Rating: 
Summary: A modern Prince Hamlet
Review: Elric is the tragedy of a generous and torn soul brought to evil by the cruelty and shallowness of his peers. He would have loved to be a gentle,kind and caring ruler: but the envy, and the vile spite of Yyrkon drove him to evil. I've loved the scene when Elric,saved from merciless drowning,is against seen by a baffled Yyrkon who believed him dead. I've laughed at Yyrkon's despair.Here I am, feeble and weak, but having a right to live and love as any other. The revenge of the evolutionally challenged. Elric was generous, pardoned Yyrkon to his ruin. Stormbringer is a clear symbol of the desire of power and revenge who possess many men,and all the history of Elric is a parable on free will and man's capability to determine its own fate. Besides, Elric's stories are a wonderfully and somberly decadent masterpiece of modern fantasy. I've loved it!
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Summary: A Outstanding and Exciting Book
Review: This by far would have to be one of my favorite books of all time. Stormbringer and Mournblade make this book worth reading over and over again. Beside the Dark Elf Trilogy this is one of the best!
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Summary: The begining of a great series.
Review: The entire saga is one of the best. And this book begins it....you will want to read them all. I love the Robert Gould covers. There is something about this series which has an authenticity, a tragic reality, very few other books like it have. The prose is lush and reads well aloud and Moorcock clearly relishes language, yet language and description are never secondary to the driving force of character and plot. This first book is not the best of the series (thus the 3 stars), but it is the best to start with.
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Summary: The rise of intelligent fantasy
Review: I was first introduced to the brooding sorcerer-emperor of Melnibone in junior high school, and instantly related to his sense of not belonging, of always questioning the whys and wherefores of life. Elric is one of fantasy's most intriguing characters, and has sparked some rather heated debates as to whether or not he can be defined as a "hero" in the classic sense. (I say yes).Elric is NOT, Conan, for which many of us with literary leanings can be profoundly grateful. Michael Moorcock took fantasy out of its typical milieu and gave it a sense of epic storytelling with thought-provoking ideas of good and evil, of order and chaos. Elric prototypes now abound in the realm of fantasy fiction, which has been a good thing. My fondest wish has always been to explore further the mysterious island kingdom of Melnibone, since its denizens were just as fascinating as the title character himself.
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Summary: Just a beginning, but what a beginning!
Review: This series starts off in a rather subdued, moody tone and gathers momentum as it goes. Very little in Moorcock is unexplained and apparent loose ends often get tied up in a different series altogether! His trick is always to leave you with a new set of mysteries, rather like the best detective story writers. It's one of the reasons you keep turning the pages and, indeed, keep reading the series! Exploration with Moorcock promises a great journey, some interesting discoveries and some mighty mysteries, just like space exploration, really, or 19th century exploration. This is what maintains the sense of wonder, even through his non-fantasy books like the great MOTHER LONDON or the Pyat series. As Angela Carter says in her introduction to Moorcock's book on writing technique DEATH IS NO OBSTACLE, he is a writer driven by a generous talent and an enormous curiosity. It is that curiosity which constantly drives him to explore new ideas, new ways of story telling and new ways of looking at the world! His influence has been immeasurable on the science fiction field alone. His ideas infuse the field. I read this first when I was a teenager. It led me to some of America and France's greatest modern writers, several of whom have already acknowledged Moorcock as a contemporary master! In England and France he is known as an important literary talent. This is a great introduction to the Eternal Champion series, but it is only a fraction of the mighty multiverse that is Michael Moorcock (as one of his own music hall characters might proclaim)! If you want wit and farce and Elric, try Elric at the End of Time. If you want dark melodrama and moody characters, Elric of Melnibone is the guy for you!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: While it was interesting enough to hold my attention, I was disappointed in this book [and indeed, in the whole series]. I find Moorcock's style to be overly vague. He skims over incidents which, in my mind, deserve further exploration [either in terms of the action itself, or the reasons for the incidents] with genre "cheats". Too often I read about Elric "just knowing" that it was "the only way" to accomplish a task. Those kinds of literary shortcuts [all too well known in fantasy and sci-fi genres] annoy me greatly, and the entire Elric series is filled with them, often to the point of leading to inconsistencies in Elric's character, or incongruities of plot [how, for example, does the Ship Which Sails Over Land And Sea make in back to Melniborne when it was landlocked in a faraway land, it's power to sail over land taken from it?]. An interesting read, but I fail to see how it achieved such canonical status.
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Summary: Rave Review
Review: "Elric of Melnibone" is a great book, I have read books ranging by many authors but Moorcocks style stuckout the most. "Elric of Melnibone" is tale of an albino emporer who is kept alive by drugs and majic. Elric os the emporer of Melniobne. Melnibone once had power over the other barbaric nations. Elric sees this downfall and he knows how to fix it but refuses to submit to the ways of his ancestors and regain Melnibones prestige. This is a great tale for those who love fictional stories with a bit ofdepth and still leaves the imagination free to run. Moorcock's style draws ytou in and holds you there. No question goes unanswered either , the story is filled with descriptions and action. The heated despute between Elric and his cousin Yyrkoon will keep you at the edge of your seat. So plan some extra time if you pick this book up because you wont want ot put it down.
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Summary: One word: GREAT!
Review: This is another book that makes you glad you are a reader of great fiction. The brilliant writing and story-telling will surely make you remember Elric forever.
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Summary: The core book of dark fantasy
Review: Elric of Melnibone is a faerie tale gone wild. This is a story about traditions and intrigue, of high sorcery and treachery, protagonized by the moody emperor of an (very) ancient, decaying empire. Elric is an anti-hero, and the whole culture surrounding him has demented traditions for cornerstones. Moorcock points Shakespeare as one of his influences: he certainly got the royal intrigue mood from the Bard (great dialogue, too!); the chapter openings he borrowed from Brecht (another confessed influence), which help adding a mythical atmosphere to the whole tale. An atmosphere that's enhanced by the exagerations of time (an empire that lasts thousands of years) and places (towers made of gemstones, the sea labyrinth, etc...). And, of course, sorcery.
Rating:
Summary: 4 1/2 stars; excellent ideas; interesting story and world
Review: CONCEPT: Very interesting. This one was done in the 70s . . . before there were a lot of sci fi/fantasy writers. Moorcock is definitely one of the older writers and his works are actually very good. Well, at least this one is . . . a superior race of beings exist on Earth as the younger humans come into their own . . . promises a dark setting of sword and sorcery. MARKETING APPEAL: This story came about in the 60s, I believe, when pulp sci fi magazines were a big thing; I doubt it made a lot of money at first but it became a cult classic. Elric appealed to readers b/c: (1) Unlike Tolkien, it dealt with grayish characters; no big struggle between good and evil; more of protagonist vs. Antagonists; (2) it dealt in an unknown world where there were lots of cool planar areas; (3) Elric was somewhere between good and evil; and (4) the swords and context of the storyline were actually quite well done. SCORING: Superb (A), Excellent (A-), Very good (B+), Good (B) Fairly Good (B-) Above Average (C+), Mediocre (C ), Barely Passable (C-) Pretty Bad (D+), Dismal (D), Waste of Time (D-), Into the Trash (F) DIALOGUE: B+ STRUCTURE: A- HISTORY SETTING: B+ CHARACTERS: A- EVIL SETUP/ANTAGONISTS: B+ EMOTIONAL IMPACT: B SURPRISES: B+ MONSTERS: A PACING: A- THE LITTLE THINGS: A OVERALL STYLE: A- FLOW OF WORDS: B+ CHOICE OF FOCUS: A- TRANSITIONS/FLASHBACKS/POV: B COMPLEXITY OF WORDS/SYMBOLISM/THEMES: A- OVERALL GRADE: A- OVERALL STRUCTURE: First half is Elric dealing with his evil cousin and trying to deal with Melbinonean attitudes which disturb him. The latter half is rescuing Cymoril from Yrkoon and acquiring the long lost soul blades. For the most part, I don't have any problem with the story structure of this series. It was a pleasurable read and while it wasn't great (Zelazny) nor superb (GRRM) it did fall between good and very good. Rousing dark swords and sorcery. COMMENTS: Apparently, Moorcock was never big on Tolkien so he took the opposite approach in his works; far darker; less details; more gore; not as happy.
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