Customer Reviews

LEGENDS FROM THE END OF TIME: Pale Roses; White Stars; Ancient Shadows (by the a

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Treading water between epics, Michael Moorcock here offers us a collection of five short (ish) stories, all taking place within the decadent setting he first introduced to us in "The Dancers at the End of Time" cycle. These stories all span the same time period as the above collection, and take place during Jherek Carnelian and Amelia Underwood's voyages away from the end of time. Consequently neither of them feature in any of the narratives, apart from the odd line of dialogue referring to them. This collection has been described as Woodhouse crossed with Brecht. Certainly there is a lightness of touch here but unfortunately the writing style starts to feel a little laboured by the time you get to the fourth, and longest, segment. Keep going, though - the last story, Elric at the End of Time, is very funny, reveals several interesting new facts about the multiverse, and serves to confirm this collection's place in the 'Eternal Champion' cycle.

The End of Time stories are probably some of the weirdest ones for Moorcock fans to assimilate because they really don't fit in with the tone of the rest of the novels. It's not straight SF "Nomad of the Time Streams" or "Sailing to Utopia" and it's definitely not the warped fantasy of Elric and Corum. Depending on how you look at it, it's either incisive social commentary or Moorcock just having a ball and writing some really funny stuff. This volume exists as a companion to the tenth volume of White Wolf's series, Dancers at the End of Time, which mostly dealt with Jherek's love affair with Victorian era Amelia Underwood and the events that erupted from that. None of the stories here deal in any way, shape or form with that. Jherek and Amelia don't even appear, except as brief mentions in dialogue asides. So what you have here is a series of short stories of varying length focusing on the other characters and their relatively aimless lives. Since the characters on their own are fun, but not terribly interesting (the frivolous thing gets tiring fast) Moorcock brings in other people to bounce off the Dancers and add some fun contrast. Since the inhabitants at the end of time are like little children without any kind of conscience (though they're pretty harmless, but then resurrections are common too) throwing in extra time travellers, either newcomers or ones who have been hanging around for a while, tends to give the story some interesting situations to play with. What basically makes the stories work is Moorcock apparently boundless imagination, he makes you believe in this utterly farfetched concept of a society at the end of time where everyone just basically putzes around like little godlings until the end of everything arrives and even makes you care about the characters, even though they only sporadically care about others and really can't be hurt . . . somehow you still care. Maybe I'm just an old softie. None of the stories can be considered essential in the sense that they further Moorcock's concept of the multiverse, being it's the end of time the multiverse has basically ceased to exist anyway (thank you, entropy) and there are scattered references to the ongoing amorphous plot that happens in the background but nobody really pays attention to it and a good time is had by all. If anything, the last story "Elric at the End of Time" appears to be Moorcock making fun of his younger self, contrasting the bombastic and melodramatic Elric and his endless whining with the eternally cheerful end of time folks and their more subtle brand of comedy (and commentary). Not pointless but not required reading for those who devote every waking moment to the multiverse novels, this ground of tales stand to showcase Moorcock's talent and imagination. But considering how much used copies go for (geez, did White Wolf only print ten copies of each book?) you don't have to kill yourself to find it.

An earlier edition, there is a later book in a series with the same title, part of Moorcock's horrible reader obfuscation plot, it would seem. There are only three stories in this one.

Legends from the End of Time : Pale Roses - Michael Moorcock
Legends from the End of Time : White Stars - Michael Moorcock
Legends from the End of Time : Ancient Shadows - Michael Moorcock


Werther, a bit down, looks for something new.

3 out of 5


Duelling immortals is perhaps a bit frivolous.

3 out of 5


Luncheon At the End of the Universe?

3 out of 5

This is a good interlude in a long series. Like its companion, Dancers at the End of Time, it represents a light harted interlude in what can be a very heavy series of stories. Overall, enjoyable but you can skip it if you want to save time or money on this series.

Moorcock doesn't live up to expectations in this, his weakest work of the Eternal Champion series. Moorcock attempts to explore the human lack of self confidence in most of these semi-related stories but falls short. I can only speculate as to why. I think one contributing reason is he choses a women to voice her self doubt and a writer needs to write what HE knows.

However, Elric fans might be interested in the last chapter (blood and souls for Arioch). To understand the full meaning you need to read Vol. 10 "The Dancers at the End of Time" first.

The book is good and readabl