Rating: 
Summary: A powerful fantasy tale
Review: "Elric of Melnibone," by Michael Moorcock, is a sword-and-sorcery tale whose hero, Elric, is the albino king of an ancient island nation. Elric lives in a world of magic and warfare; it's a place where humans have dealings with powerful supernatural beings.This is a decidedly adult fantasy story; Elric's is a world of drugs and slavery, and this story is dark, violent, and full of political intrigue. Moorcock succeeds in giving the story an evocative, mythic feel. The author has created, in addition to Elric, some really memorable characters (such as Doctor Jest, the master torturer). The book is full of wonderfully cinematic scenes and skillfully realized fantasy concepts. And the melancholy Elric makes for an interestingly offbeat hero. Ultimately, "Elric" is about such resonant issues as love, ambition, responsibilty, and the seeming pull of destiny. For a compelling companion text, try Ursula K. LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea."
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Start
Review: This book is a great start for what seems to be a excellent series. This book is in itself a complete story but also starts the tale of a journey for Elric. All the characters are flawed unlike the characters of other fantasy series. Each has desires that conflict with their places in the world. You can even sympathized with the villian in this novel. It is also a quick read. I read this book in two sittings.
Rating:
Summary: Holds up well after all these years.
Review: Elric is the 428th emperor of the fading empire of Melnibone. Seemingly the inheritor of the weakness that affects his empire, Elric is an albino who needs to be kept alive with drugs and magic. Even though he believes that the effort is futile, he still tries to save Melnibone from the ravages of the Young Kingdoms. Beautifully written, Moorcock is a master of the genre. (Note that the entire Elric saga gets five stars-- I'm giving it 4 simply because I'm spoiled by the long novels of today's standard and this little book will feel like simply the setup portion of a longer novel to current readers. For people who haven't read Elric before, I'd recommend buying several to read at once, or if you can find it then I'd buy the editions which bind several volumes into one book.)
Rating:
Summary: How someone's negative review led me to a great work
Review: I've never responded to a *review* on Amazon before, but "Antiochandy's" negative (albeit informative, helpful, and well-written!) review led me to Moorcock's great book. With all due respect (seriously!) to this "Top 1000" reviewer (no small feat!) in this case his take on "Elric" seems a classic example of what is known generally as Not Getting It. Antiochandy decries Moorcock's book because it is not mimicry of Tolkien, and fails to realize that that is exactly what Moorcock seeks to achieve, and THAT is no small feat either! The fantasy novel spawns of Tolkien--though flattering to JRRT because they are imitation--have become the Tolkien LEGACY'S own worst enemy, producing so many trite "Tolklones" (feudalistic/pre-modern; elves, orcs, dwarves; quest; Big Bad Guy, etc.), that it's impossible for any well-informed reader or student of literature to take Tolkien seriously. Beyond the work of JRRT to give the reader consolation (an arguably dubious achievement for a work of literature), it best value is seen only if examined in historical context. He was the first to create a grand fantastical other-earth. But now so many young people read him backwards through the lenses of bad fantasy books and movies he inspired, that JRRT comes out looking like merely the grandmaster of today's formulaic fantasies, as opposed to their ultimate source. So...given the omniscience of Tolkien's influence, the real challenge for any fantasy writer is to move beyond Tolkien, or even to challenge him. And this is what Moorcock does! And let it be said that actually there is much to challenge in Tolkien, despite the overall value of the work, its mythic grandeur, and its philological richness. All of JRRT's work is saturated by an inherently conservative sensibility that is about ½ a Roman Catholic worldview of both "natural" hierarchies (including racial ones, which has frightening implications in the real world) and simplistic good vs. evil morality, and ½ Luddite romanticism of pre-technology eras. (Read award-winning author China Mieville's quote at: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20011001/china.shtml ) As it were: Tolkien got the fantasy ball rolling. But the roller himself set the ball in a particular direction, and one not necessarily timeless or "the best." One that just "is," and there are perfectly reasonable and perhaps even more ultimately impressive directions for fantasy to journey. (What is more, fantasy itself he had help creating (inadvertently)--authors like Mervyn Peake, who is very popular and known in England, but not in the U.S. due to weird copyright issues, wrote his own brand of (much darker) fantasy at roughly the same time as, but quite apart from, Tolkien.) The very things Antiochandy criticized about "Elric" are the hallmarks of a book that has managed to turn the tired Tolkien paradigm on its head. And THAT is an accomplishment worthy of 5 stars any day of the week!
**MOORCOCK UNDERSTANDS HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY BETTER THAN DID TOLKIEN,
**MOORCOCK UNDERSTANDS THE *REALITY* OF MORAL COMPLEXITY BETTER THAN DID TOLKIEN, AND
**MOORCOCK IS ABLE TO GO BEYOND WHAT IS THE TRUE ESSENSE OF TOLKIEN (whatever great complexities JRRT's world holds), WHICH IS, TO BE HONEST, ESCAPEISM. Moorcock deserves the critical praise he is getting.
Rating:
Summary: Still the best
Review: Like Tolkien, Moorcock's work has been looted by almost every fantasy writer who has come after him. But the original remains as vital as ever. This is a great start to a series in which the books get better and better -- until you hit the stunning final volume (Stormbringer). And even the new books -- Revenge of the Rose, The Dreamthief's Daughter -- contain a vitality, an attack
which leaves most of Moorcock's competitors a long way behind.
He is a Master of Fantasy, a world-class novelist, and this short novel is richer, fuller and more satisfying than any number of books four times its length. A great read. I'd forgotten how good they were!
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but it is just the beginning
Review: The one major problem with this series is that it is mostly a set-up for the other series. It stands very well alone, but the reader (at least this one) fill like it just begone. So if you by this one also by Sailor on the Seas of Fate.
Rating:
Summary: Fantasy at its best
Review: Micheal Moorecock has created a master piece in the Eliric Saga. The novel has a genuis plot which revolved around the idea of mortallity vs. immortality, and hopes and dreams of a falling nation.
Following the happenings of a birn albino ruler named Elric, the plot twists and tunrs. One move of Elrics hands can chage the whole direction of the novel.
Some of the ideas used in the novel may seem hackened when compare to the callow writting of todays authors, but the way Micheal Moorecock assembeles the ideas creates a feeling innovation. The way Micheal expresses the story and uses the characters makes the stroy all the mor einteresting and innovative, yet the basic idea of good versus evil, or two family memebers at odd wiht each ohter in order to take the family throne, all have been overdone in most fanatsy novels, yet they way they intertwine in the Elric Saga makes a whole new world.
The novel is not just innovative but it captures the imagination of the reader as well. One may find it hard to dig into the series but once in, the reader might find himself reading the whole saga before putting the book down.
I would recommend the saga to any one with a hint of imagination of a spark of desire to explore a new world. The saga will satisfy the most hard tp please readers wiht it's complex use of the english language, along wiht the complex plot.
If this review has caught your eye pcik uyp one novel of the Elric Saga and give it try.
Rating:
Summary: Graphic but not 'graphic'.
Review: There seems to be some mix up between reviews of the graphic novel version of this book! They are both great examples of their kind, but just as the LOTR movie doesn't get the mood of the language, the graphic novel of Elric of Melnibone doesn't quite capture the elegaic irony which is the hallmark of Moorcock's style and which seems to unsettle some readers! I read Moorcock because he is one of the few writers whose work reaches genuinely poetic heights -- often considerably more
sophisticated than Tolkien, say, whose poetry is often little more than doggerel. Moorcock's playing with poetic forms is best seen in The Revenge of the Rose, when Wheldrake (the poet whose name often disguises Moorcock's own work) actually explains some of his understanding of this. Moorcock, for all that he allies himself with writers of 'popular' fiction is, as Angela Carter remarked in her introduction to Death Is No Obstacle, one of the most literary writers around. His prometheon volume of work is astonishingly free from anything unreadable, even where it isn't ambitious. He might be an inverted snob, but few have the sheer moxi to put their moral philosphy in a comic book and use comic book chracters in a complex moral novel. He's too clever for his own good, maybe, but his language, even when it's lazy and too
rapidly done, remains probably the best in all fantasy fiction
Dancers At The End Of Time and War Amongst the Angels, as well as his famous holocaust series about Colonel Pyat, all demonstrate his superb eloquence. Someone should collect all 'Wheldrake's' poetry into a special book!
Rating:
Summary: Graphic novel. Excellent version.
Review: The reviews here seem to refer to the print edition of the book. This is the graphic novel version and one of the finest fantasy
graphic novels you'll find. Russell was at his weirdest and best in this one and Thomas does an excellent, faithful script. Great stuff, but it's mainly pictures! All these Thomas versions are
good and the artwork is often superb.
Rating:
Summary: Tolkien and Moorcock are the only true masters
Review: I grew up before the boom in fantasy fiction. I love George R.R.Martin, Gene Wolfe and all the other great, ambitious writers in the field, but for me Tolkien and Moorcock continue to reign supreme. These were the first and they remain the best. They have an authenticity everything which came after them lacks.
Moorcock's stories and images are actually more original than Tolkien's, but he deliberately leaves more to the readers' imagination. He says it is because he respects the imagination of the reader and doesn't feel he needs to spell everything out.
They are two quite different experiences, in spite of being the
cornerstones of most other modern fantasy. I enjoy Tolkien for his loving descriptions of his world and its histories and so forth, but I love Moorcock for his sheer romantic drive. Tolkien was a sedate old professor. Moorcock was a twenty year old
visionary whose invention comes almost directly from his subconscious, so that the images themselves form a kind of narrative. Comparing Tolkien and Moorcock is a bit like comparing cream teas and curries. They are both delicious, but very different experiences! Stormbringer remains the greatest
of Moorcock's fantasies (written when he was 21) but this is the right place to start the saga. Remember that Moorcock sets great store by irony. What you miss in narrative you might discover in the tone, in the language. He is certainly what Angela Carter and Peter Ackroyd have called 'the master storyteller of our time'.
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