He could not have saved the prisoners, even if he had desired, without going against every tradition ofthe Dragon Isle.” There’s a hint of authorial nervousness visible in the early part of the book that I think underscores just how startling Elric felt as a character. He had been used to such sights since childhood. Moorcock works a bit too hard to try and instruct us in how to see this scene: “It was not that Elric was inhumane it was that he was, still, a Melnibonean. Elric indifferently pulls up a chair while his head torturer slices the genitals off of one of the prisoners and tortures the rest. That much is clear in an early scene in this book where Elric is summoned because some spies from Melnibone’s enemies have made it through the sea maze surrounding it. That’s vaguely right but substantively wrong.
He’s got an evil cousin who is trying to take the throne from him and a beautiful cousin that he’s in love with.Įven now, you’d generally expect you were being set up for the birth of a heroic figure who rejects the evil ways of his kingdom and either fights for its reform or leaves his throne for a more righteous life as a wanderer. He’s a physically weak albino who has to take drugs to maintain his vitality who presides over a decadent, sinister court of not-quite-human Melniboneans who have practiced human sacrifice and use sorcery to summon demonic beings, elementals and creatures from other dimensions. What felt astonishing to me when I first read the books around 1976 or so (I read them in the series order, not the order they were originally published) was the central character: a moody, depressive young emperor of a realm that has slowly retreated over centuries from its former imperial dominion back to its heartland. Unlike them, Elric does have a distinct beginning, middle and end to his life and he is surrounded by portent and prophecy. Howard’s Conan or Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, as a complete character concept whose life gets told as a series of shorter adventures. Elric developed in that sense rather like Robert E. The first book in the series was not actually the first written-it’s actually something of a prequel in its way. Moorcock’s whole style and mood feels indelibly tied to the 1960s and 1970s, but the Elric series has some enduring appeal to it. I feel more optimistic after a re-read of Elric of Melnibone.
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