, or science fiction in general. Drawn from more than 50 years of writing, including Moorcock’s most recent work from the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian-along with obscure and now unobtainable sources-the prose in this compendium showcases Moorcock at his sharpest.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
401 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
4 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,205 books3,742 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 29, 2024
Michael Moorcock is mainly known in this country as a writer of epic fantasy, mostly in the 1960s and 70s, and editing the groundbreaking magazine New Worlds which meant to revitalize science fiction and fantasy the way William Burroughs and others turned literature on its head.
However, he has been a working journalist all his life, and in this book of essays we have his memories of growing up in London during and after the Blitz, his early career, viewpoints on authors both in the genre and out, and reviews of books.
Moorcock is quite well read and can discuss literature with anyone. He also champions authors who are little read today but whom depicted the London of his time, or influenced others who are better known. Right now I'm reading Gerald Kersh's 'Fowlers End' (no apostrophe), which replicates the cadences of Cockney and lower London speech according to him better than anyone else, and shows a drab, dirty London that existed after the war. As the saying goes, they lived all right during the war but seemed broke during the peace.
After 'Fowlers End' I'm off to read W Pett Ridge's 'Mord Em'ly', which is an 1898 book that sounds like a Victorian version of Moll Flanders, with a cutthroat girl gang. Also with a lot of vernacular speech. What fun!
However, he has been a working journalist all his life, and in this book of essays we have his memories of growing up in London during and after the Blitz, his early career, viewpoints on authors both in the genre and out, and reviews of books.
Moorcock is quite well read and can discuss literature with anyone. He also champions authors who are little read today but whom depicted the London of his time, or influenced others who are better known. Right now I'm reading Gerald Kersh's 'Fowlers End' (no apostrophe), which replicates the cadences of Cockney and lower London speech according to him better than anyone else, and shows a drab, dirty London that existed after the war. As the saying goes, they lived all right during the war but seemed broke during the peace.
After 'Fowlers End' I'm off to read W Pett Ridge's 'Mord Em'ly', which is an 1898 book that sounds like a Victorian version of Moll Flanders, with a cutthroat girl gang. Also with a lot of vernacular speech. What fun!
August 16, 2018
A highly readable and well-organized collection of Moorcock’s non-fiction writing. Journal entries, published in the Guardian, are probably among the best in the book: friendly, reflective, thoughtful, and multiple connections to authors, sites, and personal experiences.
Book reviews are an art form, often emphasizing a larger related context, content type, or situation, but always brought back to the book. As a genre, Moorcock helps position by praxis book reviews as cultural framing or purview than just simply reviewing the book (like I’m doing here). Thoughtful, deep, and often extended discussion. Some tangents seem unconnected initially, but he always brings it back solidly.
Tributes to friends and colleagues are impressive, detailed, interesting.
Holistically, this collection offers a window into a fascinating and simultaneously traditional intellectual surfing multiple subcultural and political discordant waves in authentic, rather than touristic, modes.
For the word lovers, his vocabulary, references, and sentence structures are exquisite.
Book reviews are an art form, often emphasizing a larger related context, content type, or situation, but always brought back to the book. As a genre, Moorcock helps position by praxis book reviews as cultural framing or purview than just simply reviewing the book (like I’m doing here). Thoughtful, deep, and often extended discussion. Some tangents seem unconnected initially, but he always brings it back solidly.
Tributes to friends and colleagues are impressive, detailed, interesting.
Holistically, this collection offers a window into a fascinating and simultaneously traditional intellectual surfing multiple subcultural and political discordant waves in authentic, rather than touristic, modes.
For the word lovers, his vocabulary, references, and sentence structures are exquisite.
June 23, 2022
This book contains a wide range of Moorcock’s non-fiction, mostly from the last ten years or so but with a few earlier pieces. There is an introduction by Iain Sinclair and an editor’s forward by Allan Kausch. These are followed by two odd pieces, ’Scratching a Living’ which is a sort of day in the life of a writer and ’A Child’s Christmas in the Blitz’ which is an interesting autobiographical essay. Moorcock, it seems, was reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and George Bernard Shaw before he started school. Many modern youths can’t read them after they leave. That’s progress. Following this, the content is divided into six categories as follows: London, other places, absent friends, music, politics and introductions and reviews.
The section on London held no great interest for me because I am neither a Londoner nor particularly in love with our capital, though it is undoubtedly one of the great cities of the world. However, the title essay, ‘London Peculiar’ had a bit more autobiography and it struck me that Moorcock has led an interesting life and should write it down.
The section on other places consisted of diary entries between 2001 and 2010, nine in all. They were originally published in the Financial Times and are interesting about world events and the geography of Moorcock’s life. He has homes in Paris, France and Austin, Texas and makes valid comparisons of the health services in the two places. Apparently Wal-Mart sells do-it-yourself wound sewing kits because even skilled American workers cannot afford routine medical care. Oh, say can you see the fun of it! Like most English people, I do not anticipate that more free market in the NHS is going to be of much benefit to me, though the big corporations, accountants, lawyers and insurance companies are no doubt rubbing their hands with glee. Lest U.S. readers go forth and lynch Moorcock I should add that he is full of praise for ordinary Americans, adores the country and describes it in loving detail. It’s just the health service he’s not keen on.
The absent friends section is testament to one of the problems of living quite a long time: your friends die. Here Moorcock pays tribute to J.G. Ballard, Ted Carnell, Thomas M. Disch, Arthur C. Clarke and others. Clarke, it seems, was nicknamed ‘the ego’ since childhood and threw ‘parties’ where tea was served and home movies of the great barrier reef were shown to bored, sober guests. Apparently everyone knew he was gay but he was an easy going, loveable soul and everyone liked him. They just tried to avoid his parties. Thomas M Disch, we learn, hated Phillip K. Dick for his hippie guru pose, which he thought false. Disch committed suicide. It is probably the case that highly strung artistic individuals are more likely to perish through drink, drugs or suicide than us ordinary mortals. It kind of goes with the territory.
Music and politics are brief sections but mildly interesting. ’Living with Music: A Playlist has some surprises, the classical mostly. He cites American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead by the Grateful Dead as favourite listening. For some reason I have always been under the impression that the Dead produced an awful racket but these albums (I sampled them) are almost as melodic as the Beach Boys. Moorcock is also a big Woody Guthrie and Mozart fan.
Introductions and reviews is the longest part of the book and too extensive to go over in detail. It features the obvious science fiction and fantasy writers, Leigh Brackett, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, Mervyn Peake and a few oddities like Robert Crumb. There are also reviews of some London literati. Having been around a long time and mixed in with the London avant-garde, music and literary scenes for almost as long, Moorcock knows a lot of people in the arts. He has been or is friends with Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, Alan Moore, J.G. Ballard, Mervyn Peake and many others. He’s not quite as fruitful a name dropper as Gore Vidal, who knew really famous people like Jack Kennedy, Orson Wells and Tennessee Williams - but he does okay. When literary cliques review each others books and praise each other to the skies, it can look suspicious, and the ‘must read’ lists and reviews that come out every Christmas and summer holiday are always mocked in the English satirical magazine Private Eye. This is too cynical. I prefer to believe that these literary cliques are friends because they like each others work, not friends pretending to like each others works for promotional reasons.
To appreciate everything on display here one’s tastes would have to be as wide ranging as Moorcock’s and mine are not. I certainly share his love of pulp fiction and graphic novels but I am not really into the high flown literary stuff, or not the modern’s anyway. Moorcock likes low, alternative and high art but has little interest in the middlebrow stuff, which he would probably call mediocre. It’s hard to imagine him settling down with the latest John Grisham.
This is probably the sort of book to keep by the bedside and dip into occasionally. Having a deadline to meet, I read the pieces in commercial breaks while watching, on the television, crime scene investigators at various locations across the United States. However you do it, it’s an entertaining and enlightening gaggle of stuff. Moorcock is many things but he is never boring.
The section on London held no great interest for me because I am neither a Londoner nor particularly in love with our capital, though it is undoubtedly one of the great cities of the world. However, the title essay, ‘London Peculiar’ had a bit more autobiography and it struck me that Moorcock has led an interesting life and should write it down.
The section on other places consisted of diary entries between 2001 and 2010, nine in all. They were originally published in the Financial Times and are interesting about world events and the geography of Moorcock’s life. He has homes in Paris, France and Austin, Texas and makes valid comparisons of the health services in the two places. Apparently Wal-Mart sells do-it-yourself wound sewing kits because even skilled American workers cannot afford routine medical care. Oh, say can you see the fun of it! Like most English people, I do not anticipate that more free market in the NHS is going to be of much benefit to me, though the big corporations, accountants, lawyers and insurance companies are no doubt rubbing their hands with glee. Lest U.S. readers go forth and lynch Moorcock I should add that he is full of praise for ordinary Americans, adores the country and describes it in loving detail. It’s just the health service he’s not keen on.
The absent friends section is testament to one of the problems of living quite a long time: your friends die. Here Moorcock pays tribute to J.G. Ballard, Ted Carnell, Thomas M. Disch, Arthur C. Clarke and others. Clarke, it seems, was nicknamed ‘the ego’ since childhood and threw ‘parties’ where tea was served and home movies of the great barrier reef were shown to bored, sober guests. Apparently everyone knew he was gay but he was an easy going, loveable soul and everyone liked him. They just tried to avoid his parties. Thomas M Disch, we learn, hated Phillip K. Dick for his hippie guru pose, which he thought false. Disch committed suicide. It is probably the case that highly strung artistic individuals are more likely to perish through drink, drugs or suicide than us ordinary mortals. It kind of goes with the territory.
Music and politics are brief sections but mildly interesting. ’Living with Music: A Playlist has some surprises, the classical mostly. He cites American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead by the Grateful Dead as favourite listening. For some reason I have always been under the impression that the Dead produced an awful racket but these albums (I sampled them) are almost as melodic as the Beach Boys. Moorcock is also a big Woody Guthrie and Mozart fan.
Introductions and reviews is the longest part of the book and too extensive to go over in detail. It features the obvious science fiction and fantasy writers, Leigh Brackett, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, Mervyn Peake and a few oddities like Robert Crumb. There are also reviews of some London literati. Having been around a long time and mixed in with the London avant-garde, music and literary scenes for almost as long, Moorcock knows a lot of people in the arts. He has been or is friends with Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, Alan Moore, J.G. Ballard, Mervyn Peake and many others. He’s not quite as fruitful a name dropper as Gore Vidal, who knew really famous people like Jack Kennedy, Orson Wells and Tennessee Williams - but he does okay. When literary cliques review each others books and praise each other to the skies, it can look suspicious, and the ‘must read’ lists and reviews that come out every Christmas and summer holiday are always mocked in the English satirical magazine Private Eye. This is too cynical. I prefer to believe that these literary cliques are friends because they like each others work, not friends pretending to like each others works for promotional reasons.
To appreciate everything on display here one’s tastes would have to be as wide ranging as Moorcock’s and mine are not. I certainly share his love of pulp fiction and graphic novels but I am not really into the high flown literary stuff, or not the modern’s anyway. Moorcock likes low, alternative and high art but has little interest in the middlebrow stuff, which he would probably call mediocre. It’s hard to imagine him settling down with the latest John Grisham.
This is probably the sort of book to keep by the bedside and dip into occasionally. Having a deadline to meet, I read the pieces in commercial breaks while watching, on the television, crime scene investigators at various locations across the United States. However you do it, it’s an entertaining and enlightening gaggle of stuff. Moorcock is many things but he is never boring.
September 20, 2015
When Moorcock writes about history, politics, or culture, the results are fascinating. So his article on growing up in the Blitz is terrific, while his modern-day diaries talking about his travels (and stays) in Texas, Northern California, and Paris are also interesting (and a nice companion to the long-ago Letters from Hollywood).
On the other hand, the dullest part of the book is the book reviews and introductions. I'm sure they're interesting if you're looking for good stuff to read, but they're not very insightful when considering Moorcock himself (with a few exceptions), which is what I'm reading this book for.
So, this is a mixed book. I enjoyed reading a couple of sections, but mostly I"m keeping it around for reference.
On the other hand, the dullest part of the book is the book reviews and introductions. I'm sure they're interesting if you're looking for good stuff to read, but they're not very insightful when considering Moorcock himself (with a few exceptions), which is what I'm reading this book for.
So, this is a mixed book. I enjoyed reading a couple of sections, but mostly I"m keeping it around for reference.
April 14, 2012
My review at SF Signal: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews