keith

For those of you (i.e. Windows users) able to use Microsoft's .Lit Reader, here's an e-book of one of my favorite books of all time -- one of those books that blew my pubescent mind, y'know? It's the first book in the Elric of Melnibone series by Michael Moorcock, who I quoted in an earlier post. Elric is an anti-hero, and his story is an anti-fantasy. He is meant to be the exact opposite, and a clever parody, of everything Moorcock hated in the fantasy of the day: The Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian, in particular.

I collected Moorcock's novels when I was younger, with the aim of owning a copy of everything he ever wrote. At one point I had over 70 books, novellas, and collections of his. Even old sci-fi magazines in which he was featured. More than half of that has disappeared over the years, though. :-/ I plan on working on it again someday, though.

Imagine my amusement when I realized that much of the lore of Games Workshops' Warhammer and Warhammer 40K (specifically, that which concerns the realm of Chaos), which I love, and by extension, Blizzard's Warcraft fluff (another love), is more or less openly and directly lifted from Moorcock, as thoroughly as Tolkien is mined for Dungeons and Dragons.

And the funniest part? Moorcock was a completely random discovery. The cover art of the DAW edition of Stormbringer caught my eye in a used book shop.



The DAW artwork is still my favorite for the Elric series, and I prefer to collect their editions of Moorcock's work when I can. They just seem more pulpy, to me, which is of course the proper setting for these books which originated in serialized form in obscure and radical sci-fi magazines. You don't want some kind of classy update for beautiful trash like that.

Anyway, give it a try. Despite my description of it as "trash", it's quite wonderfully written.

Also, as mentioned in my previous post, for cute puppy pr0n, starring our new Mr. Leeroy Jenkins (thanks bean and Shalome), see my lovely wife's journal.