Stormbringer

An absolutely perfect—if perhaps slightly drawn out—end to the Elric saga.

And a note on that. There is a seventh volume, Elric at the End of Time that I read and remember being exceptionally disappointed in. I've since found out it was not written sequentially, and really isn't an official part of the series. So I won't be reading it again. I'm going to let Elric go here, the way it was intended.

We see Elric, who is surely one of the most tragic fantasy heroes ever written, stretched to his limit, and it's actually quite devastating to read. No spoilers, but the end was completely fitting.

A fantastic series. Well worth the effort.

What an impressive "end"! :) Of course, I already know there are a number of books that continue on, but I have to assume they take place before this Final Battle.

The black blade always gets the final laugh. Indeed.

I need to back up. These Elric tales are epic in the purest sense of the word. Forces of Chaos and Law rage across all lands and the multiverse... all time, as well. Elric's sword, Stormbringer, was designed to destroy the gods of Chaos together its twin, a blade of Law. Both are intelligent, drinkers of souls, and bloodthirsty as hell.

Elric straddles the line between both forces, focused on revenge as everything he's ever known or loved dies before him. He's a god-killer.

You know all those epic fantasies we love so much by show more all the biggest names in fantasy? Robert Jordan, Neil Gaiman, or hell, all of D&D pull from this author's epic ideas. Incarnations of Chaos, elementals, incarnations of Law (order), and Men. So many huge armies live and die, the continents change, the death toll utterly immense. Think about the fourth season of Babylon 5. It's this scope. This immensity.

But realize Elric came out long before all those. This is what Tolkien COULD have been had he gotten out of the minor details of all these lives and not fought for the static continuation of everyone's lives as the greatest good. Moorcock ramped up the stakes to the same level of Melkor versus all the Illuvatar and beyond since the stakes were for all time and all worlds across the multiverse. :)

Just saying... this is some impressive stuff. :) show less

Stormbringer is the tale of Elric, last king of faded Melniboné, who must once more pick up his evil and sentient runesword Stormbringer in an almost hopeless effort to save the world from ultimate Chaos. Moorcock delivers fast-paced action on a grand scale, rapidly moving from battle to battle, with some gods and demons put in for good measure. It is good if undemanding fun, but one senses that Moorcock is trying to achieve effects that he never quite pulls off. The personal tragedies that the protagonist experiences are surely meant to stir the reader’s emotions, but the characters are underdeveloped and often little more than cyphers. In the same vein, the book spends quite some time talking about the cosmic balance between Law show more and Chaos, but the theories expounded are both confused and shallow. Stormbringer never rises above the level of an enjoyable fantasy romp.

It is unfortunate that this enjoyment is sometimes diminished by sloppy or lazy writing. Here is a particularly bad example: ‘Stormbringer radiated an evil poison which more than slew Elric’s attackers – it drank their souls[...]’ “Evil poison” is a metaphor that manages to be both forced and clichéd; and how poison can be “radiated” is a mystery only matched by the mystery of how it can drink something. I was also fascinated to read about a room that extended into dimensions that were spaceless and timeless – mr. Moorcock evidently knowing about kinds of extension that I have never dreamt about. The book, then, is best enjoyed with one’s critical faculties turned off or at least toned down… which is not true about the works of better writers, among whom, I believe, mister Moorcock at other times might be ranked. show less

The Elric saga comes to close and a very satisfying conclusion with Elric, Moonglum and Stormbringer each playing their parts. A little more thoughtful then the previous volumes and the first since volume one that felt like a regular novel not three novellas tied together. But Moorcock did a fine job of string together the pieces from Books 1 - 5 that are woven into this finale.

A satisfying and appropriate ending (never mind Moorcock wrote more later) for a hell of a series. Classic big-idea fantasy at its best!

What can I say? I know this stuff is junk-food, but every now and then I need a hit. Back in college I used to gorge myself on Moorcock as an antidote to the reading imposed on me by professors.

Good, but I'm awfully tired of this overworked theme of heroes as playthings of the gods.