The Dancers at the End of Time (1993)

*note to self. Copy from A.

An Alien Heat: http://www.librarything.com/review/88467496
The Hollow Lands: http://www.librarything.com/review/88467750
The End of All Songs: http://www.librarything.com/review/26051858

I was very excited by the first book, but the third book left me a little drained and yearning for something a little more substantial. ( )

Have you ever wondered who came up with the idea of Second Life? It's basically a world in which you can make what you want or do what you like. Your only limits are those of your imagination.

I'm sure that the creators of this virtual world may have found a copy of Michael Moorcock's End of Time books, in which the inhabitants live in a world that is entirely their own. Clothes are made with the twist of a ring. Homes are put together with the wave of a hand. Life is as they make it, complete with parties, servants, and elaborate meals.

Jherek Carnelian is an odd sort of character dancing at the end of time. He is one of two inhabitants there (other than the occasional time traveler who gets stuck there) who was born. His mother, the Iron Orchid, thought it would be amusing to have a child the natural way. Those who were not born were either created by others (as was Sweet Orb Mace) or just came into being.

It is at a party at the Duke of Queen's home that Jherek discovers a time traveler quite different than the others. This traveler, Mrs. Amelia Underwood, a woman from the Victorian age, catches Jherek's heart in a way that no other creature was able to in the past. Distracted by a doomsaying alien, Jherek loses sight of Mrs. Underwood, and embarks on a quest to find her and win her love.

Jherek travels across time and space to win the heart of Mrs. Underwood, and gets help from very unlikely places along the way. Additionally, some Moorcock favorites make cameo appearances both and the End and Beginning of Time.

If you're a fan of Moorcock's Eternal Champion series (essentially, his entire corpus), then this volume of the tales of Carnelian are a must-have. Highly recommended! ( )

The Dancers at the End of Time combines Michael Moorcock's three novels An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End of All Songs, and is reprinted here as number 53 in the SF Masterworks series.

The titular dancers are the inhabitants of Earth in the centuries prior to the destruction of the Universe. Their powers--granted to them by their ancestors' technology, which they no longer truly understand--are god-like, and the Earth of the distant future is their plaything. They are amoral aesthetes whose lives are carefully constructed pieces of performance art, or a series of complex games.

Jherek Carnelian is the last human conceived and born on Earth in the old-fashioned way. At a party, he glimpses unwilling nineteenth century time traveller Mrs Amelia Underwood, and decides upon a new affectation: he will fall in love with her and win her heart. His new game thrills his friends, and everyone wants to play. Jherek's attempts to track down and seduce Mrs Underwood--as the Universe edges ever closer to destruction--are the heart of three quite funny novels.

An Alien Heat, the first volume, is by far the best of the three. The weird omnipotent innocence of Jherek and his friends and rivals is beautifully introduced and developed, then made marvellous by Jherek's pursuit of Mrs Underwood back to the nineteenth century--where he is powerless, but still innocent, and barely understands a single thing that happens to him.

The Hollow Lands is arguably the funniest of the three. Jherek's return to the nineteenth century culminates in the farcical set-piece chapter entitled, A Particularly Memorable Night at the Cafe Royal.

The End of All Songs suffers slightly from its need to deal with the previous book's cliff-hanger and then to resolve the various plots, but Moorcock is a skilled writer, and he does what he needs to do with panache. ( )

This and its companion volume 'legends at the end of time' of which i had a copy in my library, are my all time favourite books. I have borrowed this one to re read because i dont have a copy. SF masterworks is reissueing all michael moorcocks books and it is great this one is back in print. Do others like it as much as I do? the world at the end of time which it describes is so seductive. i wish i live there. I have read the others reviews and am rather surprised because their comments did not seem to be about the book of the same title that i read long ago. I dont remember the edition of the book that I read long ago concentrate a lot on mrs underwood or jherek. Or perhaps when i read the book i was very young and just did not register that there was any love interest between them, nor was i interested. Maybe i skipped or sped through those parts haha. i was more interested in the world at the end of time and the inhabitants there. I find all the scenes that involve that universe at the end of time so enthralling that I dont remember much of mrs underwood and jherek's adventures in the past. So perhaps I am glad I got the 'legends at the End of time' after all, because it concentrated a lot on the wild things the people there got up to. I am unable to find a copy of that in the library. I wonder whether no one else is interested in it as I am? Pity that.
added 23.2.08
Now I have finished the book I can see that the first time i read it did not get the full nuances. the world is ending, and so it needs a new adam and eve to start the cycle again.
it also made me wonder whether I wouldlike to be at the world at the end of time in an endless loop, or be free to timetravel. it also featured a week long time loop, where children were placed there to keep them safe. within that time loop people can do whatever they wish, so it is not like a groundhog day scenario, where they repeat exactly each day. It makes me wonder whether the 9-5 weekly threadmill that workers do is not a time loop.
but let me come back to asking whether I would like to be stuck in a place that constantly repeats itself. (Though the inhabitants are not aware of it, and so like one of the characters said, if u are not aware of the bars, you wont know if u r a prisoner. And you will have unlimited powers to create anyting u like.) Or would I like to be a timetraveller.
It reminded me of the present day, where I live in London. I have all the modern freedom of speech and movement, and freedom of thought, and then I go to malaysia where people cannot express freely their thoughts. This is not only because the govt censors it, but also because the people who live there are very aware that what they say may cause others to be offended.(people there are easily offended) so they curb their utterances by choice. It is not a nice place to stay for long when you have to guard ur speech and so I am glad I dont live there. The analogy is similar to the one given at the end of the book. The best outcome is to be able to live at the end of time, enjoying the unlimited powers to create anyting at all, whilst being able to time travel to all the ages and briefly sample the experience knowing it is not going tobe permanent. That is the situation now with my life, and that is why this book is rather alive for me, for it s analogy with my life is very close. However I split from the book in the final ending. My life is still open to outside influence, it is not a close loop. ( )