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Loading... Elric: "The Stealer of Souls" AND "Stormbringer" (Millennium Fantasy Masterworks) (edition 2001)by Michael Moorcock
Work InformationElric by Michael Moorcock
Fantasy Masterworks (21) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Hmm, old-school heroic fantasy just isn't my cup of tea, I'm afraid. There's some powerful and some vivid imagery here, but overall the prose is (horribly) dated and the characterisation is paper-thin (especially for the few female characters *shudder*). The concept itself is still an interesting one (the last king of an ancient and cruel folk is a frail albino with a cursed, soul-drinking sword), but we get endless scenes of the emo antihero angsting shallowly and not much else, despite all the potential for some really substantial storytelling about a non-traditional warrior-sorceror. And the fact that Elric, who has always been a completely self-immersed and immoral character, suddenly gives two hoots about the ultimate fate of the world in the final stages of the book feels very hollow. Still worth reading for its place in fantasy canon (pretty radical stuff when it was written, I believe), but it doesn't make me want to pick up any other of the Elric books. ( ) http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1230921.html This is the Fantasy Masterworks edition which brings together The Stealer of Souls and Stormbringer, which I think are the first two Elric books published though apparently several more were subsequently inserted into the internal continuity. I found the stories a quick and undemanding read. Elric's tortured relationship with his soul-drinking sword and his own family heritage makes him an unusually compolex hero. Moorcock's prose is always engaging and often rises to the entertainingly baroque. His roots in Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft are clear (I think a bit less Tolkien). As I have noted before, immersive fantasies don't always work for me but this was an entertaining enough ride. no reviews | add a review
ContainsThe Dreaming City [short story] by Michael Moorcock (indirect) The Stealer of Souls [short story] by Michael Moorcock (indirect) The Flame Bringers by Michael Moorcock (indirect) Kings in Darkness by Michael Moorcock (indirect) While the Gods Laugh by Michael Moorcock (indirect) Dead God's Homecoming by Michael Moorcock (indirect) Black Sword's Brothers by Michael Moorcock (indirect) Sad God's Shield by Michael Moorcock (indirect) Doomed Lord's Passing by Michael Moorcock (indirect)
Elric of Melniboné is the haunted, treacherous and doomed albino sorcerer-prince. An introspective weakling in thrall to his black-bladed, soul-eating sword, Stormbringer, he is yet a hero whose bloody adventures and wanderings through brooding, desolate lands leads inexorably to his decisive intervention in the war between the forces of Law and Chaos. This volume brings together The Stealer of Souls and Stormbringer, the first two published books of Elric¿s adventures, and confirms Michael Moorcock¿s place as one of the most important fantasy writers of our time. No library descriptions found. |
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