📖 #VendrediLecture n° 40

Connie WILLIS, All Clear.

Quatrième et dernier volet de la tétralogie de Connie Willis sur les voyages dans le temps. Nos historiens-voyageurs sont toujours coincés sous les bombes durant le Blitz londonien... Ça tire un petit peu en longueur mais le suspense arrive à se maintenir.

#bookstodon #livres #Books #roman #SciFi #ScienceFiction #SF #mastolivre #timetravel #WWII #Blitz
#historicalnovels #histoire #MichaelMoorcock #ConnieWillis

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BraveWords
The Might Of MOTÖRHEAD Just Become Mightier – MICHAEL MOORCOCK Leads PINK FAIRIES Through A Skull-Charring Cover Of “Motörhead”; Audio

https://bravewords.com/news/the-might-of-motorhead-just-become-mightier-michael-moorcock-leads-pink-fairies-through-a-skull-charring-cover-of-motorhead-audio/

#MICHAELMOORCOCK #PINKFAIRIES #TheMightOf #JustBecomeMightier #BraveWords #metal #music

Liminal lands

There are always liminal lands, out beyond the predictions of common sense or myth, where the mind encounters places strangely common to human experience. Jungians would call them archetypal, perhaps; they crop up, for instance – often in passing – in fantastic fiction. A few examples might be CS Lewis’ Narnia (the Shribble Marshes), Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea (Osskil), Michael Moorcock’s other London (Jerry Cornelius’ Notting Hill), the American Southwest of Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger sequence.

But sometimes they exist in everyday time and space. Lucy Pollock (the emphasis is mine):

At the pumping station, far out on the liminal land through which the river flows, the dog and I turn for home. The fields now are lush with flowering grasses, but for weeks in the winter they will be submerged and this track will become a narrow causeway across the floodplain.

My rage abates. Of course we need science and biotechnology and billions of data points, as we seek to improve the lives of older people, our future selves. But side by side with the science we need a deep and abiding understanding of what it means to be human.

I have encountered such places myself. Much of my earlier writing had to do with them, and their strange coexistence between mind and place: the Wye Valley, the worked-out coal country along the River Browney, Western Park in Leicester. There have been darker places too, since then; like the high grounds above Kimmeridge Bay, home to PD James’ The Black Tower, or the post-UKAEA wasteland of Winfrith Heath. But yours will be different again, like Lucy Pollock’s: places between, times that do not quite align.

Contemplative practice has, in itself, nothing to do with such things. And yet the deep instincts – I’m tempted to call them mystical, even though the word has so many unhelpful connotations – that draw people to the contemplative life – as to the methodologies of psychonautics – are human instincts. Might it not be that these same instincts are themselves the door to this fundamental way of being human – to the liminal lands – since they are themselves in a way reflections of, or reflected in, the silent illumination of the contemplative condition itself?

#consciousness #contemplative #CSLewis #EdDorn #liminality #LucyPollock #MichaelMoorcock #PDJames #poems #solitude #UrsulaLeGuin

Cataloging Worlds

After reading the “Who cares what Earth this takes place on!” intro to the Justice League: New Frontier tie-in comic, I started thinking about the whole Earth-1, Earth-616, etc. thing. The confusion over Earth-1 vs. New Earth in DC (something which overshadowed discussion of the actual story in the first issue of Tangent: Superman’s Reign) highlights the question: just how important is it to label these fictional universes, anyway?

And once you’ve decided to catalog them, how do you label them?

A few multiverses that come to mind are DC’s, Marvel’s, and Michael Moorcock’s.

The multiverse of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion cycle is extremely fluid, with details changing whenever he wants to tell a different story. Just looking at the Elric stories, there are three or four origins for Stormbringer, and as many for the Melnibonéans and their pact with Arioch. There are several versions of the 20th-century Count Ulrich Von Bek (depending on whether you include Count Zodiac). Worlds are less like parallel lines and more like streams that can run together, mingle, and separate again (kind of like the briefly-used Hypertime as used by DC).

DC and Marvel, on the other hand, favor a discrete structure in which each universe can be precisely identified. This may have something to do with the focus on continuity as a key element of comic-book storytelling, and would explain why, for instance, Marvel has made an effort to number what seems to be every single alternate reality they’ve ever published.

Approaches to numbering:

• Sequential. DC started out like this, with Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-3, etc.
• Random. Current DC multiverse, except for the first few we saw at the end of 52 which were based on worlds from the original DC multiverse (Earth-2, Earth-3, Earth-5 from Earth-S, Earth-10 from Earth-X). Marvel’s main continuity, Earth-616, was reportedly picked at random (though there is some disagreement on this point).
• Referential. Things like choosing Earth-S for the worlds of Shazam or Squadron Supreme, or Earth-C for Captain Carrot. Earth-97 for Tangent (which appeared in 1997) and Earth-96 for Kingdom Come (which appeared in 1996) would also fall into this category (but see the next point).
• Systematic. Taking referential labels a step further, using a consistent scheme. Marvel derives most of its designations from publication dates.

Personally, I prefer to just name them. “The Tangent Universe” or “New Frontier” or “Supremeverse” gets the idea across more directly than, say, Earth-9.

#dcu #eternalChampion #marvel #michaelMoorcock #multiverse #repostSource #seeAlsoSpeedForce

Michael Moorcock kennt man hierzulande als Fantasy-Autor der „Elric“-Saga. Sein Meisterwerk „Mutter London“ zeigt ihn als britischen Gesellschafts­romancier. #sfcd #michaelmoorcock #fantasy #elric

Michael Moorcocks Roman „Mutte...

Fantastik im Feuilleton: aktuelles Interview mit Michael Moorcock, Taz

https://taz.de/Michael-Moorcocks-Roman-Mutter-London/!6137262/

#PhantFeuille #MichaelMoorcock #Fantasy #ScienceFiction

Für Genossenschaftsgenosse sein reichts nicht, aber seit Wechsel der Papier-@tazgetroete von Tageszeitungs-Taz zu #WochenTaz, versuche ich dieser beim Kiosk treu zu sein: Diesmal hats ein Interview (!) mit #MichaelMoorcock anlässlich der deutschen Ausgabe von »Mutter London« (Mother London 1988; Deutsch von #HannesRiffel bei #CarcosaVerlag 2025).
Merci Julian Weber und dem Taz-Team!
https://taz.de/Wenn-ich-durch-London-laufe-sehe-ich-Geschichte/!6137262/

Picked up #MichaelMoorcock’s latest #Elric book “The citadel of Forgotten Myths” from 2022 and it’s just what I needed. I love Elric but had definitly moved more into Moorcook’s weirder material. A fun return.

Dieses Lesezeichen bevorzuge ich übrigens bei der Moorcock-Lektüre, weil dieser Anarchist und Arbeiterschichtssprössling ständig so fasziniert von Adelsgedöns und Großbürgertum ist, der Lauser! Der Düsenlarry! 😠

#MichaelMoorcock #Fantasy

Schon cool, wie antikolonial #MichaelMoorcock seine "schnellen Fantasyromane" (Ch. Platt) Anfang der 1970er-Jahre angelegt hat:

"[E]ine Macht ohne Moral - eine Kraft ohne Gerechtigkeit; das waren die Barone von Granbretanien, die das Banner ihres Reichskönigs Huon durch Europa trugen und diesen Kontinent an sich rissen, es weiterschleppten, nach Westen und Osten, zu anderen Kontinenten, die sich für sich beanspruchten."

(Rächer des Dunklen Imperiums, 1973/dt. 1978, Vorwort Seite 8)

#Fantasy

The Necromancer

https://library.hrmtc.com/2025/12/08/the-necromancer/

#actionAdventure #Adaptations #book #fantasy #FantasyGraphicNovels #FantasyManga #HorrorManga #JulienBlondel #literature #MichaelMoorcock #review #supernatural #TPolyphilus #ValentinSécher

[I doubt there was ever a movie.]

Elric of Nylaboné.

#HumaneSocietyAMovie #HashtagGames #MichaelMoorcock

« The Four Who are One », 1978

By Wendy Pini (American artist, b. 1951)
Original illustration of #Corum, #Hawkmoon, #Elric, and #Erekosë, for an aborted #Stormbringer Animated Series

#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #WendyPini #MichaelMoorcock #EternalChampion #ElfQuest

Michael Moorcock's 'Earl Aubec' is a bulky grab-bag of his short fiction, written over several decades, and although the standard is patchy, it contains some real gems.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/182533fc-bf47-4b76-8690-e6858ceaaa5d

#eternalchampion #michaelmoorcock #earlaubec #fantasy #sf #sff #books #bookstodon

Wearing his iconic dragon helm, raising Stormbringer defiantly, the last emperor of Melniboné stands at the forefront of Chaos as represented by a legion of demons.

Cover illustration for ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ by Michael Moorcock (DAW) 2/2

#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #illustration #elric #michaelmoorcock #dawbooks

ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ (1976)
Oil on Canvas Board - 24” x 18”

Originally published in 1972 as THE DREAMING CITY, this novella was later reprinted by DAW and would be the first of my Elric covers. 1/2

#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #illustration #elric #michaelmoorcock #dawbooks

« The Princess Cymoril », 1970

by Philippe Druillet (French comics artist and painter, born 1944)
Illustration for "La saga d'Elric le nécromancien", French comics from Michael Moorcock Elric saga, Éditions Pellucidar, 1971

#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #darkFantasy #PhilippeDruillet #MichaelMoorcock #ElricOfMelnibone #Cymoril #EternalChampion

« Stealer of Souls », 1979

by Frank Brunner (American artist, born 1949)
Illustration for his "Elric Portfolio", plate #5, Looking Glass Productions, 1979
Features as illustration cover for "Stormbringer" RPG 1st Ed., Chaosium Inc., 1981
Pen and ink, 18" x 24"

#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #FrankBrunner #MichaelMoorcock #Stormbringer #Mournblade #elricofmelnibone #EternalChampion #FRPG #TTRPG #Chaosium

« Elric of Melniboné », 1979

by Frank Brunner (American comics artist, born 1949)
Illustration for his "Elric Portfolio", plate #7, Looking Glass Productions, 1979
pen and ink, 18" x 24"

#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #FrankBrunner #MichaelMoorcock #Stormbringer #Mournblade #elricofmelnibone #EternalChampion