Elric of Melnibone, the Eternal Champion, is one of my earliest forays into random fantasy books. I had joined an amazing thing called the Science Fiction Book Club. I don’t recall specifics, but it was something like: Join and get 5 books for $1 and then every month they would try and sell you more books at a good price (but not as good as the join price.) All of the books that I ever got from the Scifi Book Club were ones I had not heard of before. And I got a lot of them. Often fulfilling my contract and then quitting to rejoin. The Elric Saga two book collection of the six novellas that existed at the time were among the initial order I placed.
The first book is titled Elric of Melnibone, and is oddly not the first book. In chronology it is, but in publication order it is one of the much later stories. Elric had been a popular character for Michael Moorcock but did not yet have a story explaining his early days. This first book introduces us to the kingdom of Melnibone where Elric is emperor. A pale and sickly figure that rules over a kingdom of selfishness. An almost nihilistic society where good and evil were not themes worthy of consideration. Pleasure. Satisfaction of desires. Joy in the moment. These are the ideals that Melnibone has used as a foundation for the kingdom. And somehow this has allowed them to be the dominant force on the planet. (Did I mention they also have dragons? I imagine that helped with their dominance.)
Magic and Gods and Magical Swords and Destiny. All these seep from the pages of an Elric story. In this one we have Elric hesitant to use magic in any way as he doesn’t want to deal with the ramifications of it. When he is wounded and near death, he calls upon elemental powers to save him (not quite gods, but akin to demigods.) A bargain is struck with the elemental powers to save his life and allow him to seek vengeance upon his cousin Yrkoon who tried to kill him in order to rule as emperor himself. In some ways, the Melnibonean way leads to problems here. To sate both the populations and his desire for spectacle and revenge, he captures Yrkoon and plans to execute him in such a manner to please all of Melnibone (well, not really Yrkoon.) But Yrkoon uses sorcery (he doesn’t have Elric’s concerns about the costs) to escape his rightful emperor and captor with Elric’s love in his custody. In order to find him and try and retrieve her, Elric calls upon Arioch, the Chaos God for assistance. Arioch understands the destiny Elric has mapped out before him and helps in order to further that destiny. Part of which is finding the legendary swords Mournblade and Stormbringer before Yrkoon can claim them for himself.
There is so much amazing story here that I really want to rate it a 10. But there are some bits in it that slow me down. Parts that hold the rating back a hair. But 8 stars is really good. The publication date of this book puts it just barely younger than me, and I hope to withstand the test of time as well as it has. Keep your eyes out here for the rest of them to come, as I will be finishing this series before I even consider getting to other tales by Moorcock (I’m looking at you Corum!)
Cthulhuville 