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Eternal Champion #4
A Nomad of the Time Streams
The Multiverse - universe upon universe of alternate Time and Space in which Law and Chaos wage a continuous struggle to change the fundamental rules of existence.
The Eternal Champion - doomed to live forever in a thousand incarnations. A key player in the Game of Time, Captain Oswald Bastable is forced to question his most cherished ideas as he becomes a nomad of the time streams, eternally travelling the wayward currents and nameless branches of a chaotic multiverse.
This fourth volume in Michael Moorcock's classic sequence, rewritten, expanded and revised for its first U.S. appearance, introduces Oswald Bastable, former Captain of the 53rd Royal Lancers and Special Air Police, now guided through a multitude of alternate futures only by the Red Republican chrononaut, Una Person.
The Eternal Champion - doomed to live forever in a thousand incarnations. A key player in the Game of Time, Captain Oswald Bastable is forced to question his most cherished ideas as he becomes a nomad of the time streams, eternally travelling the wayward currents and nameless branches of a chaotic multiverse.
This fourth volume in Michael Moorcock's classic sequence, rewritten, expanded and revised for its first U.S. appearance, introduces Oswald Bastable, former Captain of the 53rd Royal Lancers and Special Air Police, now guided through a multitude of alternate futures only by the Red Republican chrononaut, Una Person.
418 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
16 people are currently reading
958 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,207 books3,747 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 - 30 of 46 reviews
March 29, 2012
Warlord of the Air:
Oswald Bastable is trapped in a cave-in in 1903 and wakes up in 1973, a 1973 with a strong British Empire and it's navy of airships. Oswald struggles to belong and runs afoul of The Warlord of the Air. Can Oswald find his way back to 1903?
As I've said before with Dancers at the End of Time and Gloriana, Moorcock's non-Elric stuff is what enchants me as I get older. Warlord of the Air is a good alternate history novel and is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of steampunk. You've got airships, a British empire, and Lenin, Ronald Reagan, Mick Jagger, and Che Guevara in roles other than what you'd normally see them in. Bastable's a good lead character and the fish out of water angle keeps the story moving. The Warlord of the Air was far from the supervillain I thought he'd be based on the title.
The Land Leviathan:
Bastable emerges from the ruins of the Temple of the Future Buddha in a 1904 that is not his own, where the world became a utopia due to the intellect of one Chilean boy, then plunged into another dark age, where the Black Attila has aspirations of freeing the black and conquering the world. Will he oppose the Attila or join him?
The second Bastable story is similar to the first. Once again, Moorcock creates a multi-dimensional villain and has Bastable join up with him for a time. Una Perrson and the captain from the previous book make appearances, as do Al Capone and Gandhi, although in roles other than the ones they had in our world. Cicero Hood, the Black Attila, is the most interesting member of the cast, even more interesting than Bastable. The tech in this book is even better than in the last. You get giant tanks, air ships, and drilling machines. Not bad for a story told in the 70's.
The Steel Tsar:
Bastable winds up in a world where the Japanese have aspirations of world conquest and Britain, Russia, and Germany have banded together to oppose them. Will Bastable stop the Steel Tsar or join him?
I'll be honest. While the Steel Tsar has all the charm of the first two books, there weren't a lot of surprises. By the third book, I could pretty much predict the plot twists. To top it off, I already knew how it was going to end based on Bastable's appearances in later Moorcock works. Not a bad book but not revolutionary, especially after the first two.
All in all, I enjoyed the Nomad of Time. It was full of proto-steampunk goodness and should appear to fans of Michael Moorcock as well as those of Jules Verne.
Oswald Bastable is trapped in a cave-in in 1903 and wakes up in 1973, a 1973 with a strong British Empire and it's navy of airships. Oswald struggles to belong and runs afoul of The Warlord of the Air. Can Oswald find his way back to 1903?
As I've said before with Dancers at the End of Time and Gloriana, Moorcock's non-Elric stuff is what enchants me as I get older. Warlord of the Air is a good alternate history novel and is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of steampunk. You've got airships, a British empire, and Lenin, Ronald Reagan, Mick Jagger, and Che Guevara in roles other than what you'd normally see them in. Bastable's a good lead character and the fish out of water angle keeps the story moving. The Warlord of the Air was far from the supervillain I thought he'd be based on the title.
The Land Leviathan:
Bastable emerges from the ruins of the Temple of the Future Buddha in a 1904 that is not his own, where the world became a utopia due to the intellect of one Chilean boy, then plunged into another dark age, where the Black Attila has aspirations of freeing the black and conquering the world. Will he oppose the Attila or join him?
The second Bastable story is similar to the first. Once again, Moorcock creates a multi-dimensional villain and has Bastable join up with him for a time. Una Perrson and the captain from the previous book make appearances, as do Al Capone and Gandhi, although in roles other than the ones they had in our world. Cicero Hood, the Black Attila, is the most interesting member of the cast, even more interesting than Bastable. The tech in this book is even better than in the last. You get giant tanks, air ships, and drilling machines. Not bad for a story told in the 70's.
The Steel Tsar:
Bastable winds up in a world where the Japanese have aspirations of world conquest and Britain, Russia, and Germany have banded together to oppose them. Will Bastable stop the Steel Tsar or join him?
I'll be honest. While the Steel Tsar has all the charm of the first two books, there weren't a lot of surprises. By the third book, I could pretty much predict the plot twists. To top it off, I already knew how it was going to end based on Bastable's appearances in later Moorcock works. Not a bad book but not revolutionary, especially after the first two.
All in all, I enjoyed the Nomad of Time. It was full of proto-steampunk goodness and should appear to fans of Michael Moorcock as well as those of Jules Verne.
September 23, 2024
I have read more fiction by Moorcock than by any other writer. I have, in fact, almost read everything he has ever published. The ‘Oswald Bastable’ stories, however, were a gap in my completist aspirations. I bought this omnibus volume back in 1986 when I was 19 and I only got round to reading it this year. It consists of three novels written over a 10 year...period; these novels feature a soldier who is projected into a sequence of alternate Earths after he stumbles into the underground labyrinth of a peculiar temple high in the Himalayas.
The first volume, *The War Lord of the Air*, is the weakest of the three, in my view, serving mainly to set the tone for the others, a tone that combines the gung-ho gusto of late Victorian adventure stories with a more modern political vision. It’s competent enough ‘visually’, full of airships and other curiously retro ‘future’ marvels (it has been credited with being one of the first ‘steampunk’ novels, long before the word was coined) and consists of a well-managed headlong race through various Moorcockian specialised concerns, dabbling in questions of anarchism, imperialism, justice, freedom, etc. But ultimately it feels a little thin, a little rushed in the composition.
The second volume, *The Land Leviathan*, is better; darker and more troubling and denser both in story and prose. It’s almost a sidewise homage to the Black Panther movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but not quite. Moorcock is always interested in the ramifications of ‘responsibility’ and here the complexities of the consequences of wanting to radically change the world are resolved less neatly than in the first volume. The central section of the novel, the battle between the fleet of the Black Attila and the Austro-Japanese Alliance is extremely well-written, as good as anything Moorcock has ever written, of a comparable standard to the prose of his four ‘Pyat’ novels (his masterpieces, to which this sequence seems almost a pulp trailer).
By the time of the third volume, *The Steel Tsar*, I was growing slightly bored with Oswald Bastable and the mildly lazy contradictions inherent in his character and situation (for instance, he keeps protesting that he’s just a simple soldier with no interest in politics and then a few pages later explains the differences between ‘anarchism’ and ‘scientific socialism’, albeit indirectly, through the mouths of the characters he is observing and reporting on (all three volumes pretend to be manuscripts entrusted to Moorcock or his grandfather)). Yet in some ways this is perhaps the most structually coherent novel of the three.
Taken as a whole *The Nomad of Time* sits midway between Moorcock’s pulp fiction (Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, etc) and his more advanced works (The Dancers at the End of Time, The City in the Autumn Stars, etc). I’m glad I finally got round to reading it but I doubt I shall ever re-read it.
The first volume, *The War Lord of the Air*, is the weakest of the three, in my view, serving mainly to set the tone for the others, a tone that combines the gung-ho gusto of late Victorian adventure stories with a more modern political vision. It’s competent enough ‘visually’, full of airships and other curiously retro ‘future’ marvels (it has been credited with being one of the first ‘steampunk’ novels, long before the word was coined) and consists of a well-managed headlong race through various Moorcockian specialised concerns, dabbling in questions of anarchism, imperialism, justice, freedom, etc. But ultimately it feels a little thin, a little rushed in the composition.
The second volume, *The Land Leviathan*, is better; darker and more troubling and denser both in story and prose. It’s almost a sidewise homage to the Black Panther movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but not quite. Moorcock is always interested in the ramifications of ‘responsibility’ and here the complexities of the consequences of wanting to radically change the world are resolved less neatly than in the first volume. The central section of the novel, the battle between the fleet of the Black Attila and the Austro-Japanese Alliance is extremely well-written, as good as anything Moorcock has ever written, of a comparable standard to the prose of his four ‘Pyat’ novels (his masterpieces, to which this sequence seems almost a pulp trailer).
By the time of the third volume, *The Steel Tsar*, I was growing slightly bored with Oswald Bastable and the mildly lazy contradictions inherent in his character and situation (for instance, he keeps protesting that he’s just a simple soldier with no interest in politics and then a few pages later explains the differences between ‘anarchism’ and ‘scientific socialism’, albeit indirectly, through the mouths of the characters he is observing and reporting on (all three volumes pretend to be manuscripts entrusted to Moorcock or his grandfather)). Yet in some ways this is perhaps the most structually coherent novel of the three.
Taken as a whole *The Nomad of Time* sits midway between Moorcock’s pulp fiction (Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, etc) and his more advanced works (The Dancers at the End of Time, The City in the Autumn Stars, etc). I’m glad I finally got round to reading it but I doubt I shall ever re-read it.
October 20, 2007
Told in note perfect Victorian style (evoking Conrad, Verne, and Wells) this book collects three alternate histories that deal with imperialism, racism, and war. All quite grim but still with a sense of adventure. Delights include Mick Jagger as a zeppelin captain, Joseph Conrad as submarine captain, Stalin as a robot, Ronald Reagan as a racist boy scout troop leader, and lots of zany steampunk sci-fi gadgets (airships, drill cars, fungus bombs, giant tanks). Really fun and really smart.
March 10, 2022
This volume contains Moorcock's Oswald Bastable trilogy. Moorcock is known for the variety of different sub-genres of speculative fiction that he writes in, and this is more of that. The Bastable books are a trilogy of proto-steampunk, alternate history novels written well before steampunk was a thing, and before alternate history was as popular as it has become. These books are also much more political than Moorcock was generally writing at the time.
Does it fit comfortably into the Eternal Champion mythos that Moorcock is known for? Oswald Bastable doesn't really make a compelling Champion, certainly not in the way that his better know creations such as Elric and Hawkmoon do. Una Persson is a much better fit as the Companion, and is one of Moorcock's characters that fits comfortably into a number of his story arcs. Bastable also reappears in some other stories, but isn't the main character in the same way.
If you want to read some different Moorcock, this is a good trilogy to try.
Does it fit comfortably into the Eternal Champion mythos that Moorcock is known for? Oswald Bastable doesn't really make a compelling Champion, certainly not in the way that his better know creations such as Elric and Hawkmoon do. Una Persson is a much better fit as the Companion, and is one of Moorcock's characters that fits comfortably into a number of his story arcs. Bastable also reappears in some other stories, but isn't the main character in the same way.
If you want to read some different Moorcock, this is a good trilogy to try.
March 9, 2013
Out of all speculative fiction authors, Michael Moorcock dominates my TBR list. Part of that is his prolific back catalogue, and part of it is the fact he has written so very much in so many genres. The Nomad of Time, which has recently been re-released in its three original books on Kindle, is a book I have been curious about ever since I started reading the Steampunk genre. The settings it describes, a sequence of alternate timestreams, contain many of the trappings of the genre: airships, empires, steam technology, and Victorian-Edwardian morality. Yet, perhaps because it preceded the genre per se, it has a rather atypical feel to it in comparison to many steampunk books.
The three books in the volume- The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar—follow the adventures of Captain Oswald Bastable. The character is introduced through a curious literary device wherein Bastable recounts his memoirs to Moorcock’s grandfather (and in the last book, Moorcock himself). The majority of the book is thus Bastable’s narrative, describing his bizarre journey across three alternate realities.
On a military mission, Bastable enters the mysterious Temple of the Future Buddha in the Himalayas. During an assault on the Temple, Bastable is inexplicably transported to an alternate future wherein airships are the key mode of transport, and great empires live on. Initially awed by this future, Bastable begins to scratch beneath the surface of the ingrained prejudices and oppression of the ruling classes. He trains as an airshipman and serves as a member of the Air Police. A disaster aboard leads to his disenchantment and his association with a group of ‘rebels.’ Through these colourful terrorists his own Edwardian sensibilities are challenged, and he first encounters the mysterious Mrs Perrson, a character who appears in all three books (and other of Moorcock’s work, like The Dancers at the End of Time).
The second book, The Land Leviathan, draws Bastable back to the Edwardian era, but in a world ravaged by biological warfare. This post-apocalyptic setting still has empires of a form, and strange alternate technology—submarines, air boats and so forth. The key protagonist in this book is an African warlord who, via the displaced Gandhi, develops a key relationship with Bastable.
The final book, and the one I found the darkest, was the Steel Tsar. Bastable finds himself in an alternate World War Two, involved in the war between Japan and Russia. Via a Japanese prisoner of war camp, located on the island where the book first begins, Bastable becomes drawn into a Russian civil war, precipitated by Stalin.
There is no doubt the books are cleverly written. The use of real historical figures in the various worlds gives it a strange integrity (there is Lenin, Stalin, Joseph Conrad, Gandhi, Churchill, Makhno). The linkage of the nuclear weapons and the destruction of Hiroshima are a theme which unites the time streams, and which torments Bastable through the books. The evolution of Bastable’s political ideology, from his traditional narrow-minded Imperial sensibilities to being a proponent of Socialism, is the key journey of the trilogy. Moorcock paints the politics with broad strokes, tackling Imperialism, racism, communism, socialism, anarchism (I’m running out of ‘isms’ here!) and it feels rather heavy handed in places. And therein lay my main issue with the books. Despite the first person narrative, I struggled to warm to Bastable. He seems oddly dissociated from events at times, as if a passive observer carried along by the momentum of the histories he is involved in. His evolving morality didn’t quite convince me. The pace of the plot was well judged, maintaining interest and throwing suitable twists as we propelled towards catastrophes in each world. The depth of world-building was perhaps the only casualty of this, and personally I would have enjoyed more fleshing out (I suspect that is the history nerd within me).
In summary, it has a clever plot, Moorcock’s quirkiness, unsubtle politics and great airships. Definitely worth a read somewhere down your TBR list, especially if you enjoy alternate histories or are Steampunk curious.
The three books in the volume- The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar—follow the adventures of Captain Oswald Bastable. The character is introduced through a curious literary device wherein Bastable recounts his memoirs to Moorcock’s grandfather (and in the last book, Moorcock himself). The majority of the book is thus Bastable’s narrative, describing his bizarre journey across three alternate realities.
On a military mission, Bastable enters the mysterious Temple of the Future Buddha in the Himalayas. During an assault on the Temple, Bastable is inexplicably transported to an alternate future wherein airships are the key mode of transport, and great empires live on. Initially awed by this future, Bastable begins to scratch beneath the surface of the ingrained prejudices and oppression of the ruling classes. He trains as an airshipman and serves as a member of the Air Police. A disaster aboard leads to his disenchantment and his association with a group of ‘rebels.’ Through these colourful terrorists his own Edwardian sensibilities are challenged, and he first encounters the mysterious Mrs Perrson, a character who appears in all three books (and other of Moorcock’s work, like The Dancers at the End of Time).
The second book, The Land Leviathan, draws Bastable back to the Edwardian era, but in a world ravaged by biological warfare. This post-apocalyptic setting still has empires of a form, and strange alternate technology—submarines, air boats and so forth. The key protagonist in this book is an African warlord who, via the displaced Gandhi, develops a key relationship with Bastable.
The final book, and the one I found the darkest, was the Steel Tsar. Bastable finds himself in an alternate World War Two, involved in the war between Japan and Russia. Via a Japanese prisoner of war camp, located on the island where the book first begins, Bastable becomes drawn into a Russian civil war, precipitated by Stalin.
There is no doubt the books are cleverly written. The use of real historical figures in the various worlds gives it a strange integrity (there is Lenin, Stalin, Joseph Conrad, Gandhi, Churchill, Makhno). The linkage of the nuclear weapons and the destruction of Hiroshima are a theme which unites the time streams, and which torments Bastable through the books. The evolution of Bastable’s political ideology, from his traditional narrow-minded Imperial sensibilities to being a proponent of Socialism, is the key journey of the trilogy. Moorcock paints the politics with broad strokes, tackling Imperialism, racism, communism, socialism, anarchism (I’m running out of ‘isms’ here!) and it feels rather heavy handed in places. And therein lay my main issue with the books. Despite the first person narrative, I struggled to warm to Bastable. He seems oddly dissociated from events at times, as if a passive observer carried along by the momentum of the histories he is involved in. His evolving morality didn’t quite convince me. The pace of the plot was well judged, maintaining interest and throwing suitable twists as we propelled towards catastrophes in each world. The depth of world-building was perhaps the only casualty of this, and personally I would have enjoyed more fleshing out (I suspect that is the history nerd within me).
In summary, it has a clever plot, Moorcock’s quirkiness, unsubtle politics and great airships. Definitely worth a read somewhere down your TBR list, especially if you enjoy alternate histories or are Steampunk curious.
January 1, 2026
The Warlord of the Air (Oswald Bastable #1): 1/10
Oct 21st 2024 - Oct 27th 2024
Overall/TL;DR:
The Warlord of the Air has the potential to say something about imperialism, colonialism, and to a certain degree even racism, but it ultimately falls short of delivering a nuanced or meaningful message. Furthermore, due to it's lack of depth, it is only able to produce a message that would be impressive to a child who is unfamiliar with such topics. I believe it's Moorcocks inability to focus on a specific idea that ruins this book for me.
It contains all the typical moorcock tropes but lacks the depth that The War Hound and the World's Pain tried to have and it lacks the creativity that the Erekose settings had.
Bastible is a nonexistent NPC style MC. He feels like the white man in an H.P. Lovecraft story that just exists to be used as a plot device for the reader to experience the story and meet interesting characters.
Entertainment (3/10):
Also holy shit is this book fucking boring. I swear 70% of the content is glazing and cock riding zeppelin air ships and how they work. Nothing happens until chapter 5 book 2/section 2. It takes 84/155 pages before something actually happen. 55% of the book is dedicated to glazing airships. Unfortunately, Moorcock continues to spend a significant amount of time glazing the ships in the second half of the book as well.
There are moments of potential but they end disappointingly. For example, I enjoyed how Bastible used his experience in the past to find a position in the future as a security officer on an airships. This leads to him describing how his work life was like on the airship and how his actions resulted in his termination. This was quite entertaining BUT I don't believe that it should have been present in this book as it adds nothing to the themes of this book. I also liked Bastible's reaction to how cities of his past developed, and the concept of an imperial Britian that never lost its power but neither of these 2 lead to any introspection within Bastible.
Bastible (3/10)
The transformation of Bastible from an ignorant patriotic imperial soldier to a freedom fighting sympathiser could have been done well had the book allocated its page count effectively instead of glazing zeplen airships. Instead we get a ideologically fickle man who bends to the wills of every "bad guy" he meets.
I hate how easily and smoothly Bastible assimilates to the future and all other situations he's thrust into. He gives up on ever thinking about how to get back to his timeline within like 24 hours of arriving into the new timeline and every "bad guy" he encounters ends up being a good guy while also having him join their views. One moment he's having an inner monologue about how x guy is evil and the next he's like "honestly this guy isn't that bad and I completely agree with all of his viewpoints". It's either that or he's incredibly stupid and ignorant. In Book 3 Ch4 he's presented a thought provoking ideology/argument and he drops the notion of discussing it and simply gives up because its too big brain for him. This would be fine if we were going for the realism of a man too ignorant to perceive an idea that goes against his ideology but this dude then folds the next chapter.
There is one instance when Von Bek states a fire line which confronts Bastible's ideology but he brushes it aside as its too big brain but Von Bek says "you've [(Britain)] destroyed souls not bodies, which is worse". I liked this line.
Ulianov also confronts Bastible and those arguments are great as well but literal war crimes need to be shown for Bastible to consider anything.
Side Characters (5/10):
All the side characters ("bad guys") have more interesting pasts, perspectives, and personalities than the MC. Unfortunately, most of them aren't given enough page time before Bastible is swept up by another "bad guy" schemes.
I dislike the way Von Bek was introduced in this book because it felt like a cheap way to connect the series to the overarching Moorcock universe. I believe it could've been handled better or simply alluded to by the statement Ulabut that could've been done by mentioning the multiverse and its multitude of potential futures (which it did).
Ending (5/10):
I have never read a book which covers alternative futures but holy shit was it obvious that they were going to hit Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. Bastible's death to the atomic bomb could've been written with greater detail. Its his first time experiencing such devastating power but he has too realistic of a response (got blinded and felt a burning sensation). I really liked the concept that he didn't go back to his own timeline of 1903 but instead came to our timeline instead.
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The Land Leviathan: A New Scientific Romance (Oswald Bastable #2): 2/10
Jan 21st, 2025 - Jan 27th, 2025
So far better. Its faster paced a bit more interesting. The first 1/3 of the prologue is interesting (Moorcock's grandson trying to publish Bastible's story) and the latter 2/3's (Finding bastible) gets lost in the sauce.
Much better than book 1 but still not that good. For its time it was just as revolutionary as all the other worlds Moorcock created but that is no longer the case. It's cool to see someone write about steampunk before it was a think but I'm not very interested in alternative war stories. Concepts were cool but describing in length machines, airships, and their battle tactics aren't my thing. Cool alternate time line in which there's an African leader who is conquering the world as retribution to slavery. A lot of the real world characters like ghandi playing different roles didn't add much. Nonetheless, better alternative war history than book 1.
Hindsight (Dec 31st, 2025): I realise alternative history is interesting but not when it is the major focus of a work. Alternative history can be a set piece the greater story exists within but it cannot encapsulate the entire story.
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The Steel Tsar (Oswald Bastable #3): 4/10
July 7th, 2025 - July 15th, 2025
6/10: Better written than the trash before. You can tell that this was written around the same time as "The War Hound and the World's Pain" which is an 8/10 however, steel tsar is nowhere near as good. The book is split into 2 parts and the entirety of part 1 is ass. Part 2 is also really bad but luckily the last 3rd (last 2 chapters; ch7 and ch8) picks up and becomes entertaining. It covers similar topics to "The War Hound and the World's Pain" but goes through it quickly. It also finally introduces the Steel Tsar which is a pretty cool idea. Problem is that 111/155 pages are trash. Can't recommend a book that takes 111 pages to get somewhat entertaining or interesting. I will not remember this book even though the latter half is actually good which is sad.
Hindsight: As of Dec 31st, 2025 I do not remember this book whatsoever.
It could've been so much better but because the first 2/3 suck its a 6/10 and the last 1/3 is like a 7/10.
I've realised I hate steampunk and alternative history. Glad Bastable got with Una Persson tho.
Very cool that Moorecock comes up with all these worlds. His settings and ideas are very unique. The fact that he kinda fathered steampunk is cool.
Oct 21st 2024 - Oct 27th 2024
Overall/TL;DR:
The Warlord of the Air has the potential to say something about imperialism, colonialism, and to a certain degree even racism, but it ultimately falls short of delivering a nuanced or meaningful message. Furthermore, due to it's lack of depth, it is only able to produce a message that would be impressive to a child who is unfamiliar with such topics. I believe it's Moorcocks inability to focus on a specific idea that ruins this book for me.
It contains all the typical moorcock tropes but lacks the depth that The War Hound and the World's Pain tried to have and it lacks the creativity that the Erekose settings had.
Bastible is a nonexistent NPC style MC. He feels like the white man in an H.P. Lovecraft story that just exists to be used as a plot device for the reader to experience the story and meet interesting characters.
Entertainment (3/10):
Also holy shit is this book fucking boring. I swear 70% of the content is glazing and cock riding zeppelin air ships and how they work. Nothing happens until chapter 5 book 2/section 2. It takes 84/155 pages before something actually happen. 55% of the book is dedicated to glazing airships. Unfortunately, Moorcock continues to spend a significant amount of time glazing the ships in the second half of the book as well.
There are moments of potential but they end disappointingly. For example, I enjoyed how Bastible used his experience in the past to find a position in the future as a security officer on an airships. This leads to him describing how his work life was like on the airship and how his actions resulted in his termination. This was quite entertaining BUT I don't believe that it should have been present in this book as it adds nothing to the themes of this book. I also liked Bastible's reaction to how cities of his past developed, and the concept of an imperial Britian that never lost its power but neither of these 2 lead to any introspection within Bastible.
Bastible (3/10)
The transformation of Bastible from an ignorant patriotic imperial soldier to a freedom fighting sympathiser could have been done well had the book allocated its page count effectively instead of glazing zeplen airships. Instead we get a ideologically fickle man who bends to the wills of every "bad guy" he meets.
I hate how easily and smoothly Bastible assimilates to the future and all other situations he's thrust into. He gives up on ever thinking about how to get back to his timeline within like 24 hours of arriving into the new timeline and every "bad guy" he encounters ends up being a good guy while also having him join their views. One moment he's having an inner monologue about how x guy is evil and the next he's like "honestly this guy isn't that bad and I completely agree with all of his viewpoints". It's either that or he's incredibly stupid and ignorant. In Book 3 Ch4 he's presented a thought provoking ideology/argument and he drops the notion of discussing it and simply gives up because its too big brain for him. This would be fine if we were going for the realism of a man too ignorant to perceive an idea that goes against his ideology but this dude then folds the next chapter.
There is one instance when Von Bek states a fire line which confronts Bastible's ideology but he brushes it aside as its too big brain but Von Bek says "you've [(Britain)] destroyed souls not bodies, which is worse". I liked this line.
Ulianov also confronts Bastible and those arguments are great as well but literal war crimes need to be shown for Bastible to consider anything.
Side Characters (5/10):
All the side characters ("bad guys") have more interesting pasts, perspectives, and personalities than the MC. Unfortunately, most of them aren't given enough page time before Bastible is swept up by another "bad guy" schemes.
I dislike the way Von Bek was introduced in this book because it felt like a cheap way to connect the series to the overarching Moorcock universe. I believe it could've been handled better or simply alluded to by the statement Ulabut that could've been done by mentioning the multiverse and its multitude of potential futures (which it did).
Ending (5/10):
I have never read a book which covers alternative futures but holy shit was it obvious that they were going to hit Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. Bastible's death to the atomic bomb could've been written with greater detail. Its his first time experiencing such devastating power but he has too realistic of a response (got blinded and felt a burning sensation). I really liked the concept that he didn't go back to his own timeline of 1903 but instead came to our timeline instead.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Land Leviathan: A New Scientific Romance (Oswald Bastable #2): 2/10
Jan 21st, 2025 - Jan 27th, 2025
So far better. Its faster paced a bit more interesting. The first 1/3 of the prologue is interesting (Moorcock's grandson trying to publish Bastible's story) and the latter 2/3's (Finding bastible) gets lost in the sauce.
Much better than book 1 but still not that good. For its time it was just as revolutionary as all the other worlds Moorcock created but that is no longer the case. It's cool to see someone write about steampunk before it was a think but I'm not very interested in alternative war stories. Concepts were cool but describing in length machines, airships, and their battle tactics aren't my thing. Cool alternate time line in which there's an African leader who is conquering the world as retribution to slavery. A lot of the real world characters like ghandi playing different roles didn't add much. Nonetheless, better alternative war history than book 1.
Hindsight (Dec 31st, 2025): I realise alternative history is interesting but not when it is the major focus of a work. Alternative history can be a set piece the greater story exists within but it cannot encapsulate the entire story.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Steel Tsar (Oswald Bastable #3): 4/10
July 7th, 2025 - July 15th, 2025
6/10: Better written than the trash before. You can tell that this was written around the same time as "The War Hound and the World's Pain" which is an 8/10 however, steel tsar is nowhere near as good. The book is split into 2 parts and the entirety of part 1 is ass. Part 2 is also really bad but luckily the last 3rd (last 2 chapters; ch7 and ch8) picks up and becomes entertaining. It covers similar topics to "The War Hound and the World's Pain" but goes through it quickly. It also finally introduces the Steel Tsar which is a pretty cool idea. Problem is that 111/155 pages are trash. Can't recommend a book that takes 111 pages to get somewhat entertaining or interesting. I will not remember this book even though the latter half is actually good which is sad.
Hindsight: As of Dec 31st, 2025 I do not remember this book whatsoever.
It could've been so much better but because the first 2/3 suck its a 6/10 and the last 1/3 is like a 7/10.
I've realised I hate steampunk and alternative history. Glad Bastable got with Una Persson tho.
Very cool that Moorecock comes up with all these worlds. His settings and ideas are very unique. The fact that he kinda fathered steampunk is cool.
April 26, 2013
Zeiten im Wandel
Na, es gehört schon etwas Mut dazu, eigentlich zweimal den identischen Roman, nur mit leichter Abwandlung der Geographie, so zu veröffentlichen. Letztlich ist "The Land Leviathan" nämlich sowohl in Struktur als auch Erzählungsweise eine direkte Kopie von "The Warlord of the Air", nur halt mit einem afrikanischen statt einem asiatischen, verkannten Weltveränderer. Der dritte Roman, "The Steel Tsar", passt auch fast in dieses Schema, ist aber ganz klar der deutlichste schwächste der Trilogie.
Captain Oswald Bastable versucht in diesen drei Romanen, seinen steten Charakter in unsteten Zeiten aufrecht zu erhalten - was ihm nicht leicht fällt, denn seine viktorianischen Prinzipien werden bei wilden Ritten durch parallele Weltgeschichten stark auf die Probe gestellt: Neue Technologien, Weltbilder und politische Umwälzungen prasseln auf den stoischen Soldaten ein, obwohl er eigentlich nur zurück in seine eigene Zeit möchte...
Nein, die Romansammlung schafft es nicht, mich so zu begeistern wie damals bei der Erstlektüre als Teenager. Dazu sind zuviele offensichtliche Mängel drin, und auch die kreative Komponente habe ich inzwischen schon dutzende male besser ausgeführt gesehen - das Szenario traut sich einfach nicht genug, die Welt ist zu platt geschildert, der Held passt sich etwas zu leicht ein, und äußerst viele "deus-ex-machina"-Effekte verderben etwas die Freude aufs Entdecken.
Die Idee, dass die ganzen Revolutionäre des frühen 20.Jh. in einem Luftschiff sitzen und versuchen, zusammen die Welt zu ändern, hat viel Charme - aber es mangelt einfach an der Ausführung, die am Aufzählen der Namen hängenbleibt; vor allem der dritte Roman lebt eigentlich nur vom Namen des Stahlzaren. Da hätte man sehr viel mehr draus machen können.
So bleiben einfach 3 recht kurze, unterhaltsame, spannend geschriebene Steampunk-Science-Fiction-Romane ohne viel Anspruch. Page-Turner sind es aber allemal, und daher empfehle ich diese Sammlung auch allen, die sich für Parallelwelt-Geschichten interessieren.
Das Paperback klebt die drei Romane recht schmucklos hintereinander, mit separater Seitenzählung für jeden Roman. Das Material entspricht schließlich der Devise der Taschenbuchverlage der Erscheinungszeit - "Hauptsache billig".
Na, es gehört schon etwas Mut dazu, eigentlich zweimal den identischen Roman, nur mit leichter Abwandlung der Geographie, so zu veröffentlichen. Letztlich ist "The Land Leviathan" nämlich sowohl in Struktur als auch Erzählungsweise eine direkte Kopie von "The Warlord of the Air", nur halt mit einem afrikanischen statt einem asiatischen, verkannten Weltveränderer. Der dritte Roman, "The Steel Tsar", passt auch fast in dieses Schema, ist aber ganz klar der deutlichste schwächste der Trilogie.
Captain Oswald Bastable versucht in diesen drei Romanen, seinen steten Charakter in unsteten Zeiten aufrecht zu erhalten - was ihm nicht leicht fällt, denn seine viktorianischen Prinzipien werden bei wilden Ritten durch parallele Weltgeschichten stark auf die Probe gestellt: Neue Technologien, Weltbilder und politische Umwälzungen prasseln auf den stoischen Soldaten ein, obwohl er eigentlich nur zurück in seine eigene Zeit möchte...
Nein, die Romansammlung schafft es nicht, mich so zu begeistern wie damals bei der Erstlektüre als Teenager. Dazu sind zuviele offensichtliche Mängel drin, und auch die kreative Komponente habe ich inzwischen schon dutzende male besser ausgeführt gesehen - das Szenario traut sich einfach nicht genug, die Welt ist zu platt geschildert, der Held passt sich etwas zu leicht ein, und äußerst viele "deus-ex-machina"-Effekte verderben etwas die Freude aufs Entdecken.
Die Idee, dass die ganzen Revolutionäre des frühen 20.Jh. in einem Luftschiff sitzen und versuchen, zusammen die Welt zu ändern, hat viel Charme - aber es mangelt einfach an der Ausführung, die am Aufzählen der Namen hängenbleibt; vor allem der dritte Roman lebt eigentlich nur vom Namen des Stahlzaren. Da hätte man sehr viel mehr draus machen können.
So bleiben einfach 3 recht kurze, unterhaltsame, spannend geschriebene Steampunk-Science-Fiction-Romane ohne viel Anspruch. Page-Turner sind es aber allemal, und daher empfehle ich diese Sammlung auch allen, die sich für Parallelwelt-Geschichten interessieren.
Das Paperback klebt die drei Romane recht schmucklos hintereinander, mit separater Seitenzählung für jeden Roman. Das Material entspricht schließlich der Devise der Taschenbuchverlage der Erscheinungszeit - "Hauptsache billig".
March 29, 2015
Dear God, I was annoyed by this book. So why finish it? Because it reflected the kind of thing I used to do in high school (if I had read it in high school, I would probably be giving it five stars!). Alternate history! The hero, Oswald Bastable (see what Moorcock did with the name?) zips in and out of the multiverse and runs into a variety of different futures and meets a variety of different folk, some of whom are also able to traverse the multiverse (c'mon, that's a decent pun). So Gandhi is the President of Bantustan (South Africa here on Earth Prime), Joe Kennedy is a racist thug killer, Al Capone works for President Gandhi (don't ask), like that. And it's all pretty entertaining in the same way it is to catch the big stars making guest appearances in Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days.
But . . . the plots don't really hold up even in a Jules Verne kind of way. I used to devour Verne, especially The Mysterious Island, and he could really crank a plot along. Which is why Moorcock grinds my gears. He is all about the theme, and the themes are 1) Man is a creature of Darwinian evolution, and conflict is our natural state 2) White people have done some pretty nasty things to non-white people over the course of history (very true) and in the multiverse, it's payback time and 3) . . . actually, that about covers it.
There is also a mysterious female named Una Perrson (get it? get it?) flitting through the multiverse, with Bastable in hot pursuit. Spoiler alert: Nothing happens, and the reader couldn't care less by the end of the four books. If anyone has read more in the series, and something does happen, please let me know and I will read it, I promise.
The multiverse isn't a Moorcock creation: Gardner Fox had done a memorable job with Flash of Two Worlds and the whole Justice League/Justice Society relationship in Justice League of America, 21-22 (is it sad that I knew the issues off the top of my head? I think it might be sad) in 1963. They had about as much characterization as Bastable does in this book. And of course, DC is now living off the New 52, and it's multiverses as far as the eye can see.
Read it for memory's sake if you had a fanboy childhood.
But . . . the plots don't really hold up even in a Jules Verne kind of way. I used to devour Verne, especially The Mysterious Island, and he could really crank a plot along. Which is why Moorcock grinds my gears. He is all about the theme, and the themes are 1) Man is a creature of Darwinian evolution, and conflict is our natural state 2) White people have done some pretty nasty things to non-white people over the course of history (very true) and in the multiverse, it's payback time and 3) . . . actually, that about covers it.
There is also a mysterious female named Una Perrson (get it? get it?) flitting through the multiverse, with Bastable in hot pursuit. Spoiler alert: Nothing happens, and the reader couldn't care less by the end of the four books. If anyone has read more in the series, and something does happen, please let me know and I will read it, I promise.
The multiverse isn't a Moorcock creation: Gardner Fox had done a memorable job with Flash of Two Worlds and the whole Justice League/Justice Society relationship in Justice League of America, 21-22 (is it sad that I knew the issues off the top of my head? I think it might be sad) in 1963. They had about as much characterization as Bastable does in this book. And of course, DC is now living off the New 52, and it's multiverses as far as the eye can see.
Read it for memory's sake if you had a fanboy childhood.
March 13, 2011
The adventures of Oswald Bastable, former british cavalry officer and present reluctant time traveler, as recounted to Moorcock's grandfather. Bastable journeys to alternate versions of 1973, another version of his own 1904, and finally to 1941, always confronting a version of the Apocalypse, sometimes accompanied by fellow time travelers Mrs. Persson and Ulric von Bek.
I read an earlier version of this book, put out by the Sci-Fi Book Club in the mid-eighties. This new version reads much more smoothly, adding more material that brings it more in line with the other "Eternal Champion" books.
I've heard this book referred to as the first Steampunk novel. It's written more in the style of Edwardian speculative fiction than the retro-futurism that steampunk implies. Still this new version grabbed me as the original had and by the last page had me wishing Moorcock had done another with Bastable and the League of Temporal Adventurers.
I read an earlier version of this book, put out by the Sci-Fi Book Club in the mid-eighties. This new version reads much more smoothly, adding more material that brings it more in line with the other "Eternal Champion" books.
I've heard this book referred to as the first Steampunk novel. It's written more in the style of Edwardian speculative fiction than the retro-futurism that steampunk implies. Still this new version grabbed me as the original had and by the last page had me wishing Moorcock had done another with Bastable and the League of Temporal Adventurers.
April 1, 2015
I found it difficult to like. The author inverts many expectations by describing steampunk or proto-steampunk alternate histories before such were trendy or had the appellation (where high technology is driven by steam or where everything has a sort of Victorian style about it) and he deconstructs and reverses belief structures such as racism or imperialism or the nature of socialism.
Unfortunately I found Moorcock's writing to be sparse and insufficient to carry the imagination, and felt at several times that the book just didn't feel "Victorian" enough. I was particularly annoyed by the framing device in The Land Leviathan detailing how Bastable's manuscript--the novel itself--came into Moorcock's hands. This prologue of pure story overhead ran over 30 pages in a novel of only 140, which struck me as a very high tax to levy on the page count.
Unfortunately I found Moorcock's writing to be sparse and insufficient to carry the imagination, and felt at several times that the book just didn't feel "Victorian" enough. I was particularly annoyed by the framing device in The Land Leviathan detailing how Bastable's manuscript--the novel itself--came into Moorcock's hands. This prologue of pure story overhead ran over 30 pages in a novel of only 140, which struck me as a very high tax to levy on the page count.
March 22, 2011
I couldn't find the edition of this Oswald bastable trilogy that I read, which was called simplt, "The Nomad of Time". I'm asuming that this is a later editon of the trilogy which includes "The Warlord of the Air", "The Land Leviathan" and "The Steel Tsar". I've no idea why it is subtitled "Eternal Champion 4" either, as it has nothing to do with the Eternal Champion series. In keeping with MM's style, it is a series of wacky sci-fi/fantasy tales about a reluctant time traveller with a penchant for airships. Never the conformist, MM includes cameos from a wild variety of well known figures, from Stalin to Mick Jagger. Not to every sci-fi/fantasy fan's tastes, but another enjoyably bizarre romp for MM fans.
April 10, 2016
I had high hopes for this book, the first book I've read by Moorcock. I enjoy steampunk, and really love the novels of Jules Verne. After all, this book promised dirigibles and time travel, so it had to be good, right?
But I found it hard to care about the characters. The main character, Oswald Bastable, seems to be drifting through all three parts of the book, with things happening to him, rather than him making things happen. The three parts seemed rather repetitive to me. The mysterious organization to which the female character, Una Persson, belongs, remains rather mysterious to me, never fully explained.
In fairness, I read this book in brief snatches over many months, so perhaps that made it difficult to understand. I think it's probably better read in long stretches.
But I found it hard to care about the characters. The main character, Oswald Bastable, seems to be drifting through all three parts of the book, with things happening to him, rather than him making things happen. The three parts seemed rather repetitive to me. The mysterious organization to which the female character, Una Persson, belongs, remains rather mysterious to me, never fully explained.
In fairness, I read this book in brief snatches over many months, so perhaps that made it difficult to understand. I think it's probably better read in long stretches.
December 15, 2010
Moorcock does a wonderful job of fusing turn-of-the-century Victorianism with the genres of fantasy, science-fiction and the sub-genres of time travel and alternate history to produce one of the forefathers of steampunk. The stories of Oswald Bastable's battles are laced with enough political overtones to lend the novels true depth and meaning, but never enough to bore or ostracize readers. Von Bek and the other members of the mysterious League Bastable encounters are kept deliciously in the background and never over-used.
If the descriptions offered here catch your fancy, then you'l love the Nomad series. I intend to seek out and read the rest of the Eternal Champion series now.
If the descriptions offered here catch your fancy, then you'l love the Nomad series. I intend to seek out and read the rest of the Eternal Champion series now.
Want to read
January 11, 2008This edition is a three-book omnibus and I just finished the first novel in the series: The Warlord of the Air. This story is classic Moorcock, for those who've read him. It features Lt. Bastable, a British soldier circa 1902 who is adrift in time and ends up in a 1973 very unlike the one we know. It was fighting dirigibles, faux Victoriana, and more dime-story philosophy than you can shake a stick at. I love it!
July 26, 2021
The first two parts were fun, and much more interesting than the previous volume (Hawkmoon). Sadly by the time I got to the third part I was tired of the concept and ready for a change.
June 12, 2024
I know I've said it before, but Moorcock is a mixed bag for me. This is a series I've meant to read for 30+ years, and it may be for the best that it's taken me this long. It's...odd. As I often feel when reading Moorcock's work, I'm reminded of Allan Moore. Maybe it's their Britishness, but they often seem to be hovering around some of the same general ideas, themes, and tones. Like a lot of Moore's work, this series feels like both an homage to and an evisceration of the sort of Boys Own, Imperialist adventure stories of Kipling, Verne, even Burroughs, and others.
This time around, our incarnation of the Eternal Champion is Oswald Bastable, who is himself lost between worlds. Similar, in a sense, to John Daker/Erekosë. Bastable is a soldier from the early 20th Century who finds himself hopping through alternate Earths at various points in the 20th Century, where history has taken some rather odd courses. Sometimes this brings him into contact with different versions of recognizable people. Often it puts him with or against slightly different versions of actual groups and ideologies.
Moorcock is obviously saying some stuff about politics, race, war, etc. However, his message is often a bit muddled and clumsy. Unfortunately, the adventure side of things doesn't often rise to the level of covering up that clumsiness, so on the whole, I found the trilogy lacking. It's OK. It has a few interesting ideas. But it's not great. It made me think about Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen a lot, but like a lesser version of that.
We get a lot of Una Persson in this volume. I know she plays a major roll in the Jerry Cornelius stories, and in some other books. Way back when, I read a novel that was about her specifically, though I don't remember much about it, other than a rather salacious book cover. I think she and Jerry Cornelius's sister were lovers and traveling through time...? I don't know. The closer Moorcock gets to writing about our own, real world, the less I tend to connect with his work, it seems.
This time around, our incarnation of the Eternal Champion is Oswald Bastable, who is himself lost between worlds. Similar, in a sense, to John Daker/Erekosë. Bastable is a soldier from the early 20th Century who finds himself hopping through alternate Earths at various points in the 20th Century, where history has taken some rather odd courses. Sometimes this brings him into contact with different versions of recognizable people. Often it puts him with or against slightly different versions of actual groups and ideologies.
Moorcock is obviously saying some stuff about politics, race, war, etc. However, his message is often a bit muddled and clumsy. Unfortunately, the adventure side of things doesn't often rise to the level of covering up that clumsiness, so on the whole, I found the trilogy lacking. It's OK. It has a few interesting ideas. But it's not great. It made me think about Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen a lot, but like a lesser version of that.
We get a lot of Una Persson in this volume. I know she plays a major roll in the Jerry Cornelius stories, and in some other books. Way back when, I read a novel that was about her specifically, though I don't remember much about it, other than a rather salacious book cover. I think she and Jerry Cornelius's sister were lovers and traveling through time...? I don't know. The closer Moorcock gets to writing about our own, real world, the less I tend to connect with his work, it seems.
January 3, 2018
This is my first foray into Michael Moorcock and one of the few steampunk type books I have read. Overall, I enjoyed the individual stories and was a bit intrigued by the concept of the time travelers. I don't know how much the Author's Notes and introductions added to the stories. The initial one was intriguing, somewhat reminding me of Jules Verne or HG Wells. It kind of introduced this character that was displaced in time and dimension and let the character (Bastable) introduce his origin and story. The subsequent stories were handed off to the original narrator's grandson and the tone of these messages changed somewhat, so that they (to me) became less storytelling and more like a new release. I could have done without this or if they had continued in the style of the first intro.
December 21, 2019
"There is nothing which gives one strength at a time of need than the presence of comrades who share the same ideas about humanity and justice. ... I understood that it is only the very best in us, our capacity for love and self-respect, that enable us to survive in a perpetually fragmenting multiverse. Only our deepest sense of justice allowed us to remain sane and relish the wonders of chaotic Time and Space, to be free at last of fear. Further violence would bring only an endless chain of bloodshed and an inevitable descent of our race into bestiality and ultimate insentience. To survive, we must love."
- The Steel Tzar, 2:7 (388-9)
- The Steel Tzar, 2:7 (388-9)
August 22, 2020
2.5 stars. Now we're into Moorcock deep cuts. Proto steampunk, anti-colonial, alternate histories with a pretty boring Edwardian hero, excellent battle scenes, and musty political theory. (I read the originals, not the amended combo edition illustrated here.)
August 12, 2022
Alright compilation of the Oswald Bastable series, but only the first novel is really solid all the way through. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
March 25, 2022
This science fiction is actually great. I love it.
July 22, 2023
Maybe not so surprisingly, one of my favorite books.
May 1, 2008
Ugh.
I'm sure the "steampunk" genre that this book kicked off is far more interesting. I was so excited to read a seminal work of something, and I felt hip and cool to open the book, but it's a bore fest. And a sausage fest. Seriously--there are so few contexts in which a story about only men are interesting, and this was a trilogy. War, war, war. It's enough to make Scarlett O'Hara swear!
There was one woman in all three books. It was the same person. She was named "Una Persson" if you can believe it and she was either a consort or a consort. In the last pages of the last book there's some crying because she was unable to stop the bomb from dropping. So we are to deduce that even though she's been trying for three books to change the course of history she is ineffectual. Perhaps the author was making a point that no individual can accomplish anything in a symbolic way (because he puts lots of speeches into characters' mouths to say it explicitly). The woman also appears to mention that there's a whole secret society of time travelers and to take the main character to the League. She is a messenger, here. She doesn't even initiate him herself. Oh, she also delivers some letters from one guy to another. I had observed all these things in the first book and had hoped that the third book--written in the 1980s--would have fleshed out her character a little. Nope. She's just a beautiful tool.
I just lost patience with the franchise. I am sure that steampunk is a creative field with lots of good storytelling and imaginative characters, and so we should credit Moorcock for starting it (or at least thank the fan of his who makes that claim on Wikipedia). I'm just not sure I could stand to read another book by him. Alternate history always disappoints me, and most of the time it has interpersonal relationships and dialogue.
I would conclude that Moorcock had some political issues to work out, and that most of them involved the bomb. And monorails.
I'm sure the "steampunk" genre that this book kicked off is far more interesting. I was so excited to read a seminal work of something, and I felt hip and cool to open the book, but it's a bore fest. And a sausage fest. Seriously--there are so few contexts in which a story about only men are interesting, and this was a trilogy. War, war, war. It's enough to make Scarlett O'Hara swear!
There was one woman in all three books. It was the same person. She was named "Una Persson" if you can believe it and she was either a consort or a consort. In the last pages of the last book there's some crying because she was unable to stop the bomb from dropping. So we are to deduce that even though she's been trying for three books to change the course of history she is ineffectual. Perhaps the author was making a point that no individual can accomplish anything in a symbolic way (because he puts lots of speeches into characters' mouths to say it explicitly). The woman also appears to mention that there's a whole secret society of time travelers and to take the main character to the League. She is a messenger, here. She doesn't even initiate him herself. Oh, she also delivers some letters from one guy to another. I had observed all these things in the first book and had hoped that the third book--written in the 1980s--would have fleshed out her character a little. Nope. She's just a beautiful tool.
I just lost patience with the franchise. I am sure that steampunk is a creative field with lots of good storytelling and imaginative characters, and so we should credit Moorcock for starting it (or at least thank the fan of his who makes that claim on Wikipedia). I'm just not sure I could stand to read another book by him. Alternate history always disappoints me, and most of the time it has interpersonal relationships and dialogue.
I would conclude that Moorcock had some political issues to work out, and that most of them involved the bomb. And monorails.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2018
I'm about half way through this book, and though I may be in a minority among Moorcock fans, I love it. I don't know why. Maybe it's the way it fits to early Vangelis music while being read. Maybe it's the way Moorcock can be talking about 1973, and it may just as well be 1873. Or maybe it's the way he can so masterfully lay out a scene and make characters interact so realistically. There are many moments in this book where I feel like I'm watching an old grainy, technicolor movie with actors who have too much hair spray in their hair, and cable-knit turtle neck sweaters. It's as if after every reading session, I expect the 1970's tv station in my head to have "In Search Of" with Leonard Nemoy come on next (on a sunday afternoon).
There is definitely a Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells feel to a lot of this. And yet, it's so Moorcock-ian. I would not be surprised if Elric or Corum showed up at any moment.
I think I simply love this book because it is only one of a handful of Moorcock books that I haven't yet read, and since I've been reading his books since high school, I hate to think that someday there will be no more new Moorcock books to read.
Warlord of the Air plots along with a few good action scenes, and builds to a quick, clean climax. There are some awesome lines, philosophies, and metaphysical vantage points in this story. I love the way Moorcock uses his characters to get the reader to look at British rule from outside of the box. Since discovering Moorcock is an Anarchist, I see it more and more in his writing, and respect the aspiration to rule oneself.
I'll add more after I finish the book. In the meantime, if you're thinking about reading this, but have doubts - don't have doubts. Dig in and enjoy it! It's a great story and a pleasure to read!
There is definitely a Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells feel to a lot of this. And yet, it's so Moorcock-ian. I would not be surprised if Elric or Corum showed up at any moment.
I think I simply love this book because it is only one of a handful of Moorcock books that I haven't yet read, and since I've been reading his books since high school, I hate to think that someday there will be no more new Moorcock books to read.
Warlord of the Air plots along with a few good action scenes, and builds to a quick, clean climax. There are some awesome lines, philosophies, and metaphysical vantage points in this story. I love the way Moorcock uses his characters to get the reader to look at British rule from outside of the box. Since discovering Moorcock is an Anarchist, I see it more and more in his writing, and respect the aspiration to rule oneself.
I'll add more after I finish the book. In the meantime, if you're thinking about reading this, but have doubts - don't have doubts. Dig in and enjoy it! It's a great story and a pleasure to read!
April 22, 2016
About a third of the way through the last book of the series, the narrator tells the reader that he "pretended to nod" to another character. The time I spent trying to picture what someone "pretending to nod" looks like was far and away the most enjoyable part of the experience of reading A Nomad of the Time Streams.
This book was absolutely awful. I've had a fondness for Moorcock for a long time, but his books never quite seem to meet the promise that the capsule summaries of their plots suggest. In this book's case, though, the execution is nightmarishly bad. On the level of the plot, the story makes little sense. Characters display no consistency whatsoever, with the main character passionately declaring his hatred of someone (with very little suggestion of why) on one page only to swear his loyalty to him on the next. For an alternate history series, this series also shows no understanding of either actual history or of historical processes. On top of the inaccuracies in the historical background, the story focuses on the development of technologies without any sense of their emergence from existing precedents and the isolated development of new super weapons prove enough to turn the world upside down again and again. Worst of all is the actual writing. In what appears to be an attempt to recreate the sort of voice used in the adventure fiction of the early 20th century, everything is described in mind-numbingly dispassionate prose. Whereas the third book makes some progress by moderating these excesses, it too renders itself unreadable with pages and pages of supposedly revelatory insight into the true nature of the human condition that have all the depth and internal coherence of the musings of a depressed precocious teen.
This book was absolutely awful. I've had a fondness for Moorcock for a long time, but his books never quite seem to meet the promise that the capsule summaries of their plots suggest. In this book's case, though, the execution is nightmarishly bad. On the level of the plot, the story makes little sense. Characters display no consistency whatsoever, with the main character passionately declaring his hatred of someone (with very little suggestion of why) on one page only to swear his loyalty to him on the next. For an alternate history series, this series also shows no understanding of either actual history or of historical processes. On top of the inaccuracies in the historical background, the story focuses on the development of technologies without any sense of their emergence from existing precedents and the isolated development of new super weapons prove enough to turn the world upside down again and again. Worst of all is the actual writing. In what appears to be an attempt to recreate the sort of voice used in the adventure fiction of the early 20th century, everything is described in mind-numbingly dispassionate prose. Whereas the third book makes some progress by moderating these excesses, it too renders itself unreadable with pages and pages of supposedly revelatory insight into the true nature of the human condition that have all the depth and internal coherence of the musings of a depressed precocious teen.
February 19, 2012
To quote from another reviewer:
"I couldn't find the edition of this Oswald Bastable trilogy that I read, which was called simply "The Nomad of Time". I'm assuming that this is a later editon of the trilogy which includes "The Warlord of the Air", "The Land Leviathan" and "The Steel Tsar". I've no idea why it is subtitled "Eternal Champion 4" either, as it has nothing to do with the Eternal Champion series."
Having said that, this was fascinating. I read it because Neil Gaiman tweeted that he thought it might be the first known example of steampunk. It's built on solid sci fi themes that are treated with respect: a war that keeps happening in one way or another in alternate universes no matter how causality is tweaked, a world-weary figure (not unlike the Doctor, really, or maybe Bill Murray in Groundhog Day) who keeps trying and trying to get it right.
"I couldn't find the edition of this Oswald Bastable trilogy that I read, which was called simply "The Nomad of Time". I'm assuming that this is a later editon of the trilogy which includes "The Warlord of the Air", "The Land Leviathan" and "The Steel Tsar". I've no idea why it is subtitled "Eternal Champion 4" either, as it has nothing to do with the Eternal Champion series."
Having said that, this was fascinating. I read it because Neil Gaiman tweeted that he thought it might be the first known example of steampunk. It's built on solid sci fi themes that are treated with respect: a war that keeps happening in one way or another in alternate universes no matter how causality is tweaked, a world-weary figure (not unlike the Doctor, really, or maybe Bill Murray in Groundhog Day) who keeps trying and trying to get it right.
March 3, 2010
• I’m really of two minds about this book. On the one hand, the story is very well written and entertaining. It consists of three short stories about the same character, Oswald Bastable. These stories are presented as memoirs or actual events, which in my view makes them all the more entertaining. On the other hand however, this story has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Eternal Champion. Many people may look at this books inclusion into the Eternal Champion series as a blatant attempt by Moorcock to get people to read this book. Normally, this would probably make me mad, but since the story was so well written I guess I can give him a pass
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October 1, 2011Actually a collection of three novels. I liked the first one, Warlord of the Air. The second one seemed a bit stretched, although reading about a different version of Gandi was amusing. The third, Steel Tsar, got a little corny towards the end, although there's some cool ideas. (Not radically new, similar to other books I've read that came out of the 70's in fantasy about alternative realities but still good). [return][return]But The Temporal League of Justice, or whatever it is? Kinda hokey. [return][return]Not bad, but I'd probably really only recommend the first book in the series and maybe the second. Or don't read them all back to back.
July 19, 2011
More philosophical and less pulpy than the previous volume, it manages to be simultaneously better-crafted and less interesting. While the look at three different ways the twentieth century might have gone differently is a a good conceit, in practice it's rather repetitious and not all that profound, particularly since, in order to have airships, technology had to take a very similar direction in all three.
It's not bad, but it's not my favorite (which honor still belongs to Von Bek, I believe.)
It's not bad, but it's not my favorite (which honor still belongs to Von Bek, I believe.)
May 30, 2007
Another of Moorcock's flights into the alternate history/scientific romance genres, a territory he returns to frequently but where he never really shines. These stories, however, represent some of his best work in the area. Each one is basically a political parable, told in linear fashion with tight narrative economy. The anarcho-collectivist rhetoric never quite reaches a Randian level of preachiness, and is generally compensated for by the presence of cool robots and blimps with cannons.
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