Trying to re-read the entire Elric of Melniboné saga!

December 18, 2008 9:44 AM

Help me make sense of Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series! I am attempting to re-read the saga from the beginning, in chronological order, including all the new stores/novels published since the DAW paperbacks in the 1970s.

The problem is, the Elric stories are so scattered around in different collections that my head is spinning trying to figure out which books I need. I have two Eternal Champion series volumes (Song of the Black Sword and Stealer of Souls), but what else would I need to complete the saga? The Wikipedia entry on the series is a little hard to follow. Any help much appreciated!

posted by Byun-o-matic to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: From the forums of Moorcock's site: a proposed reading order. That's probably as good as you're going to get.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:00 AM on December 18, 2008

As someone who loved the original Elric saga and has even enjoyed many of the later novels, I don't think that there is a way to incorporate many of the newer stories into any sort of coherent framework. The original stories are collected in the two books that you already have. Just take everything else as Moorcock revisiting a favorite character, they don't necessarily fit into any sort of canon, I'm not really sure after reading them if Moorcock even cares about canon when it comes to the whole eternal champion thing.
posted by anansi at 12:58 PM on December 18, 2008

yeah i mean it's like reading the silmarillion after reading the four LOTR books. pleasurable to a degree but really, not to be taken seriously.
posted by spicynuts at 3:01 PM on December 18, 2008