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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Romantic Comedy, September 4, 2003
There is no denying that Michael Moorcock is an inventive writer. I've only started to read his work recently, starting with that irreverent novel about Jesus "Behold the Man", the peripatetic adventures concerning Elric, and now "Dancers At the End of Time".This series of books is set in a future well beyond our own time. For Jherek Carnelian and the rest of his kind, our world is so far in the past (hundreds of thousands of millenia in the past) that history and Hollywood, fiction and fact have blurred together. Moorcock takes us so far into the future that "sand" on a beach is actually crushed bone, and characters behave in ways which would shock even the most open-minded people of our own society. In Jherek Carnelian's society it is impossible for anyone to feel shock. No one is encumbered with the conventions and standards which we in our own time feel obliged to live by. In the future life is one long game without rules, a fairground in which to indulge. Death is practically an obsolete notion. Sounds like heaven on Earth, doesn't it? As space and time are no longer barriers, it wouldn't surprise me if another time traveller like Karl Glogauer had gone into the past and "implanted" the concept of heaven - the misinterpreted promise that all the misery and suffering, the turmoil and deprivation, would eventually be rewarded with everlasting life and blissful harmony. All in exchange for clean living and a lot of faith. This would have been a cruel trick for a time traveller to play, even if it wasn't intentional. In the early 20th century Marcel Duchamp once declared that anyone can be an artist. In Jherek's time everyone is an artist, able to create their own environments to whatever specifications they desire, alter their bodily appearance whenever the whim takes them, and build menageries filled with specimans culled from anywhere and anywhen. Jherek has a fondness for anything associated with his favourite period the 19th century. When it comes to nostalgia past eras are best loved by those who never experienced them. It's like someone obsessed with Robin Hood holding a romantic view of the Middle Ages. One object of beauty coveted by Jherek is the elegant Mrs Amelia Underwood. Much of Moorcock's story concerns Jherek's attempts to win the heart of Amelia Underwood in a series of well-intentioned gestures and temporal wanderings. I don't want to say too much more than that, but rest assured, it's an eventful ride. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of what the characters look like as they keep changing their appearance, but just hang in there. When Jherek pursues Amelia in 1896 he's like the proverbial fish out of water. You won't be disappointed.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Moorcock, July 1, 2002
For years I had put off reading Moorcock... I read plenty of other Science Fiction and Fantasy, from Neil Stephenson to Robert Jordan, but never got around to reading this giant of the genres. I'm glad I finally did."The Dancers At the End of Time" is quite possibly the wittiest and most amusing time travel scenario I have ever encountered. Moorcock wrote this exciting little trilogy (originally published as several smaller hardcover volumes) with a wit rarely encountered in the often overly-serious sci-fa genres. His satire drips with the delightful flavor of the turn of the century fin-de-siecle, delightful parodies of H.G. Wells, and a delicate, romantic heart that matches the author's humor. I laughed at Jerekh's bumbling attempts at romance. I cried at the almost tragic occurences near the end of the novel, and I cheered at the resolution. Having just finished reading Mary Doria Russell's depressing "The Sparrow" (although also an excellent book), I needed something a bit more uplifting. This did the trick. If you're looking for a good intelligent satire, you can do no wrong by taking a look at this classic Moorcock masterpiece.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Finest of the Eternal Champion Series, May 11, 2000
In these three books, Michael Moorcock reaches farther and explores more ideas and concepts than most other authors - even SF/F authors, in their entire career.The characters will constantly shock you, at first, but the "reality" of their situation soon becomes clear, and fascinating. And if you ever wished to see "character development" made interesting, the experiences and responses of Jherek Cornelian in this epic is the Stairway to Heaven of personal growth and realization. Did you know that the author is one of the actual creators of "Cyberpunk"? It was his magazine, New Worlds, from which the founders of Cyberpunk sprang, at the behest of the quest for an expansion of the old mythic archetype. It is a similar fusion of myth and the modern technical world which made The Matrix so captivating. In this novel, though, he steps beyond even those boundaries. Technology is so transcendant that it no longer is even part of one's conscious world. Innocence and decadence become both the same and yet nothing at all. All in all, "You gotta see it to believe it". An easy read, but a captivating one.
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by Michael Moorcock
by Michael Moorcock
