Michael Moorcock

Prolific, popular and critically acclaimed, Michael Moorcock is the most important British fantasy author of his generation. His Elric of Melniboné is an iconic figure for millions of fans but Moorcock has also been a pioneer in science fiction and historical fiction. He was hailed as the central figure of the “New Wave” in science fiction, and has won numerous awards for his fantasy and SF, as well as his “mainstream” writing. This first full-length critical look at Moorcock’s career, from the early 1960s to the present, explores the author’s fictional multiverse: his fantasy tales of the “Eternal Champion”; his experimental Jerry Cornelius novels; the hilarious science-fiction satire of his “End of Time” books; and his complex meditations on 20th century history in Mother London and the Colonel Pyat tetralogy.

Mark Scroggins is a professor of English at Florida Atlantic University. He has published seven previous books of poetry, criticism, and biography, and lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

Mark Scroggins

Series Editors Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 212
Bibliographic Info: appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2016
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6307-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2417-4
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Acknowledgments xi
Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. The Multiverse and the Champion 15
2. A Messiah for the Age of Entropy 35
3. New Avatars, New Time Streams and a Farewell to Fantasy 60
4. Reality and Its Bitter Myths 86
5. Consolidating the Multiverse 112
6. The Second Ether, the Moonbeam Roads and Beyond 142
Conclusion 166
Appendix: The Eternal Champion Omnibus Editions 171
Chapter Notes 175
Bibliography 191
Index 195

• “The young Moorcock made his name with vivid short novels in which doomed swordsmen strutted around surreal landscapes…Moorcock produced a staggering amount of work over a long career…Scroggins does a remarkable job of disentangling the connections between Moorcock at his most pulpy and his most serious-minded, to the extent that, whether channeling Dickensian or a Modernist spirit, the Eternal Champion continues to lurk behind his elegant prose” — Times Literary Supplement
• “Incisive, illuminating and full of good sense, Mark Scroggins’ stimulating book told me a lot about my own work! Thanks!”—Michael Moorcock
• “Comprehensive, interesting and complex study” — Robots & Dragons