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The Nomad of Time
hardcover.
441 pages, Hardcover
First published April 10, 1981
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,228 books3,855 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
February 29, 2020
I absolutely love this book, one of my favourites by Michael Moorcock. In these adventures of a young Edwardian soldier being flung into various versions of 20th century history, he was writing steampunk before the term was even coined, with airships and Empire (very much favourite themes in a lot of steampunk works) being recurring features in each well-described reality he encounters. Moorcock's politics are very much in evidence, with insightful depictions of the faults of Empire and its legacies of racial discrimination and also his frustration with the inability of most socialists to hang together and agree on common policies and goals, something that, as a socialist, I can relate to!
May 16, 2026
As a sci-fi aficionado, I really appreciate the way Moorcock presents three alternate histories in which our protagonist, the Captain Bastable, travels across different worlds and eras. In each one, geopolitical power is distributed differently. In one world, the United States and Europe are totally destroyed and Africa rises. In another, Chinese guerrillas fight against England. In yet another, Russia faces Japan. What remains constant is that large parts of humanity suffer the horrors of war at the hands of the dominant powers in each world.
There are two things I did not like. First, the masturbatory tone where the author inserts himself into the story, as if the characters had really existed and were in contact with him through letters and visits. Second, near the end of the final story, we are invited to continue Bastable’s adventures in another book series. That definitely made me roll my eyes.
There are two things I did not like. First, the masturbatory tone where the author inserts himself into the story, as if the characters had really existed and were in contact with him through letters and visits. Second, near the end of the final story, we are invited to continue Bastable’s adventures in another book series. That definitely made me roll my eyes.
April 18, 2018
Michael Moorcock was one of my favourite Sci-Fi authors growing up. Not only the Nomad in Time triptych (reviewed below, and written from 1971 to 1981 – and read by myself MUCH later than that!), but the Eternal Champion series generally. Another major favourite, for example, was the History of the Runestaff, in particular the Jewel in the Skull, and its Eternal Champion Dorian Hawkmoon.
Read More Book Reviews on my blog It's Good To Read
I also loved the Nomad in Time series, which I read before the Runestaff, as it was set in a time I could relate to, although naturally some of the technology in use in the books was outdated. There are three books in this series, namely The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan, and finally The Steel Tsar.
Summary:
Oswald Bastable is a reluctant time-travelling Captain in these novels, hurtling from his own present-day 1903 India, to 1973, back to Edwardian times, then finally to an alternate World War II. It is generally regarded as one of the main forerunners of steampunk (historically-set science fiction with steam-powered machinery).
Main Characters:
Oswald Bastable: Captain of the 53rd Lancers in India, he is the protagonist throughout. Over this time, as his world experience broadens and deepens, we see him evolve from an ardent supporter of The British Empire in all its pomp, to eventually becoming very socialist in his outlook.
Una Perrson: She appears in all three of the Nomad novels, being an anarchistic revolutionary.
Joseph Korzeniowski: Captain of the airship which takes on the disgraced Bastable.
Minor Characters:
Reagan: Boy Scout troop leader, an ignorant racist, and troublemaker for Bastable.
Vladimir Ulyanov: aged failed revolutionary – the Russian Revolution did not occur in this version of history.
Cornelius Dempsey: A mysterious figure, member of the Temporal Guild, who plays an important part at the start and end of the series.
O T Shaw: Eponymous warlord, he is creating his own socialist Utopia in China, preaching a politics of hope and possibilities.
Cicero Hood: The Black Attila, creating his African Empire, and wanting to conquer the world.
Gandhi: Leader of progressive, integrated Bantustan.
Makhno: An anarchist, who has a real vision of how society should be.
Djugashvili: The Steel Tsar, a theocratic demagogue.
Plot:
Book 1: The Warlord of the Air:
We meet Bastable through the medium of the author’s grandfather, who recounted his meeting on Rowe Island with Bastable in his diaries, which are found and then “published” by Moorcock himself. Bastable comes across as a haggard opium-addicted refugee, being kicked off a passenger boat as a stowaway, whom the grandfather befriends.
The bulk of the books are thus seen through Bastable’s eyes.
Bastable leads a troop of Lancers and Ghurkas into the mountains towards the remote, incredibly ancient and impregnable fortress-city of Teku Benga, where after a confrontation with the mysterious and ancient High Priest Sharan Kang, he becomes separated from his fellow soldiers, and lost in the labyrinth beneath the Temple of the Future Buddha. He falls unconscious following an earthquake.
When he awakes, he is dazed and confused, but manages to escape into the open, where he sees the city in ruins around him, and evidently been so for a number of decades. He feigns amnesia when rescued by an airship (a means of transport that puts him in awe), and slowly realizes that he has travelled 70 years into the future, to a 1973 that bears no reality to the 1973 we know.
Imperialism is still the order of the day – WWI never happened, and the peaceful British city of London that Bastable finds is built on the harsh oppression of her colonies. Any and all anti-imperialist and anti-colonial thinking is brutally repressed by the Empires, which include the US, Italy, Japan and Russia, amongst others. This realization is in the future – for now, Bastable admires the wonders of the world around him (not least the “immodesty” of women’s dresses).
He becomes an airshipman in the Special Air Police, but through the provocation of Reagan loses his job on the airship Loch Etive. Through a man named Cornelius Dempsey, he then meets and is recruited by Captain Korzeniowski, and his airship the Rover, and through this role he meets Russian anarchists such as Una Perrson, Guevara, and Ulyanov. The Imperial in Bastable rejects these people out of hand.
En route to the Far East, the airship is however captured by the Chinese Warlord O T Shaw (aka Shun Ho Ti), whose cause is to wage war against the various imperial powers, and free the struggling masses.
Shaw takes them to his hideout the Valley of the Morning, where in Dawn City Bastable’s eyes are opened to the evils of empire (the cruelties and injustices which are revealed to him e.g. bullet-holes in the bodies of Dehli marchers), and he becomes a dedicated convert to Shaw’s cause. We see here the intense struggle Bastable is undergoing, and the delicious incompatibility between his belief in Empire and his essential fairness and sense of honour. In this city are a great many scientists, who create an experimental bomb, Project NFB, which Bastable agrees to drop on the great Imperial airfield at Hiroshima.
It is in fact an atomic bomb, the detonation of which results in the destruction of countless millions, and the blast sends him reeling back to 1903. Bastable is rescued from the sea by a Japanese fishing boat, and through various stratagems he washes up on Rowe Island, where the meeting with Moorcock’s grandfather occurs. He then wanders off, and Moorcock Sr discovers he has skipped the island.
Book 2: The Land Leviathan:
The grandfather voyages to China in 1910, where he is captured by some Chinese anarchists. He meets Una Perrson, who takes him to her armed camp. When he awakes, the village is deserted, but for a wrapped package left on a table. It is Bastable’s second manuscript.
After returning to India and Teku Benga, Bastable accidentally gains the Temple through a tunnel (which he’d thought was a cave), enters the maze, but when he re-emerges it is in 1904. Eventually coming across a British outpost, he discovers there had been a world war. This war ravaged the world, and we see it now in post-apocalyptic fashion. The devastation resulted from biological warfare, following the discovery of a new power source and technological innovation, spurred on by a 19th Century genius Manuel O’Bean.
He travels to Calcutta, and gets passage across the Indian Ocean. However, his ship is deliberately sunk in the Red Sea, and he and other survivors are left to drown.
A younger Captain Korzeniowski arrives in a submarine to rescue Bastable, and after failing to recruit him as a crew-member (they are privateers), he agrees to take him to southern England, a country utterly devastated by the war. On his travels in England, he finds Una Persson in East Grimstead, and rescues her from a violent mob. She had been searching for an O’Bean machine. However, they fly to Morecambe Bay, whereupon he travels north to Skye to rejoin Korzeniowski’s crew.
Bastable finds out more about the new powers, namely The New Ashanti Empire, based in Africa and led by Cicero Hood aka the Black Attila, conquering the world with airships, submarines, and leviathans. Bantustan (South Africa in our world) is this world’s richest and most peaceful nation, and is led by Gandhi. The other major world power is the Australasian-Japanese alliance.
The privateers decide to join Gandhi’s Bantustan, and are welcomed and integrated as citizens, becoming advisors to Gandhi.
Bastable meets Hood at an official banquet, and has a frank exchange of views, and Hood is seen as being a racist. Bastable then assigned to a diplomatic mission to the Shanti Empire, and travels with the intention to assassinate him. However, familiarity breeds respect in this case, and Bastable is impressed by Hood.
Hood attacks the US Empire, which results in the Battle of the Atlantic (where the strength of the Australasian-Japanese federation is broken), and Bastable witnesses the Black Horde invading New York. As the Horde sweeps through the US, he escapes just as Philadelphia falls, and makes it to the US side.
Cassandra-like, he is ignored by the powers-that-be, and disillusioned he helps free a chain-gang, and acts as saboteur to the US preparations, just as the Horde attacks Washington. Re-uniting with Hood, he stays with him for a year, before returning to Bantustan.
Book 3: The Steel Tsar:
Una Persson delivers the manuscript to the author Moorcock in 1980, and the story opens with Bastable adrift on the sea. He finds his way to an island, and we learn he was fleeing the destruction of Singapore by the Imperial Japanese Aerial Navy. The date is May, 1941.
He escapes imprisonment on the island, travels to Rowe’s Island and meets an older version of Cornelius Dempsey, but gets captured there by the Japanese. The Japanese have declared war, following the destruction of Hiroshima.
In the internment camp, he comes across many characters like the anarchist Makhno, and Englishman PeeWee Wilson. The trio escape, and are rescued by Britain’s allies the Russians. As the Russian Revolution has not happened, Kerensky is still in charge, driving Russia to become one of the most democratic in the world.
Having joined the Russian Volunteer Airforce, they travel by airship to attack the Steel Tsar (Stalin’s Georgian name Djugashvili). The former internee Makhno captures his airship and takes him to meet the Steel Tsar. Also there are PeeWee Wilson and of course Una Persson. He also meets Dempsey again, and learns of the existence of the Guild of Temporal Adventurers.
Bastable trusts Una, so declares allegiance to the Tsar, and travels on airship to destroy Makhno’s camp. They try to disarm the bombs, but Dempsey stops them. He allows them to flee the airship via gliders, then takes the ship on a suicide one-way trip to destroy the forces of the Steel Tsar. Persson and Bastable see the explosions when the land. They are eventually found and rescued by Makhno’s soldiers. The story ends with Bastable having found love with Una Persson, and happy to stay in that present state.
What I Liked:
It again is an old-fashioned adventure story, set in an alternate yet recognisable world.
The moral lessons are well-delivered – for example, the foolishness of our actions, even when society is doing well.
It’s an easy read, and a great introduction to the steampunk genre.
It’s well-written, although it takes some time to get going, it cracks along when it does.
What I Didn’t Like:
The plot construct is a little predictable.
Bastable’s wavering allegiance between causes – just pick a side!
Some of the build-up in the books is over-written and doesn’t add much to the story.
Each book had its own “new” weapon unleashed, a literary device mechanism that gets a bit old.
Overall:
These are three novels written very much of their time.
Written largely in the 1970’s, they discuss topics such as racism, imperialism, the struggle for equality, and the dangers of blind adherence to political ideology.
It is a highly recommended read for those who like romping historical fiction, set in multiverses that are fluid with history. It is an entertaining, simplistic story, action-filled, but still with an innocence that would be very suitable for a younger audience.
Read More Book Reviews on my blog It's Good To Read
I also loved the Nomad in Time series, which I read before the Runestaff, as it was set in a time I could relate to, although naturally some of the technology in use in the books was outdated. There are three books in this series, namely The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan, and finally The Steel Tsar.
Summary:
Oswald Bastable is a reluctant time-travelling Captain in these novels, hurtling from his own present-day 1903 India, to 1973, back to Edwardian times, then finally to an alternate World War II. It is generally regarded as one of the main forerunners of steampunk (historically-set science fiction with steam-powered machinery).
Main Characters:
Oswald Bastable: Captain of the 53rd Lancers in India, he is the protagonist throughout. Over this time, as his world experience broadens and deepens, we see him evolve from an ardent supporter of The British Empire in all its pomp, to eventually becoming very socialist in his outlook.
Una Perrson: She appears in all three of the Nomad novels, being an anarchistic revolutionary.
Joseph Korzeniowski: Captain of the airship which takes on the disgraced Bastable.
Minor Characters:
Reagan: Boy Scout troop leader, an ignorant racist, and troublemaker for Bastable.
Vladimir Ulyanov: aged failed revolutionary – the Russian Revolution did not occur in this version of history.
Cornelius Dempsey: A mysterious figure, member of the Temporal Guild, who plays an important part at the start and end of the series.
O T Shaw: Eponymous warlord, he is creating his own socialist Utopia in China, preaching a politics of hope and possibilities.
Cicero Hood: The Black Attila, creating his African Empire, and wanting to conquer the world.
Gandhi: Leader of progressive, integrated Bantustan.
Makhno: An anarchist, who has a real vision of how society should be.
Djugashvili: The Steel Tsar, a theocratic demagogue.
Plot:
Book 1: The Warlord of the Air:
We meet Bastable through the medium of the author’s grandfather, who recounted his meeting on Rowe Island with Bastable in his diaries, which are found and then “published” by Moorcock himself. Bastable comes across as a haggard opium-addicted refugee, being kicked off a passenger boat as a stowaway, whom the grandfather befriends.
The bulk of the books are thus seen through Bastable’s eyes.
Bastable leads a troop of Lancers and Ghurkas into the mountains towards the remote, incredibly ancient and impregnable fortress-city of Teku Benga, where after a confrontation with the mysterious and ancient High Priest Sharan Kang, he becomes separated from his fellow soldiers, and lost in the labyrinth beneath the Temple of the Future Buddha. He falls unconscious following an earthquake.
When he awakes, he is dazed and confused, but manages to escape into the open, where he sees the city in ruins around him, and evidently been so for a number of decades. He feigns amnesia when rescued by an airship (a means of transport that puts him in awe), and slowly realizes that he has travelled 70 years into the future, to a 1973 that bears no reality to the 1973 we know.
Imperialism is still the order of the day – WWI never happened, and the peaceful British city of London that Bastable finds is built on the harsh oppression of her colonies. Any and all anti-imperialist and anti-colonial thinking is brutally repressed by the Empires, which include the US, Italy, Japan and Russia, amongst others. This realization is in the future – for now, Bastable admires the wonders of the world around him (not least the “immodesty” of women’s dresses).
He becomes an airshipman in the Special Air Police, but through the provocation of Reagan loses his job on the airship Loch Etive. Through a man named Cornelius Dempsey, he then meets and is recruited by Captain Korzeniowski, and his airship the Rover, and through this role he meets Russian anarchists such as Una Perrson, Guevara, and Ulyanov. The Imperial in Bastable rejects these people out of hand.
En route to the Far East, the airship is however captured by the Chinese Warlord O T Shaw (aka Shun Ho Ti), whose cause is to wage war against the various imperial powers, and free the struggling masses.
Shaw takes them to his hideout the Valley of the Morning, where in Dawn City Bastable’s eyes are opened to the evils of empire (the cruelties and injustices which are revealed to him e.g. bullet-holes in the bodies of Dehli marchers), and he becomes a dedicated convert to Shaw’s cause. We see here the intense struggle Bastable is undergoing, and the delicious incompatibility between his belief in Empire and his essential fairness and sense of honour. In this city are a great many scientists, who create an experimental bomb, Project NFB, which Bastable agrees to drop on the great Imperial airfield at Hiroshima.
It is in fact an atomic bomb, the detonation of which results in the destruction of countless millions, and the blast sends him reeling back to 1903. Bastable is rescued from the sea by a Japanese fishing boat, and through various stratagems he washes up on Rowe Island, where the meeting with Moorcock’s grandfather occurs. He then wanders off, and Moorcock Sr discovers he has skipped the island.
Book 2: The Land Leviathan:
The grandfather voyages to China in 1910, where he is captured by some Chinese anarchists. He meets Una Perrson, who takes him to her armed camp. When he awakes, the village is deserted, but for a wrapped package left on a table. It is Bastable’s second manuscript.
After returning to India and Teku Benga, Bastable accidentally gains the Temple through a tunnel (which he’d thought was a cave), enters the maze, but when he re-emerges it is in 1904. Eventually coming across a British outpost, he discovers there had been a world war. This war ravaged the world, and we see it now in post-apocalyptic fashion. The devastation resulted from biological warfare, following the discovery of a new power source and technological innovation, spurred on by a 19th Century genius Manuel O’Bean.
He travels to Calcutta, and gets passage across the Indian Ocean. However, his ship is deliberately sunk in the Red Sea, and he and other survivors are left to drown.
A younger Captain Korzeniowski arrives in a submarine to rescue Bastable, and after failing to recruit him as a crew-member (they are privateers), he agrees to take him to southern England, a country utterly devastated by the war. On his travels in England, he finds Una Persson in East Grimstead, and rescues her from a violent mob. She had been searching for an O’Bean machine. However, they fly to Morecambe Bay, whereupon he travels north to Skye to rejoin Korzeniowski’s crew.
Bastable finds out more about the new powers, namely The New Ashanti Empire, based in Africa and led by Cicero Hood aka the Black Attila, conquering the world with airships, submarines, and leviathans. Bantustan (South Africa in our world) is this world’s richest and most peaceful nation, and is led by Gandhi. The other major world power is the Australasian-Japanese alliance.
The privateers decide to join Gandhi’s Bantustan, and are welcomed and integrated as citizens, becoming advisors to Gandhi.
Bastable meets Hood at an official banquet, and has a frank exchange of views, and Hood is seen as being a racist. Bastable then assigned to a diplomatic mission to the Shanti Empire, and travels with the intention to assassinate him. However, familiarity breeds respect in this case, and Bastable is impressed by Hood.
Hood attacks the US Empire, which results in the Battle of the Atlantic (where the strength of the Australasian-Japanese federation is broken), and Bastable witnesses the Black Horde invading New York. As the Horde sweeps through the US, he escapes just as Philadelphia falls, and makes it to the US side.
Cassandra-like, he is ignored by the powers-that-be, and disillusioned he helps free a chain-gang, and acts as saboteur to the US preparations, just as the Horde attacks Washington. Re-uniting with Hood, he stays with him for a year, before returning to Bantustan.
Book 3: The Steel Tsar:
Una Persson delivers the manuscript to the author Moorcock in 1980, and the story opens with Bastable adrift on the sea. He finds his way to an island, and we learn he was fleeing the destruction of Singapore by the Imperial Japanese Aerial Navy. The date is May, 1941.
He escapes imprisonment on the island, travels to Rowe’s Island and meets an older version of Cornelius Dempsey, but gets captured there by the Japanese. The Japanese have declared war, following the destruction of Hiroshima.
In the internment camp, he comes across many characters like the anarchist Makhno, and Englishman PeeWee Wilson. The trio escape, and are rescued by Britain’s allies the Russians. As the Russian Revolution has not happened, Kerensky is still in charge, driving Russia to become one of the most democratic in the world.
Having joined the Russian Volunteer Airforce, they travel by airship to attack the Steel Tsar (Stalin’s Georgian name Djugashvili). The former internee Makhno captures his airship and takes him to meet the Steel Tsar. Also there are PeeWee Wilson and of course Una Persson. He also meets Dempsey again, and learns of the existence of the Guild of Temporal Adventurers.
Bastable trusts Una, so declares allegiance to the Tsar, and travels on airship to destroy Makhno’s camp. They try to disarm the bombs, but Dempsey stops them. He allows them to flee the airship via gliders, then takes the ship on a suicide one-way trip to destroy the forces of the Steel Tsar. Persson and Bastable see the explosions when the land. They are eventually found and rescued by Makhno’s soldiers. The story ends with Bastable having found love with Una Persson, and happy to stay in that present state.
What I Liked:
It again is an old-fashioned adventure story, set in an alternate yet recognisable world.
The moral lessons are well-delivered – for example, the foolishness of our actions, even when society is doing well.
It’s an easy read, and a great introduction to the steampunk genre.
It’s well-written, although it takes some time to get going, it cracks along when it does.
What I Didn’t Like:
The plot construct is a little predictable.
Bastable’s wavering allegiance between causes – just pick a side!
Some of the build-up in the books is over-written and doesn’t add much to the story.
Each book had its own “new” weapon unleashed, a literary device mechanism that gets a bit old.
Overall:
These are three novels written very much of their time.
Written largely in the 1970’s, they discuss topics such as racism, imperialism, the struggle for equality, and the dangers of blind adherence to political ideology.
It is a highly recommended read for those who like romping historical fiction, set in multiverses that are fluid with history. It is an entertaining, simplistic story, action-filled, but still with an innocence that would be very suitable for a younger audience.
May 26, 2023
“While people believe in the magic power of personalities, rather than the human fallibility of individuals, they will never be free.”
This is a collection of three novellas, the three “real” stories of Oswald Bastable, as told by Michael Moorcock’s grandfather, Michael C. Moorcock. This is all a pretty standard framing device, except that usually the “as told to” is the author themself, not a semi-fictitious ancestor. Moorcock did this because he wanted to specifically ground the story in the fiction and futurism of the early 1900s. The first story begins in 1902, although it then jumps around like crazy.
The first story is also the one that most adheres to the premise; its futurism is the most like the futures written in the early 1900s, making predictions based on the technology—and the social theories—of the time.
It also sort of assumes you’ve read Atlas Shrugged, or at least know of Galt’s Gulch.
If Bastable had come from post-1914 England, his initial thoughts about war would have been very different. He might not, for example, have been so easily convinced to give up on what appears to be a real, if tyrannical, peace. This is almost certainly a large part of what Moorcock is going for: Bastable’s experience and takeaway from his adventures mirrors the experience and conclusions of the western world from World War I, that led to the acceptance of tyrannies that helped lead to World War II.
Bastable’s meeting in New Ashanti with Cicero Hood reads a lot like Edward Price Bell’s early-twenties interview with Benito Mussolini. There is the same hero worship, the same acceptance of tyranny in the name of peace, even the same tone.
I have learned only one thing in all my adventures: that despots are all pretty much the same, but there are many different kinds of victims.
War is inevitable, even if you are fanatical about peace.
The secret weapon in book 1 (The Warlord of the Air) is obvious from the start, but, especially, when the target is revealed; the target is one of the axes around which the three stories revolve, which, combined with the secret weapon emphasizes Bastable’s suspicion that he has somehow been chosen by fate or some greater power to view endless armageddons.
While the first story included a few things that the fictional elder Moorcock would not have known, these tie-ins to our own world become much more common in the second and third books. Gandhi shows up in the second book, albeit in South Africa, and J. Edgar Hoover and Joe Kennedy also make appearances.
“The idea of the future,” she said, “will gradually come to replace the idea of God. The two conceptions, however, will be all but identical in the manner in which they are self-contradictory and therefore confusing to their worshippers. By remaining confused, and therefore weakened, the worshippers are more easily manipulated by their priests, or whatever those priests call themselves. Since the priests are often as confused as those they pretend to lead, they will become angry if their rationales are in any way questioned. They will kill the questioners.”
January 4, 2023
This early 1970's steampunk is a triptych of novels that follow the adventures of a British officer, Captain Bastable who gets caught in a time travel stream while in charge of a detachment of troops in British India. He is then flung from one version of the 20th century to another where airships fly and wars have been won by alternative leaders.
The prose is definitely in a style that is no longer popular with long descriptive sentences that made it a more challenging read than many of today's works. Also, there are dated cultural and ideological references about people of color that made me realize how much the world has changed for the better in the last fifty years. Still, Moorcock, shows multiple dystopian timelines that illustrate the horrors of war and the evil turns humanity takes act as a warning.
The prose is definitely in a style that is no longer popular with long descriptive sentences that made it a more challenging read than many of today's works. Also, there are dated cultural and ideological references about people of color that made me realize how much the world has changed for the better in the last fifty years. Still, Moorcock, shows multiple dystopian timelines that illustrate the horrors of war and the evil turns humanity takes act as a warning.
November 19, 2021
Banger.
My rating?
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
My rating?
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
November 3, 2023
Of the three books in this collection, Warlord of the Air is probably the most entertaining.
February 3, 2019
Lots of holes in the "how" of time travel, but interesting.
July 24, 2024
The Oswald Bastable novels - collected here in one volume - are a fantastic romp through steampunk alternate worlds that could have been written by Jules Verne. If you're a fan of the steampunk subgenre, you owe it to yourself to read these stories.
December 20, 2014
This is, hands down, THE best Moorcock book to date. It reinforces my belief that he's way better off writing sci-fi.
"Nomad of Time" is a collection of 3 books, all sharing the same main character. Captain Bastable is a British officer in charge of a detachment of colonial troops in British India. He is asked to confront a local warlord from an obscure city, filled with temples that seem to b older than the city itself. Then something goes wrong....
The three books are a collection of alternative histories. They all feature a different "what if" scenario for 20th century history, with Bastable being a mostly unwitting witness/participant. The trilogy introduces a number of memorable characters, makes a few nods to already established Multiverse personas, largely skips the law v Chaos bit, and, towards the end, adds a new dimension to the elaborate canvass that is the structure of the Multiverse as a certain Guild is revealed, and we learn of their ongoing mission within the various incarnations of the Multiverse.
The books read like historical military/adventure fiction. The one common thing between the 3 books is airships--"The Nomad of Air" was described as some of the earliest steampunk, but I'm not sure I agree with the definition. There's a ton of futuristic tech, but electricity generally plays the key role. Also, airships--giant combat dirigibles, made of a strange new alloy that made them viable and hundreds times safer, allowing them to become and remain practical. Bastable is quite fascinated with them, so we hear about them a lot.
Aside from the technology, the book's great for its themes--being an exploration of alternative history of the 20th century, it deals heavily with imperialism, racism, struggles for equality and the revolutionary movement, as well as faith, the role of scientific advances and prosperity and whether it's enough to mitigate the warlike human nature. While not overly deep--the philosophizing is never so deep as to distract from the action--it can, nevertheless, be quite thought-provoking.
Overall, an incredibly enjoyable adventure romp, especially for those who like historical fiction.
"Nomad of Time" is a collection of 3 books, all sharing the same main character. Captain Bastable is a British officer in charge of a detachment of colonial troops in British India. He is asked to confront a local warlord from an obscure city, filled with temples that seem to b older than the city itself. Then something goes wrong....
The three books are a collection of alternative histories. They all feature a different "what if" scenario for 20th century history, with Bastable being a mostly unwitting witness/participant. The trilogy introduces a number of memorable characters, makes a few nods to already established Multiverse personas, largely skips the law v Chaos bit, and, towards the end, adds a new dimension to the elaborate canvass that is the structure of the Multiverse as a certain Guild is revealed, and we learn of their ongoing mission within the various incarnations of the Multiverse.
The books read like historical military/adventure fiction. The one common thing between the 3 books is airships--"The Nomad of Air" was described as some of the earliest steampunk, but I'm not sure I agree with the definition. There's a ton of futuristic tech, but electricity generally plays the key role. Also, airships--giant combat dirigibles, made of a strange new alloy that made them viable and hundreds times safer, allowing them to become and remain practical. Bastable is quite fascinated with them, so we hear about them a lot.
Aside from the technology, the book's great for its themes--being an exploration of alternative history of the 20th century, it deals heavily with imperialism, racism, struggles for equality and the revolutionary movement, as well as faith, the role of scientific advances and prosperity and whether it's enough to mitigate the warlike human nature. While not overly deep--the philosophizing is never so deep as to distract from the action--it can, nevertheless, be quite thought-provoking.
Overall, an incredibly enjoyable adventure romp, especially for those who like historical fiction.
November 17, 2016
Michael Moorcock's trilogy of short novels chronicle the adventures of Oswald Bastable, originally an officer in Her Majesty's Indian Army at the turn of the 20th century who comes disconnected from his own time and is drawn into adventures in a series of parallel worlds. The manner in which he begins his travel across time-streams is never fully explained, merely left as happening through a mystical agency never fully explained, but implied to be the work of the League of Temporal Adventurers. Interconnected with a number of Moorcock's other novels, including The English Assassin and the Dancers at the End of Time trilogy, each short novel recounts Bastable's struggles in world where the technology, politics, and history of the 20th century (at least, up until 1970 or so) have been completely re-written. Airships and monster tanks and re-drawn political maps abound, and it's fun to try to pick out characters that we recognize for completely different reasons in our own world (try to spot novelist Joseph Conrad, for a start). Although I found the first book, The Warlord of the Air, to be slightly better than the second and third (The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar), all three are compelling, rollicking adventures that read like a cross between H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, in the best way possible. If you enjoy stories set across a multiverse, alternate histories, or just some really good fun adventures stories, or if you've never read Moorcock and want to see what all the fuss is about, The Nomad of Time is an excellent place to start. Four and a half stars.
Read the full review here.
Read the full review here.
December 9, 2014
This is one huge saga of the tales of the young British Captain who gets cut adrift in time and space. It's a reminder of how books used to be written slabs of prose, with the occasional exchange between characters.
I loved it though, it took me different universes that all hinge on the events of the others. This is space opera with a healthy dose of steam driven punk alongside.
The only drawback is the lack of the female voice. The single female character gets the usual attributes to her, that she is beautiful but strong, but her voice and her character are put aside. We never do find out where she comes from, or why she must do what she does.
A rollicking tale though, and one that maybe enjoyed by those of us who grew up reading the space operas of old.
I loved it though, it took me different universes that all hinge on the events of the others. This is space opera with a healthy dose of steam driven punk alongside.
The only drawback is the lack of the female voice. The single female character gets the usual attributes to her, that she is beautiful but strong, but her voice and her character are put aside. We never do find out where she comes from, or why she must do what she does.
A rollicking tale though, and one that maybe enjoyed by those of us who grew up reading the space operas of old.
September 16, 2015
A lot of people say this trilogy of sorts started out good, and got progressively worse, but I found myself enjoying all three of the stories. Sure, it was slightly repetitive as a whole, but that is kind of the point for Bastable, I think. Other than a bit of an excess of descriptions of random geo-politics, I did not find myself bored throughout the three books (or are they novellas? i hate that word anyway :P), even if I kind of had a hunch of what the next plot progression would probably be. I'm tempted to check out "Dancers at the End of Time", as my edition had a little footnote telling me to "see it" to learn more about some of the unanswered things.
tl;dr:
it has anarchists and time travel, could you seriously want anything more? ^^
tl;dr:
it has anarchists and time travel, could you seriously want anything more? ^^
November 24, 2020
Michael Moorcock (1939- ) es sobre todo conocido en los círculos en los que me muevo como el creador de un personaje, que a alcanzado altura casi de arquetipo: el emperador albino Elric de Melniboné (aparecido por primera vez en la novela corta The Dreaming City de 1961). Pero es autor de otras muchas novelas y cuentos que se mueven entre el simbolismo, la ciencia ficción y la fantasía, pero en las que subyace, también, una visión profundamente política. Así muchas de sus obras, en una forma u otra, están impregnadas de una visión muy negativa sobre la visión imperial de Gran Bretaña y la nostalgia por dicho pasado idealizado.
http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...
http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...
July 13, 2015
A series of meditations on war and imperialism explored through alternate 20th century timelines. Some intentionally anachronistic parts and some that seem seem less intentional 40 years later. Near dystopic fiction with hints of hope. Enjoyable read.
July 17, 2022
The Warlord of the Air: 3 1/2 stars.
The Land Leviathan: 4 stars.
The Steel Tsar: 3 1/2 stars.
Kind of political 'steam punk' novels that is interesting and entertaining to read.
The Land Leviathan: 4 stars.
The Steel Tsar: 3 1/2 stars.
Kind of political 'steam punk' novels that is interesting and entertaining to read.
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