A Mind-Popping Extravaganza
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When Jherek Carnelian makes love to his Mother, called Iron Orchid, on a beach of crushed bone, debating the meaning of the word 'virtuous', with the sea suddenly turning a deep pink, you know, you just KNOW that you're in for something truly different. With 600 pages still to come it screams at you "This saga's gonna take you where you've never been before!".
So here we are at the end of time, where anything is made possible; where landscapes, buildings and people themselves, can change immediately by request, and where anything goes with whoever you want.
Into this crazy, quaint, immoral World, stumbles Mrs Amelia Underwood, a prim and proper, 'virtuous' lady from 19th century England.
And as surely as love blossoms between this unlikely twosome, Amelia and Jherek, their battle of morals continues unabated amongst the comings and goings of time-travel, bumping into H G Wells, and the brilliant, but farcical one-upmanship between the dwellers at the end of time.
Frankly, I couldn't put the book down!
And when I did, couldn't wait to return to this incredibly fascinating World that Moorcock unfolds.
A feast to the senses, with tongue-in-cheek debates to jolly it along, I must count this as one of the most unique experiences I've ever encountered between the pages.
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Ah ringing the changes
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The world was never the same whenever I read Moorcock back in the halcyon hippy daze of the early seventies. When everything you read or heard was part of something else but you where damned if you knew what.
This, the last love story in the universe, is probably Moorcock at his finest, (with the possible exception of Gloriana). I did get a little fed up with the constant repetition of characters in his eternal hero stories and yes there is an element of that in this trilogy but the style of writing and humour allows a little latitude. Even if the humour as one reviewer commented is a little slapstick (ferkit!)An enjoyable read and one that does have several levels even if some are a tad simplistic. Get on Jherek's loco, shout toot, toot and enjoy!
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A great work of literature by Michael Moorcock!
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I've always had a problem trying to decide whether Michael Moorcock was a good writer or not. I thought he told a good story, but as an author I couldn't figure if he was "just" a fantasy writer or something more. This trilogy, "the Dancers at the End of Time", has allowed me to make up my mind at last: it's simply the best writing by Moorcock I've ever read. It's original, fantastic stuff, evoking Dunsany, Swinburne, Borges, Beardsley, untrammeled by any self-consciousness about style or genre. It knocks the spots off his "fantasy" stuff (Elric, etc), with a lightness of touch with some devilishly serious themes. Moorcock calls it a "comedy": perhaps it's this which has really freed him up and released him from the slavish adherence to his Eternal Champion / Law-Chaos theme which, although original, can dog his other works and gradually become more limiting the more he deploys it. Here, it's not explicit at all, and the story soars with potential and fancy.
Perhaps its deepest point: the ultimate destination of human social evolution, a utopia of happy, omnipotent immortals, who appear to us utterly amoral, cruel, and uncaring, yet are burdened with an innocence which is the only thing which allows them to enjoy their utopia - otherwise empty and pointless to us. So - is that what we want as the goal of our species, a universal utopia which we can only enjoy at the cost of our own humanity?
Oh, yes - and it's hilarious too. Wonderfully farcical, sophisticated, witty, and just plain fun. Forget the "fantasy" label - this is a work of literature, get it, read it, and decide for yourself!
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Of Its Time, & Still a Classic
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Fully deserving of its place in the masterworks series and in numerous "100 best" lists of SF, this collection of three volumes published in the mid-seventies shows Michael Moorcock in a lighter, if no less creative, mood, than in the Elric & Corum books for which he became justifiably famous.
At the end of time there is no such thing as death (or if there is, it's speedily followed by resurrection), and onyx cathedrals and ebony citadels can be created at the stroke of a power ring. Moorcock's version of his eternal champion figure in this instance is Jherek Carnelian, whose pursuit of Amelia Underwood, plucked from her life in Victorian Bromley, forms the framework around which the many sub-plots are constructed. The first two parts are the best, culminating in an hilarious laugh-out-loud climax at London's Café Royal at the end of the 1800s. The third part 'The End of All Songs', does outstay its welcome a bit, and perhaps could have benefited from a bit of judicious editing. Nevertheless, it's a triumph in a genre which, Terry Pratchett & Douglas Adams aside, is not known for its comic potential. Fans of this book are suggested to go immediately to the tale 'Elric At the End of Time' in the volume 'Legends from the End of Time', also from Gollancz
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Not as amusing as it thinks, but still brilliant
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Going by the blurb one would think that this is a laugh a minute comedy in the vein of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – while its nowhere near as amusing it does share an incredible proliferation of wild ideas. The story is essentially a comedy of misunderstanding between decedent end of time dweller Jherek Carnelian and prim housewife Mrs Amelia Underwood. The most successful scenes are those of Jhereks complete failure to understand the morals of ‘ancient’ Earth, and the nature of sin. A trifle overlong, and some of the knockabout humour gets tiresome (the alien Lats) but this is still a fantastic and thought provoking read. Highly recommended.
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