3 out of 5

I got about halfway (okay, a third) through the Hobbit when I was in middle school, and accepted: fantasy is not my bag. I would tiptoe into other series at various points, and made another stab at LoTR stuff, but it never took. Meanwhile, I could say I understood the appeal, and registered the place classics took in the development of the genre.

As my reading tastes evolved, I kept hearing about this Michael Moorcock chap as a big influence on a lot of writers I dug, but was alarmed to see that everything I dug up in used bookstores was… fantasy. I’d read back of cover summaries, and I couldn’t quite match it up with the feedback from those influenced. I mean, LoTR was also an influence on many, of course, but when I read quotes about it, it synced with my take from the pages I read, whereas the general response to Moorcock’s worlds seemed to be how different they were.

Later, I got better at sifting through stuff that “wasn’t for me” but finding merit in it any way, and some Moorcock comic book adaptations gave me a sense of the shape of his creations, so I figured I’d give his writing a shot. I admittedly have a problem, though, where, when given a writer’s whole catalogue, I’ll feel the need to start somewhere near the beginning, as opposed to maybe selecting something that has been officially deemed the best read for newbies. And I’ll try to poke through reviews by those in the know to set expectations, but I guess I always figure: there has to be something there that will indicate why people stuck with the writer, and if I find that something, I’ll get to experience it getting even better as I move forward through their oeuvre.

This is already a long story, but to make the conclusion short: after having read a collection of the first Elric tales, fantasy is still very much not my bag, and I’m also a bit baffled that Moorcock’s work gets singled out so often, though the latter part I can temper with trying to understand the scene at the time.

Elric, as the subtitle of this collection suggests, is the last Lord of Melniboné – a white-skinned, magic-using race that once ruled over this world, but has since fallen out of favor. The first five stories here, appearing under ‘The Stealer of Souls’ title, and pulled from old sci-fi magazines, feature Elric carving out his place in the world, whether that means taking revenge for past ills, or simply out to make a quick buck while traveling from point A to B. His current powers are especially tenuous, as it’s linked to a couple things: his sword, Stormbringer, which sucks the souls from its slain but which will also drain Elric’s power if taken from his grasp; and currying favor with the Chaos gods who grant him their magics. Within this setup is, I think, the inversion which made Moorcock’s hero stick out in the genre, because he’s… not very heroic, whether in the past or present. We don’t know much of what came before, but people are scared of him – the Melnibonés don’t necessarily sound like pleasant rulers – and his current state requires reliance on outside sources, and he often has relatively petty desires. He’s almost an antihero, but, like, take away his sword, and he’s a weakling.

The modern day takes I read on this suggested ‘Stealer’ as a little dry, as it’s lacking later lore, but I found the chapters therein pretty fun. Moorcock’s writing isn’t especially grabbing – the descriptions of events and surrounds are fairly mundane, and characters don’t have much personality – and I’m sure I’m missing nuance, but we’re deep into nonsense naming here (y’know, giving fantasy lands and characters names with lots of apostrophes and consonants), but I did appreciate a kind of formative ne’er-do-well type lead, who’s quick to anger and is often making mistakes. The one-off nature of the stories makes for passable distraction, and as Moorcock gets a better grasp over the world’s general structure (including, I think, better alignment with the naming – some logic to how different cultures might have different rules), the slowly building cast of characters and background details are satisfying. Still, outside of the concept of this type of lead in a fantasy book feeling unique, the stories are somewhat generic collections of treasure hunting and dragons and spells.

‘Stormbringer,’ the next cycle of stories, is all of that but minused the loosey-goosey feel, and reads like a writer trying to figure out his own justifications while scripting them. These stories concern a war between Chaos and Law, except Moorcock acknowledges that both are needed, and can’t quite figure out how to keep the stakes high – like, you kinda have to encourage a stalemate – so instead just keeps shushing that conversation to the background and sending Elric on fetch quests for some mighty item, or some mighty wizard, or etcetera. We also have a genre convention that feels rather lazily applied: fate. Constantly, one god or another is popping up to say “oh, hey, the fates told me you’d be here, but I can’t tell you some key information yet – y’know, because of fate – until I see you next time.” If this had been played off of any particularly clever plotting or happenstance, it could work, but it instead just feels like another method of trying to figure out the point of it all while extending the stories unnecessarily. At the same time, Moorcock is trying to massage the lore and world-building further, making the whole cycle feel like setup for whatever the next Elric adventure will be.

That said, I’m trying to factor in my genre bias here, and read this from a decades-ago perspective. The problem is, bias aside, it’s not like I haven’t read adjacent stuff from this era – just as influential in relatives scenes – that still lands with impact, making me question, beyond some surface differences, why Moorcock’s works have the legacy they do, as neither the writing style or the nitty-gritty of the tales seems very noteworthy to me. This particular collection, published by Del Rey, also does a nice job of providing context with some forewords and little blurbs about each issue the stories appeared in, and includes the supplementary story art from Jon Picacio as well as sketches and magazine covers, and even has some further contemporary articles on Elric and Moorcock… but… but I remain unconvinced.

Which I guess is just to say that if you’re in a similar boat to me, curious about Michael Moorcock but maybe not a genre fan, I don’t think this collection is going to convert you on either front. Though ‘Stormbringer’ started to drag, the net entertainment value of these stories is totally acceptable, and from a top-down level, I did like seeing the style and world grow and change along the way. However, none of that is strong enough to keep me going.