Michael Moorcock is among the most influential British authors of fantasy, science fiction, and mainstream literature. His many novels include the Elric series, the Cornelius Quartet, Gloriana, Mother London, and King of the City. Moorcock has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, and British Science Fiction awards and is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As editor of the science-fiction magazine New Worlds, Moorcock was one of the progenitors of the experimental and controversial new-wave literary science-fiction movement. His nonfiction has appeared in many UK outlets, including the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, and New Statesman. A member of the progressive rock band Hawkwind, Moorcock received a platinum disc for the album Warrior on the Edge of Time.

The Best of Michael Moorcock by Michael Moorcock

From the Elric sagas to the far reaches of human consciousness, this definitive collection captures the finest stories of one of fantasy, science fiction, and literature's most important contemporary figures.

"Behold the Man," introduces Karl Glogauer, the time traveling psychiatrist and unlikely messiah that H. G. Wells never imagined. In "Crossing into Cambodia," a Russian military liaison is powerless to intercede in a march toward nuclear disaster. "The Dreaming City," follows the exploits of the ambiguous and androgynous secret agent Jerry Cornelius. In "The Visible Men," Elvish anti-hero Elric is an outcast mercenary in the Young Kingdoms over which his nation once ruled.

Including one previously unpublished and three uncollected stories, The Best of Michael Moorcock is a lasting tribute to an extraordinarily gifted, versatile, and much-beloved writer.

 

REVIEWS

  • "The 17 stories in this collection demonstrate the breadth of scope and the excellence in storytelling of SF Grand Master and multigenre author Moorcock…. Moorcock crosses genres, bends boundaries, and breaks rules as only a master storyteller can."

    – Library Journal

  • "This collection illustrates the breadth of Moorcock's talent. A long-overdue retrospective."

    – The Guardian

  • "A wild, fascinating batch of stories fairly balancing the fantastic and the nearly ordinary, and showcasing Moorcock's talent."

    – Booklist
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

AFTERWORD: THE BEST OF MICHAEL MOORCOCK

by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

The joke goes a little like this: "Michael Moorcock has written for so long in so many different genres that there's something for every reader to hate." If you're an iconic post-WWII literary figure whose resume includes everything from creating a mythic heroic fantasy anti-hero to editing New Worlds, the magazine that gave voice to the New Wave and the careers of writers like J.G. Ballard and M. John Harrison, then it's very much true, simply because few readers can keep up with the protean reach of this giant.

How, then, to edit a "best" of Moorcock's short fiction? How to even create a short list? Luckily, our task was simplified by the brilliant work of John Davey, who had already compiled a 250,000-word manuscript and who deserves the bulk of the praise for its success.

From that manuscript, with Davey's notes on individual stories in mind, the final volume of approximately 150,000 words took shape. Even so, several admittedly invasive decisions had to be made in compiling the final contents. We decided to leave Elric largely to the excellent new series of reprints from Del Rey, opting to begin this volume with a later Elric story. We also decided that Jerry Cornelius—a Moorcock character who has come to serve as a kind of running commentary on the state of the world—could only be excerpted in a way that would seem incomplete, and thus we left that fine fellow largely to his own devices (for now).

Which brings us to a very important point: This writer, without the aid of those two robust companions, would still have had an amazing career. That career, in the short form, breaks down roughly into stories that fall under the rubric of fantasy/SF and, using a hated term, the literary mainstream. There is some overlap, for those who grade on taxonomy. For example, Moorcock's "World War Three" stories read appear to partake of a variety of influences in style and execution—part of what makes them still seem contemporary. It is this overlap, along with the guiding intelligence and wit of the author, that provides coherence to this collection.

We are sure that many of these choices will be hotly debated, and we welcome that debate. Let anyone who dares stand in our shoes for a month or two, looking out over the depth and breadth of Moorcock's oeuvre. From that perspective, we think any reasonable person will agree on how devilishly hard it is to say this and not this, that but not that.

Ultimately, our role in editing this collection is a personal thank you to a man and a writer we love deeply: Michael Moorcock, whose genius is only matched by his generosity. We believe both of those qualities exist, in quantity, in this book.