Stories are inserted into odd places, and a lot of frankly extraneous material is inserted - presumably to bulk up the thinner volumes.īecause the Elric stories were written out of sequence over a period of decades, and have been republished several times, there was already a high potential for confusion. Unfortunately, in the case of the Elric books very little indication is given as to reading order, or the circumstances in which the stories were originally published.

Gollancz and the mastermind of the project, John Davey, deserve a great deal of credit for making Moorcock’s work more available. The Michael Moorcock Collection is a mammoth undertaking, as it comprises no less than 28 volumes, most of them containing multiple novels. Until relatively recently, the eight main novels in the sequence could be difficult to get hold of, and while the reissues by the publisher Gollancz are very welcome, they also leave something to be desired. While Elric is well-known to fans of fantasy, the character might even be a household name if the series were more approachable to read.

In writing the Elric stories, Moorcock consciously worked to avoid repeating the high fantasy style of Tolkien - and in so doing inspired numerous subsequent imitators of his own. A albino sorcerer and warrior with milk-white skin and hair, Elric is a magnetic antihero - cursed with a black sword which feeds on souls and bound to serve the capricious chaos deity, Arioch. Created by Michael Moorcock in 1961 with the story “The Dreaming City”, Elric of Melniboné is one of the definitive characters in British fantasy fiction.

Elric of melnibone reading order