stuart@webstr.DEC (legibility and comprehensibility are mutually exclusive) (07/29/85)
i've just emerged from an extended tour of the works of michael moorcock
(the two corum trilogies, the elric series, and the castle brass series), and
i found them all quite enjoyable. the story of the 'champion eternal' that
bridges across all the various series was one i was quite captivated by, and i
especially liked the way that while any individual series dealt with one
particular incarnation, fate would, at times (and in what seemed to be to be a
very logical manner, at all times consistent with the 'laws' of that
particular plane of the multiverse), throw a few of the incarnations from
other series into the picture.
i'd like very much to read more sf with this feature (bug? :-)) ...
can anyone think of what other authors do this, and do it well?
*** random pet peeve ***
i don't claim to know the book purchasing habits of many people, but
personally, if i'm going to read, say, smith's lensman series (an example of
a series where *all* volumes are in print), i like to buy the whole thing, as
opposed to buying it piece by piece. why, then, do bookstores rarely (in my
experience) carry *all* the volumes of a given series? it's like selling
single volumes page by page!
steve
internet 'stuart%webstr.dec@decwrl'
random quote:
"i'm only thoughts of heaven trapped in flesh and skin
and from the world of men
i try to tighten up the code again ..."
-todd r, 'zen machine'jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (07/30/85)
[...] The concept of the Eternal Champion shows up in a lot of unusual places. Moorcock almost certainly plucked his from Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. (Is anyone surprised? Close to the start of the first John Carter book, Carter searches his memory and can remember taking part in wars 200 years earlier; he cannot, however, remember being born, nor going for any length of time when he was not fighting some war. He had the impression that he had fought in "some very strange places".) Moorcock's first published writing was a trilogy of Martian stories that are HIGHLY reminiscent of the John Carter series. Other Eternal Champion stuff: Adrienne Martine-Barnes wrote a so-so novel entitled "The Dragon Rises" in which the Dragon was clearly a duplicate of the Eternal Champion. The jist of the story is that there are a few souls (known by animal names) who are constantly summoned from another "plane" to earth in order to buy off some bad karma those souls picked up somehow. The Dragon is the war-like one who must eventually find peace...although it's not as bad as that makes it sound. I'm just now reading The Summer Tree, an unremarkable book by Guy Gavriel Kay (for University of Toronto students out there, you might be pleased that the protagonists are five U. of T. students). Just a chapter ago, the author suggested that they would eventually meet the Eternal Champion so maybe it will turn out to be a little interesting after all. By the way, once you have read sufficient heroic fantasy by Moorcock, you are ready to read the Dancers at the End of Time trilogy in which he mercilessly rips all his other books to comic shreds. The hero is the Eternal Champion again, but this time gone to decadence and being shamelessly manipulated by yet another incarnation of the Eternal Champion. Lots of giggles, especially for those who can catch the multitude of snide references to Moorcock's other work. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
nancy@MIT-HTVAX.ARPA (08/05/85)
From: nancy@MIT-HTVAX.ARPA
I've just emerged from an extended tour of the works of Michael
Moorcock (the two Corum trilogies, the Elric series, and the Castle
Brass series), and I found them all quite enjoyable. The story of
the 'champion eternal' that bridges across all the various series
was one I was quite captivated by, and I especially liked the way
that while any individual series dealt with one particular
incarnation, fate would, at times (and in what seemed to be to be a
very logical manner, at all times consistent with the 'laws' of that
particular plane of the multiverse), throw a few of the incarnations
from other series into the picture.
I'd like very much to read more sf with this feature (bug? :-)) ...
can anyone think of what other authors do this, and do it well?
The only one I can think of off hand is a Poul Anderson novel "Three
Hearts and Three Lions". I can recommend this as a good read as well
as being on the theme you're looking for. It's about a man who
suddenly finds himself in the world of knights and ladies with no
memory about himself. It seems he has a job to do, and everyone
around knows who he is (but they don't know what he's planning to do)
and they try to either help or hinder him based on what they know
about him and which side they're on.
Have fun.
Nancy Connor
nancy@mit-htvax