Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939)
is an English writer and musician, primarily
of science fiction and fantasy, who has also
published literary novels. He is best known
for his novels about the character Elric of
Melniboné, a seminal influence on the field
of fantasy since the 1960s and ‘70s.
As editor of the British science fiction magazine
New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971
and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock
fostered the development of the science fiction
"New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the
United States. His publication of Bug Jack
Barron (1969) by Norman Spinrad as a serial
novel was notorious; in Parliament some British
MPs condemned the Arts Council for funding
the magazine. He is also a successful recording
musician, contributing to the bands Hawkwind,
Blue Öyster Cult and his own project.
In 2008, The Times named Moorcock in its list
of "The 50 greatest British writers since
1945".
== Biography ==
Michael Moorcock was born in London in December
1939, and the landscape of London, particularly
the area of Notting Hill Gate and Ladbroke
Grove, is an important influence in some of
his fiction (cf. the Cornelius novels).Moorcock
has mentioned The Mastermind of Mars by Edgar
Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard
Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by
Edwin Lester Arnold as the first three non-juvenile
books that he read before beginning primary
school. The first book he bought was a secondhand
copy of The Pilgrim's Progress.Moorcock is
the former husband of Hilary Bailey by whom
he had three children: Sophie b.1963, Katherine
b.1964, and Max b. 1972. He is also the former
husband of Jill Riches, who later married
Robert Calvert. She illustrated some of Moorcock's
books, including covers, including the Gloriana
dustjacket. In 1983, Linda Steele became Moorcock's
third wife.He was an original member of the
Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America
(SAGA), a loose-knit group of eight heroic
fantasy authors founded in the 1960s and led
by Lin Carter, self-selected by fantasy credentials
alone.
Moorcock is the subject of four book-length
works, a monograph and an interview, by Colin
Greenland. In 1983, Greenland published The
Entropy Exhibition: Michael Moorcock and the
British 'New Wave' in Science Fiction. He
followed this with Michael Moorcock: Death
is No Obstacle, a book-length interview about
technique, in 1992. 'Michael Moorcock: Law
of Chaos' by Jeff Gardiner and 'Michael Moorcock:
Fiction, Fantasy and the World's Pain' by
Mark Scroggins were published more recently.
In the 1990s, Moorcock moved to Texas in the
United States. His wife Linda is American.
He spends half of the year in Texas, the other
half in Paris.
== Views on politics ==
Moorcock's works are noted for their political
nature and content. In one interview, he states,
"I am an anarchist and a pragmatist. My moral/philosophical
position is that of an anarchist." Further,
in describing how his writing relates to his
political philosophy, Moorcock says, "My books
frequently deal with aristocratic heroes,
gods and so forth. All of them end on a note
which often states quite directly that one
should serve neither gods nor masters but
become one's own master."Besides using fiction
to explore his politics, Moorcock also engages
in political activism. In order to "marginalize
stuff that works to objectify women and suggests
women enjoy being beaten", he has encouraged
W H Smiths to move John Norman's Gor series
novels to the top shelf.
== Writer ==
=== 
Fiction ===
Moorcock began writing whilst he was still
at school, contributing to a magazine he entitled
Outlaw's Own from 1950 on.In 1957 at the age
of 17, Moorcock became editor of Tarzan Adventures
(a national juvenile weekly featuring text
and Tarzan comic strip) where he published
at least a dozen of his own Sojan the Swordsman
stories during that year and the next. At
age 18 (in 1958), he wrote the allegorical
fantasy novel The Golden Barge. This remained
unpublished until 1980, when it was issued
by Savoy Books with an introduction by M.
John Harrison. At 19 years of age he also
edited Sexton Blake Library (serial pulp fiction
featuring Sexton Blake, the poor man's Sherlock
Holmes) and returned to late Victorian London
for some of his books. Writing ever since,
he has produced a huge volume of work. His
first story in New Worlds was "Going Home"
(1958; with Barrington J. Bayley). "The Sundered
Worlds", a 57-page novella published in the
November 1962 number of Science Fiction Adventures
edited by John Carnell, became, with its sequel
"The Blood Red Game" from the same magazine,
the basis for his 190-page paperback debut
novel three years later, The Sundered Worlds
(Compact Books, 1965; in the U.S., Paperback
Library, 1966).Moorcock replaced Carnell as
New Worlds editor from the May–June 1964
number. Under his leadership the magazine
became central to "New Wave" science fiction.
This movement promoted literary style and
an existential view of technological change,
in contrast to "hard science fiction", which
extrapolated on technological change itself.
Some "New Wave" stories were not recognisable
as traditional science fiction, and New Worlds
remained controversial for as long as Moorcock
edited it.
During that time, he occasionally wrote as
"James Colvin", a "house pseudonym" that was
also used by other New Worlds critics. A spoof
obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds
#197 (January 1970), written by Charles Platt
as "William Barclay". Moorcock makes much
use of the initials "JC"; these are also the
initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his
1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the
Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer,
a time-traveller who takes on the role of
Christ. They are also the initials of various
"Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such
as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek
Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock
has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as
a pseudonym, particularly in his "Second Ether"
fiction.
Moorcock talks about much of his writing in
Death Is No Obstacle by Colin Greenland, which
is a book-length transcription of interviews
with Moorcock about the structures in his
writing.
Moorcock has also published pastiches of writers
for whom he felt affection as a boy, including
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, and
Robert E. Howard. All his fantasy adventures
have elements of satire and parody, while
respecting what he considers the essentials
of the form. Although his heroic fantasies
have been his most consistently reprinted
books in the United States, he achieved prominence
in the UK as a literary author, with the Guardian
Fiction Prize in 1977 for The Condition of
Muzak, and with Mother London later shortlisted
for the Whitbread Prize.Novels and series
such as the Cornelius Quartet, Mother London,
King of the City, the Pyat Quartet and the
short story collection London Bone have established
him in the eyes of critics such as Iain Sinclair,
Peter Ackroyd and Allan Massie in publications
including The Times Literary Supplement and
the London Review of Books as a major contemporary
literary novelist. In 2008 Moorcock was named
by a critics' panel in The Times as one of
the fifty best British novelists since 1945.
Virtually all of his stories are part of his
overarching "Eternal Champion" theme or oeuvre,
with characters (including Elric) moving from
one storyline and fictional universe to another,
all of them interconnected (though often only
in dreams or visions).
Most of Moorcock's earlier work consisted
of short stories and relatively brief novels:
he has mentioned that "I could write 15,000
words a day and gave myself three days a volume.
That's how, for instance, the Hawkmoon books
were written." Over the period of the New
Worlds editorship and his publishing of the
original fantasy novels Moorcock has maintained
an interest in the craft of writing and a
continuing interest in the semi-journalistic
craft of "pulp" authorship. This is reflected
in his development of interlocking cycles
which hark back to the origins of fantasy
in myth and medieval cycles (see "Wizardry
and Wild Romance – Moorcock" and "Death
Is No Obstacle – Colin Greenland" for more
commentary). This also provides an implicit
link with the episodic origins of literature
in newspaper/magazine serials from Trollope
and Dickens onwards. None of this should be
surprising given Moorcock's background in
magazine publishing.
Since the 1980s, Moorcock has tended to write
longer, more literary "mainstream" novels,
such as Mother London and Byzantium Endures,
but he continues to revisit characters from
his earlier works, such as Elric, with books
such as The Dreamthief's Daughter or The Skrayling
Tree. With the publication of the third and
last book in this series, The White Wolf's
Son, he announced that he was "retiring" from
writing heroic fantasy fiction, though he
continues to write Elric's adventures as graphic
novels with his long-time collaborators Walter
Simonson and the late James Cawthorn (1929–2008).
Together, they produced the graphic novel,
Elric: the Making of a Sorcerer, published
by DC Comics in 2007. He has also completed
his Colonel Pyat sequence, dealing with the
Nazi Holocaust, which began in 1981 with Byzantium
Endures, continued through The Laughter of
Carthage (1984) and Jerusalem Commands (1992),
and now culminates with The Vengeance of Rome
(2006).
Among other works by Moorcock are The Dancers
at the End of Time, set on Earth millions
of years in the future, Gloriana, or The Unfulfill'd
Queen, set in an alternative Earth history
and the 'Second Ether' sequence beginning
with 'BLOOD'.
Moorcock is prone to revising his existing
work, with the result that different editions
of a given book may contain significant variations.
The changes range from simple retitlings (e.g.,
the Elric story The Flame Bringers became
The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams in the 1990s
Gollancz/White Wolf omnibus editions) to character
name changes (e.g., detective "Minos Aquilinas"
becoming first "Minos von Bek" and later "Sam
Begg" in three different versions of the short
story "The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius"),
major textual alterations (for example, the
addition of several new chapters to The Steel
Tsar in the omnibus editions), and even complete
restructurings (e.g., the 1966 novella Behold
the Man being expanded to novel-length from
the original version that appeared in New
Worlds for republication as a book in 1969
by Allison and Busby).
A new, final revision of almost his entire
oeuvre, with the exception of his literary
novels Mother London, King of the City and
the Pyat quartet, is currently being issued
by Victor Gollancz and many of his titles
are being reprinted in the United States and
France. Many comics based on his work are
being reprinted by Titan Books under the general
title The Michael Moorcock Library while in
France a new adaptation of the Elric series
has been translated into many languages, including
English.
==== Elric of Melniboné ====
Moorcock's best-selling works have been the
"Elric of Melniboné" stories. In these books,
Elric is written as a deliberate reversal
of what Moorcock saw as clichés commonly
found in fantasy adventure novels inspired
by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and a direct
antithesis of Robert E. Howard's Conan the
Barbarian.Moorcock's work is complex and multilayered.
Central to many of his fantasy novels is the
concept of an "Eternal Champion", who has
potentially multiple identities across multiple
dimensions of reality and alternative universes.
This cosmology is called the "Multiverse"
within his novels and independently mirrors
the concept which arose in particle physics
in the 1960s and is still a current theory
in high energy physics. The Multiverse deals
with various primal polarities such as good
and evil, law and chaos, and order and entropy.
The success of Elric has overshadowed his
many other works, though he has worked a number
of the themes of the Elric stories into his
other works (the "Hawkmoon" and "Corum" novels,
for example) and Elric appears in the Jerry
Cornelius and Dancers at the End of Time cycles.
His Eternal Champion sequence has been collected
in two different editions of omnibus volumes
totalling 16 books (the U.S. edition was 15
volumes, while the British edition was 14
volumes, but due to various rights issues,
the U.S. edition contained two volumes that
were not included in the British edition,
and the British edition likewise contained
one volume that was not included in the U.S.
edition) containing several books per volume,
by Victor Gollancz in the UK and by White
Wolf Publishing in the US. There have been
several uncompleted attempts to make an Elric
film. Currently The Mythology Company have
a film project in hand with a script by Glen
Mazzara. Hawkmoon is currently in development
by the BBC.
==== Jerry Cornelius ====
Another of Moorcock's creations is Jerry Cornelius,
a kind of hip urban adventurer of ambiguous
gender; the same characters featured in each
of several Cornelius books. These books were
most obviously satirical of modern times,
including the Vietnam War, and continue to
feature as another variation of the Multiverse
theme. The first Jerry Cornelius book, The
Final Programme (1968), was made into a feature
film in 1973. Its story line is essentially
identical to two of the Elric stories: The
Dreaming City and The Dead Gods' Book. Since
1998, Moorcock has returned to Cornelius in
a series of new stories: The Spencer Inheritance,
The Camus Connection, Cheering for the Rockets,
and Firing the Cathedral, which was concerned
with 9/11. All four novellas were included
in the 2003 edition of The Lives and Times
of Jerry Cornelius. Moorcock's most recent
Cornelius stories, "Modem Times", appeared
in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction:
Volume 2, published in 2008, this was expanded
in 2011 as "Modem Times 2.0". Additionally,
a version of Cornelius also appeared in Moorcock's
2010 Doctor Who novel The Coming of the Terraphiles.
Pegging the President (PS. 2018), The Fracking
Factory (on FB, 2018) are two recent novellas
and further stories are forthcoming.
Since the 1990s he has worked on novels containing
autobiography and fake autobiography mixed
with fantasy and parody beginning with "Blood"
and "The War Amongst the Angels". His most
recent sequence began with "The Whispering
Swarm", published to critical success in 2015.
"The Woods of Arcady" is forthcoming. With
"Kaboul" (Denoel 2018) he continued to publish
original work in France.
=== Views on fiction writing ===
Moorcock is a fervent supporter of the works
of Mervyn Peake.He cites Fritz Leiber, an
important sword and sorcery pioneer, as an
author who writes fantasy that is not escapist
and contains meaningful themes. These views
can be found in his study of epic fantasy,
Wizardry and Wild Romance (Gollancz, 1987)
which was revised and reissued by MonkeyBrain
Books in 2004—its first U.S. edition catalogued
by ISFDB.Moorcock is somewhat dismissive of
the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He met both
Tolkien and C. S. Lewis in his teens, and
claims to have liked them personally even
though he does not admire them on artistic
grounds. Moorcock criticised works such as
The Lord of the Rings for their "Merry England"
point of view, famously equating Tolkien's
novel to Winnie-the-Pooh in his essay Epic
Pooh. Even so, James Cawthorn and Moorcock
included The Lord of the Rings in Fantasy:
The 100 Best Books (Carroll & Graf, 1988),
and their review is not dismissive.Moorcock
has also criticized writers for their political
agendas. He included Robert A. Heinlein and
H. P. Lovecraft among this group in a 1978
essay, "Starship Stormtroopers" (Anarchist
Review). There he criticised the production
of "authoritarian" fiction by certain canonical
writers, and Lovecraft for having antisemitic,
misogynistic and extremely racist viewpoints
that he weaved into his short stories.
=== Sharing fictional universes with others
===
Moorcock has allowed a number of other writers
to create stories in his fictional Jerry Cornelius
universe. Brian Aldiss, M. John Harrison,
Norman Spinrad, James Sallis, and Steve Aylett,
among others, have written such stories. Many
others have appeared on a Moorcock Facebook
page. In an interview published in The Internet
Review of Science Fiction, Moorcock explains
the reason for sharing his character:
I came out of popular fiction and Jerry was
always meant to be a sort of crystal ball
for others to see their own visions in – the
stories were designed to work like that – a
diving board, to use another analogy, from
which to jump into the river and be carried
along by it. [...] All of these have tended
to use Jerry the way I intended to use him
– as a way of seeing modern life and sometimes
as a way of commenting on it. Jerry, as Harrison
said, was as much a technique as a character
and I'm glad that others have taken to using
that method.
Two short stories by Keith Roberts, "Coranda"
and "The Wreck of the Kissing Bitch", are
set in the frozen Matto Grosso plateau of
Moorcock's 1969 novel, The Ice Schooner.
Elric of Melnibone and Moonglum appear in
Karl Edward Wagner's story "The Gothic Touch",
where they meet with Kane, who borrows Elric
for his ability to deal with demons.
He is a friend and fan of comic book writer
Alan Moore, and allowed Moore the use of his
own character, Michael Kane of Old Mars, mentioned
in Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
Volume II. The two men appeared on stage at
the Vanbrugh Theatre in London in January
2006 where they discussed Moorcock's work.
The Green City from Warriors of Mars was also
referenced in Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars.
Moorcock's character Jerry Cornelius appeared
in Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
Volume III: Century.
Cornelius also appeared in French artist Mœbius'
comic series Le Garage Hermétique.
In 1995-96, Moorcock wrote a script for a
computer game/film/novel by Origin Systems.
When Electronic Arts bought Origins, the game
was cancelled, but Moorcock's 40,000 word
treatment was fleshed out by Storm Constantine,
resulting in the novel, Silverheart. The story
is set in Karadur-Shriltasi, a city at the
heart of the Multiverse. A second novel, Dragonskin,
was described as being in preparation, with
Constantine as the main writer, but has not
yet been delivered. Moorcock abandoned a memoir
about his friends Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore
because he felt it was too personal.
He wrote prose and verse for The Sunday Books
first publication in French to accompany a
set of unpublished Peake drawings. His book
The Metatemporal Detective was published in
2007. His most recent book to be published
first in French is Kaboul, in 2018.
In November 2009, Moorcock announced that
he would be writing a Doctor Who novel for
BBC Books in 2010, making it one of the few
occasions when he has written stories set
in other people's "shared universes". The
novel, The Coming of the Terraphiles, was
released in October 2010. The story merges
Doctor Who with many of Moorcock's characters
from the multiverse, notably Captain Cornelius
and his pirates. In 2016 he published the
first novel in what he terms a literary experiment,
blending memoir and fantasy, The Whispering
Swarm. In 2018 he announced his completion
of the second volume The Woods of Arcady.
His Jerry Cornelius novella "Pegging the President"
was launched at Shakespeare and Co, Paris,
in 2018, where he discussed his work with
Hari Kunzru and reaffirmed his commitment
to literary experiment.
Moorcock is a member of the College of Pataphysicians.
=== Audiobooks ===
The first of an audiobook series of unabridged
Elric novels, with new work read by Moorcock,
have recently begun appearing from AudioRealms.
The second audiobook in the series – The
Sailor on the Seas of Fate – was published
in 2007. There have been audio-books of Corum
and others, several of which were unofficial
and A Winter Admiral and Furniture are audio
versions of short stories.
== Music ==
=== Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix ===
Moorcock has his own music project, which
records under the name Michael Moorcock & The
Deep Fix. The Deep Fix was the title story
of an obscure collection of short stories
by James Colvin (a pen name of Moorcock) that
was published in the 1960s. The Deep Fix was
also the fictional band fronted by Moorcock's
character Jerry Cornelius.
The first album New Worlds Fair was released
in 1975. The album included Snowy White and
a number of Hawkwind regulars in the credits.
A second version of the New Worlds album was
issued in 2004 under the album name Roller
Coaster Holiday. A non-album single, "Starcruiser"
coupled with "Dodgem Dude", was belatedly
issued in 1980.
The Deep Fix band gave a rare live performance
at the Roundhouse, London on 18 June 1978
at Nik Turner's Bohemian Love-In, headlined
by Turner's band Sphynx and also featuring
Tanz Der Youth with Brian James (ex-The Damned),
Lightning Raiders, Steve Took's Horns, Roger
Ruskin and others.In 1982, as a trio with
Pete Pavli and Drachen Theaker, some recordings
were issued on Hawkwind, Friends and Relations
and a limited edition 7" single of "Brothel
in Rosenstrasse" backed with "Time Centre".
In 2008, The Entropy Tango & Gloriana Demo
Sessions by Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix
was released. These were sessions for planned
albums based on two of Moorcock's novels,
Gloriana, or The Unfulfill'd Queen and The
Entropy Tango, which were never completed.
Working with Martin Stone, Moorcock began
recording a new Deep Fix album in Paris, Live
From the Terminal Cafe. Following Stone's
death in 2016, Moorcock made plans to complete
the album with producer Don Falcone. In 2019,
Moorcock announced the completion of the album,
and release date (October 11, 2019).
=== with Hawkwind ===
Moorcock collaborated with the British rock
band Hawkwind on many occasions: the Hawkwind
track "The Black Corridor", for example, included
verbatim quotes from Moorcock's novel of the
same name, and he worked with the band on
their album Warrior on the Edge of Time, for
which he earned a gold disc. Moorcock also
wrote the lyrics to "Sonic Attack", a Sci-Fi
satire of the public information broadcast,
that was part of Hawkwind's Space Ritual set.
Hawkwind's album The Chronicle of the Black
Sword was largely based on the Elric novels.
Moorcock appeared on stage with the band on
many occasions, including the Black Sword
tour. His contributions were removed from
the original release of the Live Chronicles
album, recorded on this tour, for legal reasons,
but have subsequently appeared on some double
CD versions. He can also be seen performing
on the DVD version of Chronicle of the Black
Sword.
=== with Robert Calvert ===
Moorcock also collaborated with former Hawkwind
frontman and resident poet, Robert Calvert
(who gave the chilling declamation of "Sonic
Attack"), on Calvert's albums Lucky Leif and
the Longships and Hype, playing guitar and
banjo and singing background vocals.
=== with Blue Öyster Cult ===
Moorcock wrote the lyrics to three album tracks
by the American band Blue Öyster Cult: "Black
Blade", referring to the sword Stormbringer
in the Elric books, "Veteran of the Psychic
Wars", showing us Elric's emotions at a critical
point of his story (this song may also refer
to the "Warriors at the Edge of Time", which
figure heavily in Moorcock's novels about
John Daker; at one point his novel The Dragon
in the Sword they call themselves the "veterans
of a thousand psychic wars"), and "The Great
Sun Jester", about his friend, the poet Bill
Butler, who died of a drug overdose. Moorcock
has performed live with BÖC (in 1987 at the
Atlanta, GA Dragon Con Convention).
=== with Spirits Burning ===
Moorcock contributed vocals and harmonica
to the Spirits Burning & Michael Moorcock
CD An Alien Heat, released in 2018. Most of
the lyrics were lifted from or based on text
in his novel An Alien Heat. The album includes
contributions from Albert Bouchard and other
members of Blue Öyster Cult, as well as former
members of Hawkwind. Moorcock also appeared
on five tracks on the Spirits Burning CD Alien
Injection, released in 2008. He is credited
with singing lead vocals and playing guitar
and mandolin. The performances used on the
CD were from The Entropy Tango & Gloriana
Demo Sessions.
== Awards and honours ==
Michael Moorcock has received great recognition
for his career contributions as well as for
particular works.The Science Fiction and Fantasy
Hall of Fame inducted Moorcock in 2002, its
seventh class of two deceased and two living
writers. He also received life achievement
awards at the World Fantasy Convention in
2000 (World Fantasy Award), at the Utopiales
International Festival in 2004 (Prix Utopia),
from the Horror Writers Association in 2005
(Bram Stoker Award), and from the Science
Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in
2008 (named its 25th Grand Master).
1993 British Fantasy Award (Committee Award)
2000 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement
2004 Prix Utopiales "Grandmaster" Lifetime
Achievement Award
2004 Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement
in the horror genre
2008 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award,
literary fantasy and science fictionHe was
"Co-Guest of Honor" at the 1976 World Fantasy
Convention in New York City and one Guest
of Honor at the 1997 55th World Science Fiction
Convention in San Antonio, Texas.
Awards for particular works1967 Nebula Award
(Novella): Behold the Man
1972 August Derleth Fantasy Award: The Knight
of the Swords
1973 August Derleth Fantasy Award: The King
of the Swords
1974 British Fantasy Award (Best Short Story):
The Jade Man's Eyes
1975 August Derleth Fantasy Award: The Sword
and the Stallion
1976 August Derleth Fantasy Award: The Hollow
Lands
1977 Guardian Fiction Award: The Condition
of Muzak
1979 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best
Science Fiction Novel: Gloriana
1979 World Fantasy Award (Best Novel): Gloriana
== 
Selected works ==
== 
See also ==
== 
Notes
