More books by Michael Moorcock
Jerry Cornelius — (1968-2005) Publisher: Jerry Cornelius is an English assassin, physicist, rock star, and messiah to the Age of Science. Written between 1965 and 1967, this sequence of four novels relating Cornelius’s adventures has been credited with inspiring dozens of writers and artists to rethink the genre of science fiction. Acclaimed British author Michael Moorcock’s time-tripping antihero is one of the great achievements in modern fantastic literature. This is the first U.S. publication of one of the most influential sagas in postmodern sci-fi.
The Time of the Hawklords — (1976-1977) Publisher: Rocking On The Edge Of Time. Deep at the Earth’s Centre lay the Death Generator. Buried there from time immemorial by a long-dead race of aliens, it had at last been triggered into action… For among the ruins of London, surrounded by the survivors of the recent holocaust, Hawkwind rock, their music catalysing the attacking Death Ray — a lethal concoction of high energy that insinuates it’s way into the mind, tormenting every sense with demonic psychic visions. With the breakdown of the barriers between nightmare and reality, Hawkwind find themselves re-enacting the stages of a war that took place thousands of years before, in which they take the role of the Hawklords — the only potential saviours of the human race otherwise doomed to extermination in an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil …
The Second Ether — (1994-1996) Publisher: A rent in reality allows passage between the luscious and seductive southern states of the USA and the monstrous universe of the Second Ether. Jack Karaquazian travels this path, gambling his way back and forth in search of the love of his life.
Stand-alones:
The Winds of Limbo — (1965) Publisher: Earth’s future is one of peace. There are no more wars, nuclear weapons are outlawed, and technology is raising mankind to new heights. Many cities are now underground. Alain von Bek is a bastard of distinguished lineage working an unassuming job with city administration in the underground city of Switzerland. But with the appearance of a massive clownish figure calling himself the Fireclown, Alain’s life and the course of Earth’s future are both about to change. The Fireclown claims to hold the keys to mankind’s salvation. He carries an undeniable charisma that is winning him followers, chief among them Helen Curtis, Alain’s cousin and former lover, not to mention serious candidate in the next presidential election. But there are also those who mistrust the Fireclown. At the forefront of this opposition is Minister Simon von Bek, Alain’s grandfather, and Helen’s chief competition in the forthcoming election. Gradually, Alain finds himself sucked into a game of chess between these three polarizing forces, but each new revelation raises new questions, about his past and that of the world’s future. He will have to put his trust in someone, and time is running out — for him and the world — to make the right choice in this story of Michael Moorcock’s celebrated multiverse.
The Shores of Death — (1966) Publisher: In the far future, Earth’s rotation has been halted by powerful aliens searching for the end of the universe. Happening upon Earth, the aliens took from it what they needed and moved on. The human race is now divided; some living on the cold night side, some the sweltering day side, yet others in the thin twilight between the two regions. Living a life of pleasure and decadence in the twilight region, Valta Becker impregnates his daughter who dies shortly after giving birth to Clovis, last of the twilight children. Neglected by his father, Clovis leaves home for the more technologically and philosophically sophisticated daylight region, where lifespans stretch to hundreds of years and the marvels of future science still flourish. He makes a name for himself in politics, rising to almost god-like stature. When catastrophe strikes, rendering the daylight people sterile due to an after-effect of the aliens’ strange energies used in halting the planet’s rotation, Clovis Becker must find an answer or the human race will perish. Thus begins a taut adventure filled with warring political ideologies, End of the World parties, flower forests and floating carriages, shadowy figures attempting to shape mankind’s destiny for their own ends, colorful descriptions worthy of Jack Vance and Mervyn Peake — and a love story for the ages as Clovis and Fastina Cahmin — the last born of the daylight people — seek immortality… but at what cost? Michael Moorcock is one of the most widely read SF authors in the world, and here his fertile imagination is on full display.
The Wrecks of Time — (1967) Publisher: “There they lay, outside of space and time, each hanging in its separate limbo, each a planet called Earth. Fifteen globes, fifteen lumps of matter sharing a name. Once they might have looked the same, too, but now they were very different. One was comprised almost solely of desert and ocean with a few forests of gigantic, distorted trees growing in the northern hemisphere; another seemed to be in perpetual twilight, a planet of dark obsidian; yet another was a honeycomb of multicoloured crystal and another had a single continent that was a ring of land around a vast lagoon. The wrecks of Time, abandoned and dying, each with a decreasing number of human inhabitants for the most part unaware of the doom overhanging their worlds. These worlds existed in a kind of subspacial well created in furtherance of a series of drastic experiments…” Who has the immense power to create entire worlds only to discard them as failures in the backwaters of the space-time continuum? Who would then maliciously destroy these less-than-perfect worlds and their human inhabitants, and to what end? Professor Faustus and the loyal men and women dispersed on these alternate Earths have dedicated their lives to eradicating the demolition teams and the Unstable Matter Situations the D-squads create. As they soon discover, much more is at stake, as they fight a seemingly losing battle with the very pattern of the Universe in the balance. Thought-provoking and full of surprises, The Wrecks of Time weds science, religion, myth, and history into a page-turning narrative, a grand concept tale that has proven to be one of Michael Moorcock’s most innovative science fiction works.
The Black Corridor — (1969) Publisher: The world is sick. The Forces of Chaos have energised the planet. Leaders, fuhrers, duces, prophets, visionaries, gurus, and politicians are all at each others’ throats. And Chaos leers over the broken body of Order. So Ryan freezes his family into suspended animation and sets off for the planet Munich 15040, five years distant. There he will re-establish Order in a New World — and create a happier, healthier, saner and more decent society with the ones he loves. But they are suspended. And they cannot talk. And he is alone in space. And he has been travelling for three years. And he will still be travelling two years hence, and he cannot see his destination, and he is ALONE and LOST and CRACKING UP.
The Time Dweller — (1969) Publisher: The Earth rolled, salt-choked, round a dying sun. On its bleak inhospitable surface the last lonely remnants of mankind resigned themselves to extinction. Time, it seemed, had run out for humanity. Yet Time itself held the key to survival. If man was to be supplanted from his native planet, perhaps only infinity would afford him a refuge. Only the age-long cliches with which his mind was fettered barred him from a whole new dimension — and a future of unimaginable splendor.
The Ice Schooner — (1969) Publisher: First serialized in the British magazine SF Impulse (1966/67), then published in book form in the U.K. by Sphere in 1969, and later that year in the U.S. by Berkley (Paperbacks). A revised edition was published in 1977 (hardcover by Harper & Row, paperback by Sphere [U.K.] and Dell [U.S.]). The text was further revised in 1985.
The Distant Suns — (1975) With Philip James. Publisher: Humanity is on the brink of extinction. It is the 21st century and Earth is overcrowded, underfed, and teetering on the brink of worldwide chaos. Their best and last hope rests among the stars, in finding another world able to sustain human life. Enter Colonel Jerry Cornelius, hero and adventurer extraordinaire. Along with his wife Cathy and good friend, Professor Frank Marek, he will brave the madness of space and the dangers of an alien world. But there is more to this world than meets the eye. Secrets are buried here, in its earth and in its history. Uncovering them could hold the keys to planet Earth’s salvation as well as its past. But time is against Jerry Cornelius. His friend has gone mad, his wife has gone missing, and with each tick of the clock planet Earth draws closer to its end. Bereft of friends, loved ones, and all he has ever known, Jerry Cornelius will hold the fates of two worlds in his hands. It will take all his strength, smarts, and courage to save everyone in time… and even that might not be enough in the end.
The Golden Barge — (1977) Publisher: The first of Moorcock’s novels, written when he was a teenager but published a good few years after his more famous books. Tells the story of Jephraim Tallow and his quest for the Golden Barge.
Mother London — (1988) Publisher: Three hospital outpatients all find that they hear voices — the voices of London’s past. As they explore the city of their present day, they also explore its recent past and its forgotten people. Through the lives of those on the fringe of society, we learn what it is like — and what it has always been like — to live in the great, sprawling, polyphonic, multicoloured capital.
King of the City (2000) Publisher: The death of Princess Di heralded a spring clean of the soul. And the dirt we wanted off our coffee tables was the kind of salacious exposure tabloid paparazzo photographer Denny Dover had made a fortune out of. Now he’s out of work and moving to the godforsaken wastes of Skerring on the South coast of England to lick his wounds. A former rock star and existential maverick this East End lad-made-good lived it up with the best of them. But his childhood friend, hugely wealthy magnate Sir John Barbican-Begg (deceased, allegedly) is resurrecting events from a past littered with dysfunction and greed, sex, rock and roll and a ton of drugs. Denny’s life encapsulates the fevered underground of a London teeming with contradiction and ambivalence, subversion and rage. Moorcock’s hugely entertaining follow-up to his masterpiece Mother London captures the spirit of our age as we stagger into the new millennium.
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By Michael Moorcock & Storm Constantine
Silverheart: A Novel of the Multiverse — (2000) Publisher: This is a novel set at the very heart of Michael Moorcock’s multiverse, in Karadur, city of metal, steam, and ancient families, the mighty clans of the metal. In six days, Max Silverskin, thief and trickster, must discover the secrets of his heritage or die from the witch mark — the silverheart — which will devour his heart. Lady Rose Iron, daughter of the leader of the powerful Clan Iron is thrown into an edgy alliance with Max, as she searches for the secrets that could save the city’s future. Captain Cornelius Coffin, head of the clans’ security forces, is in love with Lady Rose and obsessed with capturing Max. And, there are others, in Shriltasi, Karadur’s underworld twin, who know the prophecy which says that only Max Silverskin can save both realms. In “Silverheart”, Michael Moorcock and Storm Constantine have combined their talents to produce a novel that is both surreal and gothic.
(1939- )
