First of all the way Moorcock writes is indeed exceptional at making your mind travel to magical lands. The words and expressions he uses are great at building atmosphere. The epic feeling of the 60’s and 70’s is splendid, despite sounding too melodramatic at times.
So that aside, the story itself has a rather unconventional main character, even by today’s standards. The way Elric thinks, acts or even moves is plain hard to categorize to something specific, which is good.
All the rest are a bit hard to accept as equally great and I bet if it weren’t for the exceptional use of words to build atmosphere this series of books wouldn’t be as well received. Reading the story I kept having problems at figuring out how this world works exactly or if people have free will at all. More specifically, as I was reading the story these issues came to mind.
The introduction is just fine, we are told what Melnibone is, who Elric is, what are his goals, we meet his lover (who is his cousin as well) and his main rival (also his cousin). As corny as it may feel to have a tragic emperor, his token woman and his scheming rival, I had no real issues about the premise itself, with the style of writing making me accept it as it is.
The story moves just fine up until Elric and his cousin Yyrkoon drive off the invaders from their land. At that point, his rival double crosses him and throws him in the sea in order to drown and take the throne for himself. And here is where my first issue came up. The plot is 90% driven by summoning Gods rather than taking matters in your own hands. I hear in later books this becomes less apparent but on THIS book specifically, it’s as if mortals can’t even scratch their ass without calling for the aid of some deity. Elric specifically can summon them extremely easy, as he has a destiny to fulfil and the Gods rush to his aid in order to allow him to achieve it. Which is also my second issue, as Elric is said from the beginning to be the Chosen One (an overused element which I hate) who has the Gods at his pocket, because they need him to fulfil a predestined path. The story makes sure to point out his future will be bleak and not auto-win (like in Harry Potter for example) and that the Gods use him as a vessel for their own agendas, which kind of excuses their more than huge attention to him. But still, story-wise everything is done through dues ex machina (literally) just because Elric or Yyrkoon asked for it, which is weak and most of the times could very easily be avoided entirely.
So the Sea God saves Elric from drowning and even ships him back to his homeland, where his scheming cousin was already feasting for his new position. We are again given an analytical description of the violent and deprived (in our eyes) traditions of the island but here is where I found yet another issue. The people around Elric or Yyrkoon don’t seem to even have an opinion, much less a face or a personality. The description of what they were doing during the celebration was great but as soon as Elric shows up, not a word is spoken about how they felt about it. Something like “Woops, did we just rape a thousand women and slay a hundred slaves for nothing?” I understand they are not important to the plot and that their opinion means nothing to their leaders but a few lines around their thoughts would really help me see them as individuals and not as faceless crowds. But perhaps it’s the author’s intent not to see them as people but as faceless peons of fate so it is not really a problem. What I minded a lot more is how exactly Elric arrived in the throne room. The feast lasted seven days and then we see him waiting for Yyrkoon in the throne room. How did he get there? Why didn’t anyone see him? Was he resting for seven days or was he deliberately waiting seven days in hiding just to taunt his cousin? Not mentioned specifically and had me wondering what exactly happened here.
After that, Elric orders for his cousin to be sent for torture as he assumes the authority back. It would seem the whole story is over already but … the Gods intervene again and help Yyrkoon escape. Accepting it once is ok but a second time so soon and for such a petty reason felt bad. To be honest, only a miracle could save Elric when he was drowning. He was weakened, exhausted, was wearing a heavy armour, and had no time or power to swim or cast a spell. So I could ultimately accept a God saving him as the only way for him to be saved. But here is a case where plain mortals could easily do the same. We are told Yyrkoon has a hundred men loyal to his side and that they help him escape the island. So my question is why did he need a God to escape when a hundred men were at his side, secretly guiding him to a ship to escape? This is what I meant by the Gods doing all the work and mortals just being useless peons in the side. One could of course say that it is mortals who summon the Gods at their side but then this makes the Gods nothing else but mindless critters any mortal can toy around with; when it should be the other way around. Plus, if Elric has a destiny to fulfil and is excused, then why do they help his rival? Probably because he is part of that destiny as well but we are never told that; it is too open to speculation. Furthermore, we are supposed to accept Yyrkoon managed to summon a God in less than a minute when he was imprisoned and powerless. Maybe the guards were on his side and maybe they had a summoning scroll ready for use or something. Again, none of that is shown. Wouldn’t it be great if we had two lines of text where the guards say “Here my lord, we will help you escape. We are not faceless peons.” Instead, we are handed this vague scenario where he summons a God and escapes undetected when he was defenceless and doomed, in the same way Elric was a few pages back.
Anyways, for reasons again too vague Yyrkoon kidnaps his sister/ the hero’s girl while escaping the island. What for? To torture Elric or because he wanted to be hunted in the farthest corners of the Earth because of her? I mean really, would Elric bother looking for him if he hadn’t taken his woman? But anyway, I can just say he did it to torture him. So Elric sends his entire armada out looking for his woman (and not Yyrkoon) and for months nobody manages to find out anything. So what do you thing Elric does? That’s right, he asks a God to tell him, once again proving how they are doing all the work while mortals are completely useless. Would it be so hard for a spy to report Yyrkoon’s secret base? And yes, we are told he has this amnesia mirror that makes everyone around his base to forget they saw him but couldn’t they spot him from the distance because of his Melnibonian ship? Couldn’t there be a double agent amongst them? Something that doesn’t make an entire armada of tens of thousands to be completely useless? Nope, he just asks a God; so one would wonder why he didn’t do it the very first second he wanted to find his woman.
So after the God tells him where she is and even warns him of a magic mirror that protects that land, Elric plans to go there with his personal guard, which I assume they are no more that a hundred men. The reason is, we are never told how many men does a warship hold. During the navy battle there were hundreds of ships but we are never given the size of the island’s army. How many people live on the island? How many of them are slaves, soldiers or nobles? Never told. I could assume Melnibone has only a thousand people with the same ease I can assume it has a trillion.
So that is not really a problem. The issue is what he does to get to the enemy base. He knows where it is but he doesn’t want to go there with a normal ship; he wants a magic ship that flies. And what a surprise, he asks a God to give him one. It’s not like a flying ship is the only way he could go there; he just wanted to hurry getting there as soon as possible and so he spasm his God summoning to achieve it. If he was in such a hurry, why didn’t he ask the God since day one or why didn’t he ask to be teleported there instantly? Again, not told.
So he gets to the enemy harbour and one would think he would enter it as stealthy as possible, sabotage the mirror and storm the enemy castle with a rebellion amongst the oppressed people of that land (they were conquered and treated as slaves and cannon fodder). But no, all we see him doing is storming in right away, burning everything to the ground and massacring the innocent populace. Is this wise? Morality aside, why would someone storm in just like that? Where is a plan? So Yyrkoon predictably uses the mirror on both parties in an attempt to trash them both. Before I move on I must again mention how we are never told where he got the mirror or how he conquered these lands. It’s as if he had done it years ago and we are left to speculate it was there all along. But anyways, he uses it on his own men like they don’t matter at all (well, duh, they are not Gods so who cares if they are peasants or elite warriors). But he ends up wasting only his side because Elric had specifically brought blind warriors who are immune to the mirror. I guess that was all the strategy Elric needed; screw the wellbeing of the barbarians (got to love those anti-heroes). I also guess he didn’t imagine Yyrkoon would destroy the mirror and drive most of his men to gouge their own eyes out as well. Without caring for more than a few lines about his fallen faceless companions, he rushes to save his woman… only to find her put to a sleep spell only Yyrkoon can undo. I guess this is not a fairy tale where a kiss to the maiden’s lips would be enough to wake her up … Did I mention he is banging his own cousin for years?
This is the part where unfortunately Yyrkoon becomes nothing else but a comic book villain. Clearly detestable to the reader since page one, always talking in a way to hate him, always losing yet having means to create another masterplan right away no matter how many times he loses. So guess what; he now has yet another plan that involves him going to a different dimension to find two cursed swords, with which he plans to use in his evil plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD. Yeah, these comic book villains keep uping the scales despite losing all the time. So once again, we are left to speculate a bunch of stuff. For example, why didn’t Yyrkoon go to get the swords all this time? Was it a plan he would go for in case his army would be defeated… by his own super weapon… which he somehow acquired? Doesn’t make any sense, does it? I mean he was planning to invade Melnibone with what, a few hundred barbarians when thousands were not enough before, claiming that the island would be without protection since everybody was out looking for Elric’s woman… Hey wait a second; is this why he kidnapped her? To make Elric disperse his army? Well ok, he did, what was he waiting all this time? And why didn’t he imagine Elric would summon his pals the Gods to aid him?
Anyway, he opens a magic portal and goes to a netherworld where he knows the two swords are kept there. Well why didn’t he go there all this time or why didn’t he send someone else to get them? We are not told. And why did he cast a sleep spell on his sister? He again wanted to torment Elric and make him follow him? Who bets Elric would be having sex with her for 5 days in a row and wouldn’t chase after his cousin? I do.
So, Elric wants to follow Yyrkoon in order to avenge his woman (and not his poor fellow soldiers who died for his glory) but the portal is now closed. How does he open it to get there? … You know, don’t you? He again summons a God to do it. Yeah, running through the portal moments before it closes or having his surviving allies to perform a spell to open it would be too human-centric; let’s just spam the God thing once more.
So he goes to this weird netherworld full of monsters and traps and goes to this temple where he finds the swords after a long path of constant fights and near death experiences. Yyrkoon is already there, ready to take the swords. How did the sonavabitch pass all the traps and the monsters? How powerful is he? Was he injured in the least? We are not told. What we are told is that his red archer ally, someone who met there, is unable to bow down Yyrkoon because the area negates all mortal weapons and only the cursed swords are working in here. Ok, that was a cheap way to not allow the villain to be killed with a simple arrow. It is also a fancy way for Elric to grab one sword while his cousin grabs the other and to have a nice final showdown. What would Yyrkoon do with two swords anyway? One is heavy enough to lift on its own. Where they two just for Elric to get one as well and have a fair duel? Rather convenient.
So anyway, Elric wins by not allowing the swords to tell them how to fight; some sort of fighting his own destiny I guess. But frakk that, as immediately after he wins, he AGAIN summons a God to take them all back home. Wow, wow, these Gods are so willing to run at his aid every two hours. And they even teleported him, his new ally, his nemesis Yyrkoon, his magic ship, and his sleeping lover back to Melnibone right away. He probably did that with the few surviving warriors Elric brought with him but they are not important so who cares? GODS ARE PANACEA!
So, it turns out Elric spares Yyrkoon’s life if he undoes the sleep spell on his lover. Because once again, this is not a fairy tale where killing the wizard immediately undoes all the spells he has cast. And apparently the Gods can teleport you to different dimensions and in any point in the world you like in an instant but can’t undo a simple sleep spell.
… Hey, wait a second, why didn’t Elric ask the Gods to teleport him and his army right in the middle of Yyrkoon’s castle and spare them the trouble of getting the ship or fighting their way through the city? Or why didn’t he just ask for Yyrkoon and his lover to be teleported right in front of him right away? Or the cursed swords for the same reason? Or… I don’t know, ask for a mountain of candy if the Gods can DO ANYTHING YOU LIKE.
… Bah, this is why I hate divine interventions; nothing makes sense and mortals are useless.
The book ends with Elric making Yyrkoon the new emperor and him leaving the island for a year in order to see the world.
… I am not kidding, he gave the throne to that comic book villain and dumped his woman, for whom he did all this shit because he wants to travel the world. Does that make any sense. Hey you idiot, he will betray you and you will lose your woman and your throne once again.
But I guess that is not a problem; he will just the Gods to bring him a dancing pink unicorn who speaks Japanese to fly to the moon and find there a laughing stone with which he will eat vanilla ice cream… OR JUST KILL THE F*CKER AND TAKE THE WOMAN ALONG HIS JOURNEYS.
2011-01-26, 08:50
I can't understand why anyone would find it boring. Even tho it was written such a long time ago, it's a freakishly stark reflection of modern society and the way it works even today, 62 years after it was first written. Definitely a brilliant read.
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