Will you try it? 
Maybe if I grow my beard again and put on one of my flannel shirts.
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Nearly done with An Echo of Things to Come, and it’s getting better and better. Like with the initial book, the first 150 pages or so are a bit slow, but once things are finally set in motion, the action and excitement builds with every page.
It’s hard to give a summary, though, as the plot is complex and labyrinthine, with flashbacks of the past and glimpses of the future thrown in at regular intervals. I don’t think I could do it justice without major spoilers.
Diving a bit below the surface, there are still flaws, though. A lot of the main characters feel rather same-y, and they all seem pretty eager to do what’s right, no matter the price they have to pay. It’s a little bit too heroic and selfless for my taste, though to be fair it’s hardly uncommon in Fantasy. It’s just less obvious when there are fewer protagonists.
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Every once in a while I read something that’s not labelled Fantasy (or SciFi) as long as it’s still fantastic, and that’s true for Robin Sloan’s Sourdough: A Novel (which has a slightly more enticing title in its German edition, btw.). Like the older Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, it features a blend of old and new tech and a sliver of the paranormal. It’s written in a fun and lighthearted tone, yet brings up a lot of things worth reflecting about.
I picked up all but the first book by now. None too soon, it seems, as this particular edition seems to be going out of stock. I had to resort to ebay for the first one, and it’s still in transit. I also ordered Tales from the End of Time, which apparently is related to Dancers at the End of Time, featuring more of those characters, including a visit from Elric. That one is on it’s way from the UK.
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It is related in that it includes the Elric Story “Elric at the End Of Time” in that collection. Which for some reason is also the only one that wasn´t included in mine, so tell me what it was like when you read that one! 
Elric of Melniboné (and other stories) arrived today, and the first proper story is the transcription of a graphic novel, no less. Now I want to see the actual panels … 
Prior to that I finished Warriors of God, part two of the Hussite trilogy. While I did enjoy the writing style, I found the story to be meandering along without ever moving towards a true climax. It felt a bit like Sapkowski intended to give a history lesson and have the characters along for the ride, but never really in charge. At least the end established a goal for the final part, though I’d be surprised if it’ll play a dominant role or even come to a satisfying conclusion. Come June we’ll see …
Me too! But it seems to be out of print:
It´s a prequel but an intersting one since that whole dream couch initiation doesn`t appear anywhere else.
I’ve seen it available in digital form, but print would be so much nicer.
Ah yes. Well I have similar problems with my physical shelfspace as with the storage on my phone these days regardless.
I thought it was a bit weird to start out the collection that way, but I guess it´s because they wanted to stick with the internal chronology. Knowing how it all plays it it is interesting to see how much time you spend with some of those characters now as opposed to the original release chronology where some of those characters were pretty much instantly killed after they were introduced. And when you read the stories in order as they take place you at least get some sense of connection instead of thinking “ah yes, I know them, they´ll be so dead!” 
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It boasts the same humor and hilarious events as the rest of the End of Time stories, judging by the first couple pages. Like
She was about to abandon the search when she heard a faint roaring overhead and she looked up to see another characteristic motif of Werther’s – a gold and silver chessboard on which, upside down, a monstrous doglike creature was bearing down on a tiny white-haired man dressed in the most abominable taste Una had seen for some time.
The Elric stories all seem to be a bit on the gloomy side, but that one didn’t take long to put a smile on my face. But I’ll have to read some more of both this and the Elric collection to say whether you’re missing out or not. (Well, you’re definitely missing out when not reading the End of Time stuff, but that’s an entirely different matter, obviously 
)
Oh no there is a very dry sense of humour in all the Elric stories in fact. But most obvious of all in one of the later written books (Revenge Of The Rose). 
Wow. Today I’m excited about a package I received from Amazon. I decided to buy this book after remembering some “good old days” with my siblings.
In the 80es there was this magazine in Italy, called Frigidaire. My parents read it. They used to put it in the upper shelf, where we kids couldn’t reach it. There has been a short period between when I was grown enough to reach it and when they realized I could.
The magazine featured interesting reportages, comics and photography. It focused on modern times with a shocking and explicit approach: the main themes were sex, violence, drugs, death.
I was mesmerized by this Squeak the Mouse comic stripe…
So childish in its style, so gruesome and X-rated in its contents.
So, let’s get back to my new book.
It’s a colorful and lysergic explosion of punches in the guts, extreme sex and hilarious situations.
You’ll have the feeling they decided to remove censorship from Itchy and Scratchy…
Unless this strip came out in 1982.
I didn’t post any X-rated scene. I must admit they can make you feel more unconfortable than real porn.
Enjoy! 
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I’ll start on that next, having finished the first 3 volumes and re-read the Elric parts of The Sleeping Sorceress. With knowledge of the prior events I’ve appreciated those last stories a bit more than when I’ve read them out of context. Skipping the only vaguely related bits also helped .
So far the best of the bunch in my view is The Fortress of the Pearl. Loved the bizarre and almost poetic rendition of the dream realms.
I also enjoyed some of the forewords and essays by Moorcock himself. Usually you don’t get to read the authors thoughts on the subject matter, so that was quite illuminating.
The big downside of the collection as a whole though, being ordered chronologically by events and not by time of writing, is that those later stories which take place earlier in the timeline sometimes spoil what is yet to come. By now I know how the series must surely conclude, and it’s not some vague foreshadowing that furthers intriguing speculation, but it pretty much spells out what is going to happen. Same when Elric was attributed womanslayer before the deed. A bit more careful editing could have gone a long way methinks …
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I liked the Fortress of the Pearl as well for its desert setting, outside of occasional architecture you don´t get a lot arabian inspired settings in fantasy. I really liked the atmosphere had quite a 1001 Nights vibe to it.
I also really enjoy Moorcocks fore and afterwords in this collection. Turns out he is a really great essayist. There´s a lots of interviews (some very recent too) on youtube that are also very entertaining to watch.
And yeah the chronology is a big problem. I´m sure reading The Dreaming City first must have had a bigger impact hadn´t it been so heavily foreshadowed by what he wrote essentially as prequels. And can you imagine what an impact such a dark and cynic story like that must have had back in 1961? Quite remarkable really.
Also as an aside about the world. I find it funny that with turning so many things on the head that he also literally turns the world as we know it on its head. Maybe you noticed but other than many fantastic settings like Conan and to an extent even Discworld (although yeah, there obviously aren´t any directions like north and south there, heh) which follow the geography of our world still rather closely, in Elrics World the Desert Regions are in the North while the “Arctic” regions are in the south. I found that interesting.
Also as far as the unrelated stuff is concerned. I´m sure one can enjoy it even more when reading all the other books (like Neil Gaiman says in his essay “I found, all the other series are in fact Elric books as well!”) but I also like that the stories largely work when you don´t really put them into that whole context. I guess that will be something people who do a potential adaptation will have to think about really hard, whether they want to go down that whole Eternal Champions rabbit hole or not.
And as another piece of trivia, just a few days ago I stumbled across somebody using the Chaos Symbol (the eight outwards pointing arrows) in something entirely unrelated. It seems like that is used nowadays even by people who might not even have heard of these stories.
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There isn’t really much else to add, so I didn’t. Overall, I think I enjoyed The Revenge of the Rose the most, due to its distinct writing style, and because it was the one where it was most apparent (to me) that Moorcock isn’t merely writing escapist fantasy fare.
I guess I also owe you the final verdict on Elric at the End of Time. It’s pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, so you won’t lose out if you don’t read it. It’s also perhaps the least remarkable story in Tales from the End of Time. It’s funny, though, and easy to digest.
Anyway, what I actually wanted to share is Hollow, Brian Catling’s latest book. This one is heavily inspired by the art of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, but taken to such extremes that it will leave you wondering what frame of mind could have given birth to such nightmarish ideas. Rendered with a wonderful and vivid use of language (which appears probably even more impressive to a non-native speaker such as myself), this makes for such a delightful read.
Though I must say that the vaguely Flemish or Dutch medieval setting seemed less exotic than the colonial Africa of the Vorrh trilogy. Given that Hollow is much shorter, there’s also less time to gradually introduce the abnormal and fantastic elements, so it’s perhaps a little less mysterious and intriguing as well.
It still has left me impressed in how it’s both gross and funny and also in how it defies expectations.
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Read Light Perpetual, the final volume of the Hussite trilogy, and as expected, the whole thing is not something I’d consider re-reading.
Not that it is a bad book (or series), on the contrary. The writing style (of the German translation) is pleasant and full of subtle humor, the main characters are likable (though far from being dashing heroes), the villains despicable, and story and setting are compelling, too (with a mix of historical events and a bit of the fantastic). But it’s all quite bleak and dreary. Yeah, there’s some poetic justice to the end (which is amplified by an easily overlooked bit of foreshadowing), but it leaves a lot of dreams and desires unfulfilled. Not to mention all the atrocities of war depicted throughout the adventure.
The one thing it really managed to do, however, is whet my appetite for a successor to Kingdom Come: Deliverance (which plays in roughly the same region and time period). Hopefully that’s already in the making …
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I started reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time again last December after being stranded after book nine 20 years ago (having started reading the series as it got published more than 5 years earlier and thus completely forgetting about some events and side characters, of which there are a LOT).
I am at book nine again now, so at this pace I might actually finish the series while still relatively remembering what happened in the first books.
Luckily I have got the WoT wiki this time around too if I need a refresher.
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Are you looking forward to its series adaptation on amazon now?
As for what I´m currently reading:
At the moment it´s a newly released book in german about Freddie Mercury´s working and private life in Munich from 1979 through 1985.
What I´m reading after that will be mostly graphic novels which I still have a big backlog of.
What I´m mostly interested in are:
- Some of the franco-belgian Sci-Fi classics by Moebius and Philippe Druillet.
- The first volume of a Lone Wolf and Cub Collection. Love Shogun Assasin and the TV Show, never read the Manga.
- Usagi Yojimo by Stan Sakai (like the above I only wanna give the first volume a go. There is just so much!)
- Some Horror Manga by Junji Ito, especially Uzumaki and Tomie.
- Frankenstein by Bernie Wrightson
- Some Batman classics from the 80s especially Killing Joke, Dark Knight Returns and Arkham Asylum
So if any of you guys cares to read my thoughts on any of these I´ll share them here.
That’s also around up to where I’ve read it, because I read it around '02 or '03.
Btw, you might also be interested in some slightly newer stuff, such as Inhumain and Aldébaran/Bételgeuse/Antarès/Survivants/Retour sur Aldébaran.
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Not really. I came across some pictures of the actors in character while looking for that wiki and none of them look anything near what I have pictured them. Unlike LoTR, where the trailer was immediately recognisable.
And given the sheer length of these books, I don’t think I want to invest the time to watch an endless TV adaptation. Game of Thrones already overstayed its welcome for me. I think Amazon simply wants to cash in on the same formula.
Not that I have Amazon TV or anything 
I read one a few years back - not sure which one. It was by Frank Miller. And a masterpiece according to the blurb. Didn’t make a lasting impression to me it seems 