The blurb on the back cover of the Carrol & Graf edition is off the mark: BEHOLD THE MAN is hardly "an hilarious fantasy-adventure", nor is it a "highly entertaining satire on modern man's tendancy to over-indulge in self enquiry". Forget all that hyphenated nonsense, because the book is made of much headier stuff. What Michael Moorcock wrote is allegory, and as such he lets loose some potent imagery. The contrast between the Gospels and what the time-traveler discovers may disturb some readers. But BEHOLD THE MAN is a PILGRIM'S PROGRESS for our neurotic age, and the redemption that awaits the self-pitying Karl Glogauer is as moving as any more conventional conversion. The final paragraph beautifully sums up the unsolvable conflict between science and religious faith. Incidentally, the means Glogauer employs to fly back through time is briefly described, but the explanation is surprisingly convincing.

Moorcock pulls no punches in this story about time travel back to the time of christ. If you're a very religious christian AND close minded (NOT that I'm saying the terms go together...) you may be offended, but if you're knowledgable about biblical times you may enjoy the story even more. As with some of the best books I've read, this book opened up new worlds of ideas to explore. I enjoyed it and was educated by it at the same time.

Michael Moorcock's science fiction novel "Behold The Man" has been in release for over 20 years, and I still find it to be one of the most shocking books I have ever read. If anyone ever decides to make a film of this novel, the controversy will make the flap over "Last Temptation of Christ" look like an argument over what dish to bring to the PTA meeting. "Behold The Man" tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a man striving to find his religious identity. Intermittent flashbacks explain many of his internal conflicts as a Christian, e.g his childhood molestation by a clergyman. The opportunity to use a time machine presents itself, and Glogauer decides to travel back to meet Jesus Christ and his contemporaries. Over a period of time, he meets the characters who populated the New Testament, but they are nowhere near the people portrayed in the Bible. Many of the depictions are incredibly shocking in their utter blasphemy; I found myself gasping at every plot twist. To give away any of the details of this story would be an injustice, so I will just say that you will never look at your Bible the same way after reading this book. Moorcock won numerous awards for this novel, and I place it high on my list of favorite stories. For those who have never read Michael Moorcock, this would make a great introduction to his very eclectic body of work

Hawkmoon is another winning novel by Michael Moorcock, however it is plagued by one fatal flaw, its hero. Hawkmoon is not an uninteresting figure, but he tends to be a bit two dimensional. He constantly bemoans his fate as Champion of the Runestaff and tends to be unimaginative and slightly dim-witted. He sees the world as a black and white construct and this perception occasionally fouls his ability to make enlightend decisions.

His companions Oladahn and D'Averc, are the characters that make this novel interesting. Furthermore, the marriage of magic and technology in a world that resembles our own is an excellent and intriguing touch. The novel also contains a number of references to modern society, thereby hinting at the fact Hawkmoon's Earth is a future incarnation of our own.

Hawkmoon is without a doubt a good read, but it doesn't hold a candle to some of Moorcock's other novels, namely Elric, Von Bek and The Eternal Champion.

Hawkmoon's quest for peace in his world is typical Moorcock fantasy, with bold heroes, evil opponents, hideous fates, weird monsters, and most of all, lots of action. In his preface, Moorcock warns us not to look to deeply for meaning in Hawkmoon, but that's like saying "Don't think of an elephant." There are certainly some themes here that Moorcock returns to in later books, but they are treated perhaps a tad more superficially here than in later years (not really a fault or anything, I just thought I'd mention it). As in Elric and Corum (my personal favorite), the author uses a fable-like semi-mythological style that makes the story move and focuses attention where it needs to be focused. For example, when Hawkmoon travels hundreds of miles to a city in the Middle East, the author devotes about four pages to the journey. Some writers (think Robert Jordan) would make the journey half a book long. This simplicity of style is one of my favorite things about Michael Moorcock. The only real weakness to this novel, as has been mentioned by other reviewers, is Hawkmoon himself. He's not really much of a character. Mostly he is either fighting or saying how he wishes he could return to his wife. He also seems kinda dim-witted at times. Usually one of the other characters is the one who comes up with a solution to a problem, or notices that the bad guys are coming or that Hawkmoon's pants are on fire. Not a big weakness, but in comparison to more interesting characters like Corum or Elric, a noticeable weakness. Still, if you like Elric or Corum, or just sword and sorcery stuff in general, this is highly recommended.

This is the third volume of Moorcock's Eternal Champion series and they just keep getting better and better. Hawkmoon is one of the key characters in the series, and it's great to finally have all the hard to find novels in one large book, especially since reading them all together gives you the impression of one long sustained work. Here are some quick comments on the individual novels:
The Jewel in the Skull: Almost thought it was a Count Brass novel, since Hawkmoon doesn't really do much in this one. It sets up the characters and their motivations and is a nice, quick read.

The Mad God's Amulet: The Warrior in Jet and Gold shows up more (he's also the Knight in Black and Yellow from the other books), and Hawkmoon continues his quest.

The Sword of the Dawn: It's a good thing Moorcock explains that the Runestaff makes complex patterns to draw people in, because it's seems that the plot twists come out of left field, especially here, where the pirates just happen to have the right sword. Still, it's always fun to see Hawkmoon take on massive hordes of people and win.

The Runestaff: The final novel is also the final battle for a lot of people. This is probably the most costly war I've ever seen in literature, with people dying left and right. Moorcock tells it all with a dispassionate tone similar to Mailer's Naked and the Dead. The truimph is definately earned here, closing the Hawkmoon saga for now.

This is a great continuation of the series, with little mention of the Eternal Champion, which seems to be Hawkmoon. Though, I do miss the ironic commentary of John Daker from the earlier series. Hopefully, he'll return soon. Perhaps the next book . .

As an immense fan of Michael Moorcock, I picked this graphic novel up as a completionist tendency. Comics are not my usual choice of reading, yet it was written by Moorcock, so I really did not know what to expect. What I found was something doomed to failure from the beginning. It is the comic format that kills this experiment in mediums. The story itself is actually three initially insular tales that ultimately weave together. If written as three separate short stories and published in a pure textual format they would have constituted rather typical Moorcock "Eternal Champion" tales. In one story we have Rose from his novel "Revenge of the Rose", and Sam Oakenhurst from "Blood". In another we have Sir Seaton Begg heralding from Moorcock's much chronicled von Bek/Begg family histories. In the third we have his most famous character, Elric. And tying them all together in a narrative frame we see Jack Karaquazian (once again, from "Blood") and Moorcock himself. If one were not already intimately familiar with Moorcock's vast works chronicling the many facets of the Eternal Champion, I am not sure any sense could be made of this rather opaque telling.

The prominent flaw of this work is the miserly allowances for textual explanation in the comic format. Moorcock is a rather verbose author with a tendency for flourish and poetry. When reduced to word balloons on a handful of panels per page, all of his stylistic strengths are annihilated. The end result is quite frankly a mass of confused hokum. It becomes impossible to understand what he was really attempting to communicate as the story panels sweep us along much too expeditiously. Compounded with the maelstrom of psychedelic artwork, I found myself unable to take it seriously as a narrative. The three stories as told by the narrative frame seemed more the destruction of a skilled raconteur than an entertaining romp through the multiverse. While I am not a connoisseur of comic art, I felt that the images by themselves were often striking and powerful statements, but failed as proper tools of story telling. Often I wished that one of the more striking images could have been painted in a more serious manner and used as a frontispiece for one of Moorcock's novels instead of as another page in a confounding comic.

My frustration with this work perhaps stems from the fact that I do not read comics and thus found it bewildering. I would be very interested in reading a review from someone who picked this up because they are a fan of the graphic novel medium, and not necessarily Moorcock. And more so, I would be interested in knowing if someone without prior knowledge of the Moorcockian Multiverse could actually make heads or tails of this. I hypothesize that one could not, and that those who can will not like it because of the medium. And that leaves no real audience.

This is a classic Moorcock irony, to bury much of the core material of his multiverse theories in a graphic novel. Where another might have written a philosophical text, or at very least a novel, Moorcock decided that the place to set out the fundamentals of his multiverse theories was in a monthly comic book (collected here without the letters and features, which is a pity). The final sequences are faultlessly coherent as they move towards the central redemption, showing how, why and where the Cosmic Balance is at last restored. And there's some wonderfully off-beat humor -- the vast battles which involve different types of music (rock and roll versus Andrew Lloyd Webber) -- the London trams on which the aliens arrive for the Final Game -- the introduction of Moorcock himself (and Walter Simonson -- here with his best work to date -- though his current Orion work is also superb -- maybe even better) into the stories as the game within a game within a game is played out. This is RPG for keeps! Great, stuff. Moorcock will hide the key to a theme in a rock and roll song, a comic book or a throw-away newspaper piece but sooner or later, if you read for long enough, you'll come across it -- or it won't matter, because sometimes you didn't even know there WERE answers to those questions. Or that the questions were there to be asked! Check out the WW2 Lancaster bomber crewed entirely by existentialist philosophers (including Wrongway Heidegger); check out the rhyming couplets frequently found in the dialogue. Read in conjunction with The War Amongst the Angels and the books in that sequence, this is the work of a brilliantly original mind as able to draw characters as he is able to come up with stunning scientific notions! Brain candy, maybe. Addictive, maybe. A bizarre stimulant, maybe. But nourishing, through and through. A metaphysical meal at Mr Moorcock's Terminal Cafe always leaves the customers satisfied!

If you want to sample some of the artwork before you buy, please visit my website, where I have a few scanned in images of the comic. But I'm not making it easy on you; you'll have to hunt them out on the official Michael Moorcock website.

I have just finished this third art of the Elric Saga, given to me for free by a friend that loves fantasy as much as I do. I've reviewed each as I finished them. You can read the other reviews if you'd like, by clicking on my name. I must warn you they are not pretty, and I am loosing patience with the series.

I caution those of you that are not fans of the other books, this read may not be worth your while. This is the worst of the lot so far, and that's saying a bit. The first tale was weighted down with many, many, literary albatrosses, and the second, while lightening a little on the cheesy fantasy rhetoric, and actually taking some interesting twists, continued the insulting trend of revealing too much of future plots, and then taking to long to get to the fufilment of these dropped hints of prophecy. This third book totally trashes any progress made by the second, and gives birth to a few defects in the main character that are unforgivably preposterous given his earlier actions.

First we are given the unattached (yet relevant, Moorcock hastens to inform us,) tale of Aubic carving lands from chaos, then we are given the ridiculous conclusion of Elric's tale involving his cousin yrkroon (or some such ridiculous name.) For those not in the know, Elric is almost murdered by his cousin for his throne, and returned from near death to topple his foe in the first tale, only to willingly relinquish his throne at the end to this same traitor, saying essentially that the playing field was level once more. Now he's returning for "revenge" (Revenge? For What? Gee, I gave you my throne, and now I don't wnat it back, but I will kill you for accepting my offer. By making elric not care about his throne at the end of the first book, the author diffuses the need for any "revenge" here in the third, and this makes any motivation for vengance, and actions that follow from it, non-sequitors.) Anyhow, we must put that aside, for Elric , rightfully or no, does desire revenge, so in a singularly bold move, Elric decides to destroy his own homeland in a thirst for blood and vengance. In the process he kills his only love, which he really didn't care about anyway. But in any case, he acts shocked, although her death could hardly have been a suprise, he should have known it was coming, because he himself (in the guise of his future self, Erikose,) told him (Elric) he would kill the woman he loved. Or are we to believe that Elric is as silly as Moorcock thinks his readers are? In any case, perhaps you should put that aside as well. In the flight from his city, as his troops are routed, he betrays his companions in a feat of totally uncharacteristic, and therefore unbelievable, cowardice. (Elric earlier alligned himself with three or four guys he met on a boat and had no real allegiance to, and fought a pair of otherworldly sorcerers for no real reason at all, in that case many of his companions died, and Elric had as much chance to fear for his life then as he does during the rout of his forces, yet now he flees where before he stood fast? I don't think so. Get some constancy in your character, he's a man who will stand, or one who will flee.)

Anyhow, put all of that aside too. After this fiasco, Elric goes out in search of his never outlined Destiny, (That's what "Weird" means in the title, you know. It's not just alliterative, or maybe it is...,) which seams to simply be Elric wandering around becoming not-involved with various women he can never love, and adventures he doesn't care to resolve or has no motivation to begin, yet he does anyhow, and attempting to kill various conjured things and failing and then calling on his gaurdian for help, and sometimes getting it, sometimes not, but always Elric gets hints and etc dropped his way from his pet god, about his greater bolder destiny. Well get to it I say! We're what, three books in an no word of it? How long must we suffer this tripelike filler to reach the meat of the tale?

Ah well, suffice it to say that this third book is simply awful, and only true Elric fans could find anything redeeming about it. With some great reluctance, I will start on the fourth book.

Michael Moorcock, The Weird of the White Wolf (DAW, 1977)

The third book in the Elric series introduces the reader to Moonglum, Elric's longtime companion (and, thanks to AD&D's Deities and Demigods book, the companion most readers can't imagine him without). Much of the second novel moved away from the events of the first, and concentrated Elric's character on other adventures. The Weird of the White Wolf brings Elric back to Melnibonë along with Moonglum, their friend Smiorgan Baldhead, and an army of raiders bent on overthrowing Yyrkoon, who stole the throne when Elric left Melnibonë for a year to travel the world. For those wondering, whether you've read the book or not: the "weird" of the title is an archaic definition of the term, given by Merriam Webster as "One's assigned lot or fortune, especially when evil." And when he finds it, he's not all that happy about it. But that's to be expected when one's antihero has a crisis of conscience, I guess.

Certainly not a slow book by any means, nor a weak one in the context of the series. And it's definitely a necessity as a prelude to what comes after it. But I still felt there was something missing here; some pieces of description left out, a few places where things could have been filled in better. All of the Elric novels are short, to say the least (Stormbringer, the last and longest of them, clocks in a 217pp.), and feel as if they could use some fleshing out; this one, however, gives that feeling the most. One wonders if the brevity of them was not the insistence of the publisher, and what Moorcock would do with them, given the opportunity (a la King's unexpurgated edition of The Stand). Loads of fun, and highly recommended for fantasy and non-fantasy readers alike, as is the whole series. ****

I must say that Elric of Melnibone is one of the most tiresome heroes or even antiheroes I have ever come across...his self-pity, fatalism and incessant whining and angst are easy to identify with, but can also be quite heavy-going...this is not to say that this book is bad, it is exceedingly well written, and Elric is an interesting character, i like the emphasis on his demon origins and natural ancestral cruelty especially...I liked this book better than the Sailor on the Seas of Fate, though both that one and Weird of the White Wolf are a bit disjointed since it was originally a number of stories written by Michael Moorcock for fantasy magazines. I think i liked the first book the best, because I loved the vivid portrait he painted of the ancient, decadent Island of Melnibone, with their pre-human inhabitants and elaborate, cruel pleasures...they were evil all right, and you knew they were doomed as a race, but they certainly had style. I was very disappointed that Imrhyrr fell in the Weird of the White Wolf...I felt a great civilisation and era were gone forever. The humans just dont seem as interesting...too clumsy. As for Elric, I believe the tragedy of him is that he is the main source of his misery and undoing...Watching him go down is almost painfully annoying...you want to shout at him or something to stop being such a fool. Its also is a bit boring and monotonous hearing his constant whining, but it somehow makes it even more tragic. He knows he's doomed and yet he doesnt quite have the courage to commit suicide and end it all. His indecision defeats him. He's sort of like Hamlet that way. All in all its a great read...Michael Moorcock is a fantastic writer. I sometimes read him just for the great descriptions

Although I have always loved Moorcock's work, and these are fine stories, I believe that a buyer's warning should be attached. The only Aubec story is one that was already in a previous Elric book,and is about 12 pages long, and the rest of the volume is filled with other old short stories. All good, but nothing new, as I was hoping when I bought the book.