Count Brass (Eternal Champion, 15)

Rating:
Summary: Not the true ending
Review: Although this is AN ending to the Eternal Champion cycle, the 'real' ending is in the sequence BLOOD, FABULOUS HARBORS and WAR AMONGST THE ANGELS and I am surprised White Wolf have not done this volume as an omnibus. Someone should, because, with the Multiverse comic, it really does resolve the Eternal Champion sequence in a very satisfactory way. Most of my friends agree with me once they have read the Jack Karaquazian/Colinda Dovero books. My guess is that Moorcock wrote this ending, liked it about as much as the readers here (!)and wrote War Amongst the Angels and Multiverse as a better one. I would also not be surprised (though I have no special information) if the current Elric sequence doesn't somehow tie into THOSE endings. Vol. 15 is the WEAKEST LINK but can stay because it's at the end of the chain! The Simonson artwork is some of the best in the series and this is by far the best edition you could buy, to the quality of a limited edition, so is worth having. In some ways, this book is like a sketch for things which came later and is interesting for some of its novelties (is it the first female Eternal Champion?) and ideas and has some great moments, but if this was ever your introduction to Moorcock you would probably never want to pick up another. You can fall in love with Elric, but you don't much care what happens to Hawkmoon. We need a further volume or two from White Wolf, surely? There are some great new characters representing the Champ. Where is Jerry Cornelius? Where is Rose von Bek, Jack Karaquazian, Colinda Dovero, Sam Oakenhurst, Paul Minct and Co. to make this thing end with an all-dancing, all-singing, all-color cosmic, cataclysmic joyous and totally wonderful BIG BANG!?

Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood Conclusion
Review: As a standalone book this does not have the impact that it should. Seen as the culmination of the Eternal Champion saga (spanning 15 volumes in its current incarnation) it is the only happy ending one could hope for. If you read any of the other books about the Eternal Champion, get this one and see how it all ends.

Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood Conclusion
Review: As a standalone book this does not have the impact that it should. Seen as the culmination of the Eternal Champion saga (spanning 15 volumes in its current incarnation) it is the only happy ending one could hope for. If you read any of the other books about the Eternal Champion, get this one and see how it all ends.

Rating:
Summary: Poor, Melodramatic Writing style
Review: Definately skip this book. It had some nice ideas, but didn't follow through at all. Besides, the main character is flat as a pancake and not as bright.

Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to like this book
Review: I almost feel like a heel for disliking this one so much as it does end with the Eternal Champion being given something of a happy ending. Stormbringer is tamed, Erekose gets into Tanelorn and Hawkmoon gets to have a happy ending with his wife and kids. Yet there's something anemic about the whole thing.

The trilogy starts out strong. Count Brass has Hawkmoon unable to enjoy completely his victory from the first series as Count Brass is lurking in the swamps challenging Hawkmoon to a duel for his "betrayal". Quickly we learn that Count Brass isn't an avenging ghost but a Count Brass picked from the past and told that meeting Hawkmoon would lead to his death. It all turns out to be the machinations of a Granbretan scientist and Hawkmoon along with his dead companions (all picked from the past) are off to figure out the machinations. Some time travel complications ensue and the twist at the end of the book complicates the rest of the series. Suffice it to say that the happy ending from the first trilogy is changed into a not-so-happy beginning for Hawkmoon.

The rest of the series is Hawkmoon trying to repair the damage wrought by that time travel complication in the first book. The second book betrays Moorcock's boredom with his protagonist as Hawkmoon spends half of it going nuts before being transferred into the body of another Eternal Champion. In Quest For Tanelorn, Hawkmoon is doing something that you don't care about when he's grabbed by a ship and meets Corum, Elric and Erekose. Moorcock writes the Four Eternal Champions Save the Universe story again from Hawkmoon's perspective, but as he's already written it in the Elric series (and probably in Corum as well) it feels forced. We've been here before. Moorccok's been here before. So the universe gets saved and the spirit of Stormbringer or whatever comes along and it's off to Tanelorn.

The resolution's fairly tame and it's nice to see that the really unhappy endings that Moorcock has been springing on his readers since he hooked them with Elric do lead to a non-depressing resolution, but the strength of the earlier books is lost. It's almost like Moorcock wasted a good ending on his least favorite character because he wanted powerful endings for Elric and Corum.

So, buy it if you are fan, but read a lot of other Moorcock (Elric and Corum are still the best) first.

Rating:
Summary: And so it ends, sort of
Review: In the interests of full disclosure, I'm reviewing not the White Wolf American edition of this omnibus, but the British edition, which as far as I know contains the same material. The White Wolf editions used to trumpet that they were "newly revised for their US publication" but I doubt there were any drastic changes in them other than fixing typos and smoothing over inconsistencies, since Moorcock basically stated in his introduction to every single book how he had to restrain himself from doing even minor story revisions because once you start it's hard to stop and he wanted to maintain the quickly written fire of youth sensibility that was in those earlier stories. That said, this is the last volume of the series and in theory closes out the sequence, by returning the focus to Hawkmoon, who we really haven't seen since book 3. In the first novel "Count Brass", we move to the aftermath of Hawkmoon's saving the world, as he wishes for all his of friends that had died during the conflict with the Black Empire were still alive . . . and finds that sometimes you can get what you want and still not be happy. The first novel's probably the best of the bunch, having the most coherent plot and the most interesting mystery, the everpresent multiverse stuff is kept in the background to some extent and doesn't seek to overwhelm everything. Dangling threads are carried over into the second novel "Champion of Garathorn" but it mostly consists of Hawkmoon becoming another Champion and saving other people on a different plane. The last novel "Quest for Tanelorn" essentially functions as a conclusion of sorts to the entire saga that spread out over the last fifteen books but Moorcock just falls back into the pseudogibberish that sometimes characterizes his more fantastic sequences and settles with bringing four champions together to save everything, which we've seen before, at least twice. The first time, it was neat, the second, entertaining, now it's just "ho-hum" because he doesn't bring anything new to the concept, they join together and smash stuff. For the record, it was nice seeing Corum and Elric one last time, and even Erekose, although he's from the first book and I don't remember him too clearly. But the novel has the hallmarks of being written quickly, or at least the story being made it as the author goes along because it all wraps up far too neatly and quickly and starts to lose sense after a bit (so who was the sword again?) and it's more of a "grand finally" than a grand finale. In his defense, however, wrapping up a saga of this scope and breadth would require a War and Peace sized novel, and Moorcock only really focuses on the fantasy-related champions, not even bringing the SF-esque ones (Jerry Cornelius, Jherek, etc), so while it feels like AN ending and wraps up the stories of Hawkmoon and Elric and Corum and Erekose, I can't really accept it as THE ending. But at least it's happy, in a way, which is rare commodity with the Champions. Regardless, it's nice to finally finish this and I have to say that the publishers, American and British, should be congratulated on bringing all these stories together under one banner, cleaning them up and arranging them for new readers, I would have never been able to gather all the required stories together and the entire Eternal Champion series is essential for those looking to understand Moorcock. On a personal note, it is interesting to finally finish this, I started reading these volumes back in the mid-nineties sometime, so to finish this one and have no more to look forward, too . . . it's interesting. Still, it was time well spent and I suspect other readers feel the same.

Rating:
Summary: Hawkmoon returns!
Review: Michael Moorcock, Count Brass (Berkley, 1973)

Moorcock returns to the world of Hawkmoon and co. in the Chronicles of Castle Brass, a trilogy that might as well be called the fifth, sixth, and seventh Runestaff novels. Here, we have Hawkmoon and Yisselda, the only survivors of the battle of Londra, married for five years, and with two children. During a moment of reflection, Hawkmoon opines that he'd give anything to have his old friend Count Brass, Yisselda's father, back. The story then turns into a "be careful what you wish for" fable, as the townsfolk of Aigues-Mortes start reporting the ghostly figure of Count Brass haunting the town cemetery, swearing to kill Hawkmoon. Hawkmoon goes to meet the challenge, and when he finds Count Brass, the two of them have to figure out why the Count-twenty years younger and unable to remember any of his long association with Hawkmoon-has been sent from the grave to kill his dearest friend.

As with the rest of the series, there is much here to delight the Moorcock fan and more than enough to bring in the lover of sword and sorcery novels who hasn't yet encountered Moorcock somehow. The everpresent typos that marred the DAW editions of the first two Runestaff novels are gone, and so the reader can just let the story flow. And it does. Loads of plane-hopping fun. *** ½

Rating:
Summary: Sifting Through Londra's Ashes
Review: This post-climatic Hawkmoon trilogy's kick-off does not live up to my memories of the first series. On the other hand, I was 13 when I read that. While the story moves along quickly enough, that's what one would expect as there isn't much story there. In fact, the book has little urgency to it, as most of the characters are "ghosts" from parallel dimensions. Their plights and "deaths" seem no more important than deleting an out-of-service phone number from a database. A fairly interesting cliffhanger is just enough for me to want to dig up the second book, but that's mostly out of nostalgia.