Відео

No wonder they had this view of english because they where dark imperium devouring everything. Reality just did not allow this to materialize. Thank God English royalty today are only money holders, no more military power, any more. No dark empire any more because Russia and China :).

terry pratchett's rincewind character was the antithesis of the eternal champion- the eternal coward. "they say the eternal champion fights to die a thousand deaths, but the eternal coward runs away to live a thousand lives." - me, onaccounta i couldn't remember the original quote, and i just couldn't be arsed ...

"a thing of stone" a short story written when he was 15. then there's the fact that jarek kharnelian at the end of time was arioch, to elric.

Underappreciated channel!

Warhammer fantasy and 40k took heavy inspiration from Moorcock, especially on the Law vs Chaos thing. Warhammer Fantasy is basically a mix of Howard, Lovecraft, Tolkien and Morcock and 40k is basically a mix of Tolkien, Lovecraft, Moorcock, Howard, Heinlein and Herbert AKA Warhammer in space. Oh, and 2000AD, Valerian, Druillet and Moebius I guess... Got to remember the pen and paper Roleplaying games scene of the early 80s and the Chaosium games. Hawkmoon also took heavy inspiration from Morcocks holidays and travels in France I guess.

I was lucky and got the, at the time only, Polish editions of this series at an old book shop for next to nothing. Nice hardcover edition too. Scoured the Internet later to collect the other only edition of Elric from the early 90s. It's so weird that it's only now getting a re-release with a better translation. Maybe because it's now ok to talk about how much our national treasure Sapkowski stole from Moorcock. Even though the first book is the best, there's still some nice escalation later on and I really do like how messed up and depraved the Dark Empire is shown to be.

Is he as bad as Cugel from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series?

Excellent video! I look forward to the next in the series!

So one time I went to a book store and found a great scifi book, it had is odd moments, but I finished it and eagerly looked up the series to see if there where any more. The name of the book is the Tarnsmen of Gor, and it inspired a sex cult irl and now I have to live with that knowledge

I loved this book when I read it in my high school library in grade 9.

This is my new favourite YT channel

That Saruman T is fire

There are only one Paladin. And then there is the Anti-Paladin. :)

I've read most all of the Appendix N books or authors, but I haven't read this one. I can see how it influenced Gygax.

Thanks for the information about Anderson's evolution as a fantasy writer. I've come to an age where I've started to feel the same about my writing (and life) -- reaching for higher ideals -- and you bringing this up really hit home. And this at a time where I've had a copy of Three Hearts and Three Lions on my desk for months but haven't opened it yet (picked it up on a whim from a library sale). Synchronicity? Now I have to! Thanks!

Good job digging up these books. I read quite a lot back in the day. Some have aged better than others. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser need a whole page of trigger warnings.

This is such a great idea. I'm looking forward to watching these and getting together a cherry picked list from your reviews.

Came for the Poul Anderson, stayed for the Trolls. Great review and actually quite interesting!

Sounds a bit like modernity / reality though. Guess we all get inspired somewhere... (#ClassSystem, #Masquerade, #PredatoryUndeadLeadership)

I love Moorcock, I've about 80% of his books (he's alot). Thank you for drawing attention to his work, he deserves more fans and recognition. The Erekose books are my favourite and the End of time books are fantastic too.

this is gonna be a good review series, I've a few read Poul Anderson books where the start of the book is a wall of text but then the rest of the book has great pacing, one thing to think about is The Broken Sword was published in 1951 and lord of the rings in 1954, both Anderson and Tolkien take from the same well of inspiration. also Middle-land is understandable, it is based on "Midgard" which means Middle-earth. one Poul short story i've always liked was Swordsman of Lost Terra, its a fun read! good ideas for a setting also. Poul also did his own version/translation of Hrolf Kraki's Saga, if you can find that then i highly recommend it, you can see what influenced Poul, Tolkien and Howard and others.

Ever since I’ve found appendix N it has almost been like a fantasy bible for me. Why he never chose to include the Anne McCarthy dragon flight novels is beyond me however, great series! Will be following your progress

4:16 yea that's like paperback edition of Watership Down tier

Never even heard of this. I love seeing the genres of sci-fi and fantasy grow and evolve. Developing tropes, followed by a generation who is sick of the same tropes and starts deonstructing or satirising them. Then followed by a generation who finds the original tropes very venerable and hold them in high regard, bringing the same back into the limelight, while also informed by the intervening generation's more refined styles

The early books were written by a guy still in his late teens and twenties. He was 24 when he took over NEW WORLDS and wrote many quickies in fantasy/sf/thrillers/comedies to support NW and other authors. Many other authors were published and paid their rent because MM supported and promoted them. By his late 20s he slowed down and wrote more carefully considered books including the Cornelius stories and novels. The Bastable 'steampunk books were hugely influential as were his S&S stories. Behold the Man won a Nebula when he was 27. By his early 30s he won a World Fantasy Award for GLORIANA and the Guardian Fictin P4rize for THE CONDITION OF MUSIC. He also wrote the DANCERS AT THE END OF TIME books in the 70s and began the Pyat sequence with BYZANTIUM ENDURES. MOTHER LONDON was in the 3 books short-listed for the WHITBREAD in 1986 and in 2020 The Times named him as one of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945! He continued to su-port and promote writers now much admired on the basis of al for one and one for all. Some of the writers he helped have written him out of their memoirs. There's more. Check out his Wikipedia entry to see it. I have been his friend for many yearsw and can vouch for his modesty and approachability. Check out his YT videos with Andy Sumner and others.

Great ball of fire, haven’t read that book for a long time, I need to read it again

I found the Chaosium game which inspired me to read the books,

I've almost finished the Corum series. I have just begun Elric. Looks like this is next on my list. There is a reason why Moorcock is a world-class world builder and fantasy action writer.

Really enjoyed the review and Agee on all counts. I must say the background music is a terrible and completely unnecessary distraction. Very difficult to listen to your work.

Thanks for this!

You sort of have to read the early books if you hope to get through some of the later ones. Books like "Blood: a Southern Fantasy" or "The war Amongst the Angels" will leave people lost with out a basis in his work. Most people read Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon but some of his other series that may be interesting are the "Dancers" series, Jerry Cornelius, and the "Colonel Pyat Quartet". I will warn you though Pyat is not for the squeamish and in modern times the "Trigger warning" would be as long as one of the books. It is basically a showcase of the worst humanity has to offer across the events of 1900 to the 1970's.

The number of people who have taken from Moorcock and then pretended to not know who he even was is truly astounding.

I took a vacation to the Camargue because of these books.

Count Brass Series is pretty solid, though… it does get pretty sad at the start, but it does improve mood wise as you get through it. Amazing series!

in my opinion classic warhammer fantasy battle is apart from elric very inspired by the war hounds and the world's pain

moorcock is a master of the genre which ever incarnation of the eternal champion and they flow nicely easy reading and entertaining

Thank you for mentioning this. I'll be honest, I never heard about Hawkmoon. Most be one of Moorcock's earlier works. But yeah, seemed like a nice enough world building, but apart from that ... not certain. Hell, we got the Big E from here and Dune, so ... that's that I guess. :D

It’s really strange how Moorcock kind of just vanished from prominence. Back in the day, he was essentially the anti-Tolkien: the father of dark fantasy. Everyone I knew who liked fantasy and heavy metal revered him. And then (probably due to publishing issues, his lineup was confusing to follow in print and/or out of print for a while) he just sort of vanished from the public eye, despite being the guy who inspired folks like GRRM, the guy who invented steampunk (Warlords of the Air), one of the main inspirations for 40k and who wrote everyone’s favorite fantasy bad boy: Elric of Melniboné. Nice to see someone giving him his due. Elric, Hawkmoon, Erekose, Corum etc are all still fantastic, strange and interesting stories.

You rock bro! Thanks for educating me on the origins of WH40k <3 Keep up the good work!

He is without doubt my favourite author. I love Micheal Moorcock. Now a concept like multiverse is a common idea, but he is the one who bringed it into fantasy and sci-fi. Whitout him we would not have d&d as we know it (and of course no Drizzt and no Raistlin), Marvel and Dc would not be the same, no witcher, no WH40K setting ... In my opinion he is the most influencial author in fantasy, alongside Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany and Howard. By the way I intentionally didn't mention Tolkien, never liked him very much

Best wishes with what you read and to your channel from Lancashire, England.

As Moorcock said, GW are a bunch of thieves.

moorcock is a legend ...

Circa 2008 or so I discovered Imaro, around the time the third book was being re-published, and the first two were available, and more was in the pipeline, and I was a frequent visitor to Charles' blog and had some chats with him in the comments there, and a few e-mail exchanges with him (mainly nerd fanboy questions of clarification about some of his creatures). He was always a gentleman and answered questions, and insisted we were friends even though it was obviously just a fan and a writer chatting. Based on his intro to the 2000s reprints, his blog posts, and his history (growing up during the civil rights movement and Vietnam War), I don't think there was any way he'd not edit out the Rwanda parallel. And in any case, his 80s novels are already different than his 1970s short stories that formed them. Others have mentioned Dossouye, which is a superb character and the idea of Cape buffalo-riding cavalry is awesome. There are a number of other Saunders stories floating around too, some with Imaro, some are more mainstream fantasy adaptations of African folklore. Some of those are collected in Saunders own collections, a couple are in other books of S&S fantasy. He also wrote a pulp fiction novel that roughly parallels the Louis-Schmelling fight, and then his last novel was what was to be the start of a new series that was more epic fantasy, unfortunately we only got one book. There are one, maybe two, articles by Charles in Dragon magazine, one for sure on mythical African creatures (someone else did up stats), and I believe one on African 'gods' (so sprawling a topic it really only touches on a few 'name' ones). At the time of his death there was movement on a TV (streaming) series on Imaro, but I don't know where that stands - my impression is his estate isn't clear and things are in limbo with regard to rights (also why the books aren't around even on POD). He did inspire a lot of African-American writers to take up fantasy and other genre fiction, if you look up Milton J. Davis that can be a starting point, he both publishes his own things and collections of sword and soul short stories. I'll wrap up that as mentioned, Charles had a newspaper writing and editing career, that included writing about the African-Canadian experience in the Maritimes, and boxing - I believe he's in some sports writing hall of fame as well. A good, but sad, overview of him is in this NY Times obituary - saddest perhaps is that a major publication only took note of him after he was gone - www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/books/charles-saunders-dead.html

Hell yes. Great video. I love how excited you sound talking about it. What do you think of the Ralph Bashki movie? I was mesmerized by that movie when I was a kid.

Sounds like the proto-Imperium.

One of the first fantasy series I read! Inherited some of the books from my mother and was instantly hooked. Easy to read and a really interesting setting.

Do a upload on Roger Zelazny, if you haven't already.

Thanks for this, never heard of this author.

I did not know this. Elric really was ahead of its time. Lizard-dragon-human hybrid empire who ride dragons to conquer the world and are incestuous. A corrupting force of chaos that mutates those who get its power. A sentient black soul-sucking sword that empowers its user. A white skinned and white haired sorcerer-mercenary who leads all his companions to their deaths due to his fate. Paired magic swords made in the dawn of time. Demon lords who tempt you with flattery and pleasure. Even a demon the size of a skyscraper that's actually two sorcerers a brother and sister (incest again) and eats worlds and has a heart made of a massive jewel. There's so many zany weird things in Moorcock and I love it so much.