Unless you're a fairly serious Moorcock fan (or just like long lists) you should probably skip this post. Go to Diversions of the Groovy Kind instead and read some of the finest, funkiest comics ever published. Go on.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that when I said I planned to read the complete Moorcock in a year I didn't mean a calendar year as such, but a year's worth of days, spread out over a period of approximately mumble mumble. Sound good? Good.
Rather than keep linking to that suggested reading order that I'm not quite following, I'm going to post my own variation on it here, annotated, and with links for the few books I've already written about. I will add links as I continue (God willing) so this page will act as an index to the whole demented project.
Titles marked (s) are short fiction.
The War Hound and the World's Pain - 1, 2
The City in the Autumn Stars - 1, 2
The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius (s) - 1
Introducing the Von Bek family, guardians of the Grail.
The Eternal Champion - 1
Introducing John Daker, an aspect of the Eternal Champion burdened with memory (or foreknowledge) of all his incarnations.
The Sundered Worlds - 1, 2
Space opera that introduces the multiverse, sort of. Also a Von Bek novel, sort of.
Phoenix in Obsidian - 1
John Daker again.
To Rescue Tanelorn... (s) - 1
A tale of Rackhir the Red Archer. Can't remember how this got in here but it does introduce the eternal city Tanelorn. So.
The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell (graphic collaboration w/ Howard Chaykin) - 1
The Dragon in the Sword - 1
More John Daker. Dragon is the "final" Daker novel, whatever that means. It also features a Von Bek sidekick.
The Final Programme
Introducing Jerry Cornelius, an ambiguous Eternal Champion for a world perpetually on the brink of apocalypse. Our world. The idea of reading all the Cornelius stories at one go makes me dizzy, so I'll be spacing them out (though they're pretty spaced out to begin with, har) between less demanding sequences.
The Jewel in the Skull
The Mad God's Amulet
The Sword of the Dawn
The Runestaff
Introducing Dorian Hawkmoon, hero of a far-future Europe. A second Hawkmoon sequence forms one of several "climaxes" of the Eternal Champion's story, and will be found near the end of this list.
A Cure for Cancer (Jerry Cornelius)
The Knight of the Swords
The Queen of the Swords
The King of the Swords
The first Corum sequence, set in the prehistory of Earth (not necessarily our Earth)
The English Assassin (J.C.)
The Bull and the Spear
The Oak and the Ram
The Sword and the Stallion
The second Corum sequence, with elements from Celtic folklore.
The Condition of Muzak (J.C.)
The Ice Schooner
The Black Corridor
The Distant Suns
Flux (s)
The contents of Sailing to Utopia, part of the omnibus series from the 1990s.
The New Nature of the Catastrophe
The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius: Stories of the Comic Apocalypse
The Visible Men (s)
Modem Times (s)
All the Jerry Cornelius short fiction. I think. Catastrophe includes stories by other writers, which I plan to skip, at least for now.
The Warlord of the Air
The Land Leviathan
The Steel Tsar
Alternate Victoriana featuring the wonderfully-named Oswald Bastable.
The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century (J.C.)
City of the Beast
Lord of the Spiders
Masters of the Pit
Burroughs pastiche set on "Mars" in the distant past.
The Entropy Tango (J.C.)
An Alien Heat
The Hollow Lands
The End of All Songs
The Dancers at the End of Time sequence. A love story set among decadent immortals on a dying Earth.
The Alchemist's Question (J.C.)
Legends from the End of Time
More End of Time stories.
Gold Diggers of 1977 (J.C.)
Earl Aubec (s)
Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer (graphic collaboration w/ Walt Simonson)
Elric of Melnibone
The Fortress of the Pearl
The White Wolf's Song (s)
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Elric at the End of Time (s)
The Weird of the White Wolf (w/ some recent short stories interlaced)
The Vanishing Tower
The Revenge of the Rose
The Bane of the Black Sword (w/ The Last Enchantment (s) inserted)
Stormbringer
The main Elric sequence. Poor doomed Elric will make more appearances later, via dreamquest.
The Chinese Agent
The Russian Intelligence
Humorous spy novels featuring Jerry Cornell, who is just what he sounds like: not quite Jerry Cornelius. Looking forward to these. I read Chinese Agent in my early teens, probably too young to appreciate it.
The Wrecks of Time
The Winds of Limbo
The Shores of Death
The contents of The Roads Between the Worlds, part of the 1990s omnibus series.
Earl Aubec
The Metatemporal Detective
The Best of Michael Moorcock
Sojan the Swordsman (s)
The Stone Thing (s)
The Roaming Forest (s)
London Blood (s)
London Bone (s)
Through the Shaving Mirror (s)
Furniture (s)
Iron Face (s)
Stories (s)
The Affair of the Texan's Honour (s)
The rest of the short fiction.
Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen
Fantasy set in an alternate England during the reign of an alternate Elizabeth I. Moorcock revised this novel, then apparently unrevised it, so I guess there's no reason I shouldn't read the first edition. If I can find it.
Behold the Man
Breakfast in the Ruins
Two novels featuring Karl Glogauer. Not necessarily the same Karl Glogauer. Behold the Man is Moorcock's most controversial book, at least in America, where he has reportedly received death threats (Jesus + time travel = trouble). Another book I was probably too young to appreciate.
The Brothel in Rosenstrasse
Historical novel linked to the Von Bek series.
Count Brass
The Champion of Garathorm
The Quest for Tanelorn
The second Hawkmoon sequence. First climax of the Eternal Champion's story.
King of the City
Mainstream novel set in contemporary London, sort of. Also a Jerry Cornelius novel, sort of. With Moorcock, nothing is simple.
Blood
Fabulous Harbors
The War among the Angels
The Second Ether Trilogy, another climax of the Eternal Champion's story.
Michael Moorcock's Multiverse (graphic collaboration w/ multiple artists)
Second Ether, Metatemporal Detective, and Elric Dreamquest tales converge to a common climax. Cool!
Mother London
Kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory history of London from the Blitz to the Iron Lady. Stark realism, in other words.
The Dreamthief's Daughter
The Skrayling Tree
The White Wolf's Son
The Dreamquest Trilogy featuring Elric and the Von Bek family, with cameos by Bastable and others. The final climax of the Eternal Champion series. So far.
Byzantium Endures
The Laughter of Carthage
Jerusalem Commands
The Vengeance of Rome
The Between the Wars Sequence. Straight historical fiction following the exploits of anti-heroic Colonel Pyat, a minor character from the Cornelius books. Born with the twentieth century, Pyat is, as I recall, destined for Auschwitz. So. Not the most uplifting way to end this, but it doesn't fit in anywhere else and it's too important to skip.
I think that's everything of consequence, though there are some marginal cases...
Pseudonymous work and juvenilia? Not unless something really interesting catches my eye.
Nonfiction, including Wizardry and Wild Romance? Probably not, but I recommend Wizardry, a critical overview of the fantasy genre, especially if you've got any sacred cows you need slaughtered. At the moment it's in print again.
His musical career? Moorcock was in a band called The Deep Fix and wrote stuff for Hawkwind and Blue Öyster Cult. Album reviews would only showcase my profound ignorance of all things musical. I might post the lyrics of "Veteran of the Psychic Wars".
He and James Cawthorn wrote the screenplay of Amicus Films' The Land That Time Forgot. That might be fun, actually. Rubber dinosaurs. Cave People. Troy McClure. I mean Doug.
Oh, and there's a Doctor Who novel (!) to be published later this year. It'll have to be shoehorned in somewhere. Also in the works are a revised Modem Times, a Jerry Cornelius story called The Blue Poppy, The Whispering Swarm (first of a planned trilogy), Stalking Balzac, and God knows what else.
Further afield, there are the adaptations and parodies. Robert Fuest's film of The Final Programme. A slew of comics and graphic novels. Elric's peculiar guest appearance in Marvel's Conan comic. Elrod of Melvinbone in Dave Sim's Cerebus. Various ideas and characters lifted by Gygax and Arneson for D&D. And there are dozens of authorized short stories by other writers, mostly featuring Cornelius or Elric. It could go on and on.
Whew! One step at a time, old man. The Dragon in the Sword. Read it. Scan the cover. Write something coherent about it. And for the sake of accuracy, change the name of this series to
The Moorcock Project.
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