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Tale of the Eternal Champion #9
The New Nature of the Catastrophe
Contains stories about "Jerry Cornelius" by Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss, Norman Spinrad, James Sallis, M. John Harrison and others, this is one of the Millennium Uniform Editions of Moorcock's work, omnibus volumes with revised texts and new introductions.
448 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1971
5 people are currently reading
283 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,207 books3,746 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 8, 2016
-Marcianada de alta categoría.-
Género. Relatos.
Lo que nos cuenta. Homenaje al conocido (sobre todo en ciertos círculos, no en general) personaje de Moorcock Jerry Cornelius, agente secreto hermafrodita y resucitado (por hacer un breve resumen de su perfil), que ni es antología de relatos ni es Fix-Up, y que está compuesto por historias escritas para la revista británica New Worlds por autores como el propio Michael Moorcock, Brian W. Aldiss, M. John Harrison, James Sallis, Langdon Jones, Norman Spinrad, Alex Krislov y Maxim Jakubowski, con presentación de Elías Sarhán, introducción de James Colvin (uno de los seudónimos que usó Moorcock, por cierto) y hasta un comic entre sus páginas.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Relatos.
Lo que nos cuenta. Homenaje al conocido (sobre todo en ciertos círculos, no en general) personaje de Moorcock Jerry Cornelius, agente secreto hermafrodita y resucitado (por hacer un breve resumen de su perfil), que ni es antología de relatos ni es Fix-Up, y que está compuesto por historias escritas para la revista británica New Worlds por autores como el propio Michael Moorcock, Brian W. Aldiss, M. John Harrison, James Sallis, Langdon Jones, Norman Spinrad, Alex Krislov y Maxim Jakubowski, con presentación de Elías Sarhán, introducción de James Colvin (uno de los seudónimos que usó Moorcock, por cierto) y hasta un comic entre sus páginas.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
September 13, 2018
Gorgeous presentation, interesting preface, rather boring contents.
May 29, 2021
This is completely unreadable boring garbage. What we have here is a repetitve selection of stories that should never have seen print, at best it is lowest quality fan fiction.
Turgid and tiresome, there is no space on the shelves for this.
BEGONE MINDLESS DRIBBLING KAK!
Turgid and tiresome, there is no space on the shelves for this.
BEGONE MINDLESS DRIBBLING KAK!
March 30, 2023
This is a mixed bag of stories starring one of Moorcock's most iconic characters, rock god, freedom fighter, messiah to the age of science, or maybe just adolescent fantasist, Jerry Cornelius. The style of these stories is very obscure and allusive, more about mood and attitude than about clear story. And the satire is mostly very specific to the period, mainly the 60s and 70s. So I couldn't recommend this to anyone who wasn't already familiar with Moorcock and Cornelius, but for fans this is essential. the Moorcock stories are collected elsewhere but the stories by other hands can only be found here now. It also includes a complete (I think) version of the Adventures of Jerry Cornelius comic strip that was scripted by Moorcock and M John Harrison and illustrated by Mal Dean and R Glyn Jones.
August 10, 2022
By and large the Cornelius stories written by other hands are fairly wretched, and Moorcock's own are pretty hit and miss. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
August 6, 2025
The original Nature of the Catastrophe offers a menagerie of Jerry Cornelius stories, some by Moorcock, some by others originally for New Worlds, and some by others for this collection.
Of the new stories, the trio by M. John Harrison and "The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde" by Norman Spinrad stand out, primarily I think because they vary the Cornelius technique rather than blindly adopting it. Harrison cleverly interconnects three different stories in a way that would take multiple stories to fully make sense of them. Spinrad branches out from the narrative uncertainty of Cornelius to embrace full on absurdism; if you can get past the dated racial stereotyping, it's an intriguing read.
Everything else is just fair. Notably, the couple of stories in his volume that weren't reprinted in the "New Nature" (a pair of stories by James Sallis) aren't notable enough to seek out this old, out-of-print volume (though the first, the "Jeremiad" intriguingly repeats the Elric-adjacent formula of _The Final Program_ before quickly being consumed by the entropy running across the entire sequence).
The added stories in the new Nature of the Catastrophe are quite good, with Jerry and Miss Brunner at the end being a particular standout, because it really does offer an ending to many stories of Jerry Cornelius (and crew).
Of the new stories, the trio by M. John Harrison and "The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde" by Norman Spinrad stand out, primarily I think because they vary the Cornelius technique rather than blindly adopting it. Harrison cleverly interconnects three different stories in a way that would take multiple stories to fully make sense of them. Spinrad branches out from the narrative uncertainty of Cornelius to embrace full on absurdism; if you can get past the dated racial stereotyping, it's an intriguing read.
Everything else is just fair. Notably, the couple of stories in his volume that weren't reprinted in the "New Nature" (a pair of stories by James Sallis) aren't notable enough to seek out this old, out-of-print volume (though the first, the "Jeremiad" intriguingly repeats the Elric-adjacent formula of _The Final Program_ before quickly being consumed by the entropy running across the entire sequence).
The added stories in the new Nature of the Catastrophe are quite good, with Jerry and Miss Brunner at the end being a particular standout, because it really does offer an ending to many stories of Jerry Cornelius (and crew).
May 16, 2015
A recollection of Moorcock's farming out to other authors of his 'container' Jerry Cornelius. For those familiar with the core volumes of the Cornelius continuum, it becomes apparent here that Moorcock integrated these inputs and this volume thus serves to document and ground a collective project.
not-read
February 1, 2012Has a story by James Sallis that might be worth checking out at some point.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews