Customer Reviews

Elric Swords and Roses (Chronicles of the Last Emperor of Melnibone)

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This is all top-notch material from the great Michael Moorcock. My only regret is that the publishers, with the obvious blessing of Moorcock, have chosen to sequence the Elric stories in roughly the order they were written rather than following the internal chronological sequence. I much preferred the sequential ordering of the White Wolf editions of a few years ago. Elric's story has a definite beginning ('Elric of Melnibone') and end ('Stormbringer'). While Elric stories written since 1965 are, in fact, prequels since they must necessarily fall before the events in Stormbringer, they do have an internal sequence whether they were penned in 1967 or 1991. In the battle between Order and Entropy Moorcock seems to have opted for Chaos in this publishing cycle. I guess it may be meant to reflect the nature of Moorcock's 'multiverse', everything that has happened is still happening or will happen again. It may be conventional of me, but I prefer to read the stories in the order that the character experienced them. These editions seem tailored for existing fans rather than new readers. I would suggest that a first-time Elric reader start with the White Wolf volumes Elric: Song of the Black Sword (Eternal Champion Series, Vol. 5) (1995) and Elric: Stealer of Souls (The Tale of the Eternal Champion, Vol 11) (1998) (not to be confused with the more recent 2008 Del Rey edition of the same name). They collect all of the essential Elric canon in two volumes. I'll admit it is sometimes a little jarring to go from prose written in 1991 back to stuff from 1964 but I think it's still the best way to go.
After that, the new editions are worthwhile if you want to pursue the supplemental materials (screenplays, essays, etc.) and the few Elric short stories he's written in the last ten years or so. Even that will still leave the supposedly final Elric appearances in 'The Dreamthief's Daughter' trilogy which just wrapped up, although these have more of the feel of the Von Bek novels than earlier Elric material.

Michael Moorcock mas popular creación en una magnifica y económica edicion de seis volumenes que reunen TODO ELRIC. No hay pierde aqui, tenemos ensayos sesudos, ilustraciones originales por grandes artistas actuales, dibujos de ediciones pasadas, mapas detallados,y las historias en si tal como fueron originalmente publicadas. Lo maximo de veras. Solo espero que hagan los mismo con los demás personajes del multiverso, como CORUM, EKEROSE, o HAWKMOON por decir algunos. Ojala se animen.