The Best of Michael Moorcock

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Pub Date 18 Dec 2018 | Archive Date 10 Dec 2018

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Description

Michael Moorcock: Legendary author of the Elric saga, Science Fiction Grand Master, platinum album–receiving rock star, and controversial editor of the new wave fiction movement's New Worlds. In this definitive collection, discover the incomparable stories of one of our most important contemporary writers.

These exceptional stories range effortlessly from the genre tales that continue to define fantasy to the author’s critically acclaimed mainstream works. Classic offerings include the Nebula Award–winning novella “Behold the Man,” which introduces a time traveler and unlikely messiah that H.G. Wells never imagined; “The Visible Men,” a recent tale of the ambiguous and androgynous secret agent Jerry Cornelius; the trilogy “My Experiences in the Third World War,” where a Russian agent in an alternate Cambodia is powerless to prevent an inevitable march toward nuclear disaster; and “A Portrait in Ivory,” a Melibone story of troubled anti-hero Elric and his soul-stealing sword, Stormbringer.

Newer work handpicked by an expert editing team includes one previously unpublished story and three uncollected stories.

Michael Moorcock: Legendary author of the Elric saga, Science Fiction Grand Master, platinum album–receiving rock star, and controversial editor of the new wave fiction movement's New Worlds. In...


A Note From the Publisher

Michael Moorcock is among the most influential British authors of fantasy, science fiction, and mainstream literature. His many novels include the Elric series, the Cornelius Quartet, Gloriana, Mother London, and King of the City. Moorcock has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, and British Science Fiction awards and is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As editor of the science-fiction magazine New Worlds, Moorcock was one of the progenitors of the experimental and controversial new-wave literary science-fiction movement. His nonfiction has appeared in many UK outlets, including the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, and New Statesman. A member of the progressive rock band Hawkwind, Moorcock received a platinum disc for the album Warrior on the Edge of Time
Michael Moorcock is among the most influential British authors of fantasy, science fiction, and mainstream literature. His many novels include the Elric series, the Cornelius Quartet, Gloriana, ...

Advance Praise

“The 17 stories in this collection demonstrate the breadth of scope and the excellence in storytelling of SF Grand Master and multigenre author Moorcock . . . Moorcock crosses genres, bends boundaries, and breaks rules as only a master storyteller can.” —Library Journal

“Moorcock is a throwback to such outsized 19th-century novelistic talents as Dickens and Tolstoy.” —Locus

“[Moorcock] introduced me to the ridiculously powerful things that happen when you put a sophisticated, contemporary literary vocabulary at the service of a blackly grim high-fantasy imagination. A giant of the genre in every possible sense.”
TIME Magazine

“It is all quintessential Moorcock—a wild, fascinating batch of stories fairly balancing the fantastic and the nearly ordinary, and showcasing Moorcock’s talent very well, thank you.”
Booklist

“A superb introduction to the boundless imagination of this unique and fascinating author....”
Bookgasm

“Something for everyone to love.... This collection illustrates the breadth of Moorcock’s talent. A long-overdue retrospective.”
The Guardian

“The 17 stories in this collection demonstrate the breadth of scope and the excellence in storytelling of SF Grand Master and multigenre author Moorcock . . . Moorcock crosses genres, bends...


Marketing Plan

New digital edition to be promoted via Particle Books and Tachyon Publications LLC marketing and social media teams.

New digital edition to be promoted via Particle Books and Tachyon Publications LLC marketing and social media teams.


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781616963125
PRICE $9.99 (USD)

Average rating from 8 members


Featured Reviews

You feel in awe of a giant of fantasy and it's not easy to review something written by them.
I can't say I read everything by Moorcock but I can surely say I loved this stories.
I found them engaging and entertaining, maybe not the most representative of his work but surely an amazing read.
It was a great reading experience, a book I wasn't able to put down even if I try to savour it reading one story per night.
A very good excursus, it made crave for more.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for this ARC

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The Best of Michael Moorcock- This must have been a difficult job. Michael Moorcock has been writing phenomenal fiction for almost sixty years. What we have here is a brief sampling of what has come to pass. Myself, I prefer his novels to the shorter works, but he is adept at getting his point across at any length. What we have here are seventeen stories, some fantastical, some grounded, but all high quality reads. There is an Elric story to start things off. Jerry Cornelius drops by. The von Beck family appears in different narratives. One of my favorite stories involves Shaky Mo, a roadie who travels with the recently deceased Jimi Hendrix on a road trip through Northern England and Scotland. No "Best of" collection of Moorcock would be complete with Behold The Man, a Nebula winning novella, here in its original form. Probably not for everyone, but a great, landmark story. I recommend this to anyone interested in discovering Michael Moorcock, or anyone, like myself, who enjoys revisiting classic first rate story telling.

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Somehow, despite having read massive amounts of science fiction and fantasy, I never managed to break open a Michael Moorcock book. Not one. Well, that just changed and his work is nothing like what I expected.

This reissued anthology is a “best of” selection featuring nearly forty years worth of work originally written or published from the early 60’s to the late 90’s. If you are familiar with his work, this collection is a chance to revisit old friends like Elric. For us newbies, it is a smorgasbord of different offerings, often no more than a brief glimpse into the different characters and worlds Moorcock created. However, In some cases, the glimpses were just too brief to really connect with a character and their universe.

In many cases, I found the wonder was not always in the plot as in the complex and very descriptive worlds created. His writing is often dense prose that creates worlds and layers of experience and emotion. Surprisingly, much of Moorcock’s work is not hard science fiction so much as it is speculative fiction.

Within this collection, some of the real gems include the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix, a time travel journey to meet Jesus and John the Baptist and experience their world, a love story played out across holes in the fabric of the universe in an alternate history of the United States with a restaurant at the vortex of time and space, and alternate histories as World War Three plays out with Cossacks on horseback galloping through Southeast Asia. There is an unexpected richness and depth to many of the stories.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.

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Michael Moorcock was, for me, an entry point into Science Fiction and Fantasy in the 1980's. This is a terrific collection showing the range of his work and clearly illustrates that Mike is so much more than Elric. There's humour, cutting satire, imagination and intelligence here from an author who is also an editor, social commentator and rock star. It's a great collection, though fans will no doubt quibble about what isn't included. Me, I just wanted more. If nothing else, this should be used as an introductory primer that will hopefully persuade readers to go out there and read more. Recommended.

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