Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Moorcock's fabulous sf, May 31 2003
This is Moorcock's most ambitious work. Certainly his most honest. There are a million and one experiments in literature here, not all of which come off. But according to Schopenhauer the errors of geniuses are worth a hundred truths of lesser mortals. (Or something like that.) The fact that Moorcock provides the most visceral experiences in the sort of fabulous sf universe his brain inhabits means that even when he's mistaken his point is well taken. (For a similar world, see Zelazny's stuff.) The characters of this book will live forever. Even though he's not a household word like Tolkien or Rowling he certainly will be some day. Keep your chin up Mike, the zombies will get the point eventually.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Here we go again, Mar 11 2003
It's been argued that these books were an angry/funny response to the Vietnam War and certainly the second story A Cure For Cancer refers a lot to Vietnam. What is particularly interesting about it, however, is how it refers to the PRESENT
situation. The Administration's rationales for going into Vietnam and the military's rationales for staying there are here transported to Europe. And that's no doubt what makes the books so relevant to the immediate situation we have at the moment with Europe refusing America's rationales for going to war and the Administration reacting with an aggressive, bullying tone. The ways in which imperial adventuring are cloaked in the language of 'saving the natives' are clearly shown here. Moorcock takes the experience of British imperialism and equates it with American imperialism. He does it all, of course, with irony and black humor which gets more and more sophisticated as the series continue. The Final Program is the weakest of the books, though it parodies 60s slang rather than parroting it, and has subtleties rarely found in US fiction of the day. These books were of their time and half a century AHEAD of their time and the way in which Moorcock reveals the underbelly of his society as well as the
postures of his main character are brilliant. Unquestionably, some of the very best experimental and influential fiction of our time! Recommended at every level -- fun, funny, fantastic and literary. I would also recommend Moorcock's very latest Cornelius novella, Firing the Cathedral, with its introduction by Alan Moore.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunningly good, Jun 23 2002
I found this one of the most amazing books I have ever read. After the first one, which is fairly straightforward though written with a sardonic humor, they get better and better, with more and more information adding to your first impression, rather like a good movie by Lynch, say. Don't expect anything like you've read before, even if you've read other Michael Moorcock titles. The first one deals with Jerry Cornelius's quest for revenge and the microfilm which contains the information to make the 'final program' of the title -- a computer program which will put the sum of human knowledge into a single, self-reproducing human being. The second one, A Cure for Cancer, changes pace and style and has direct reference to the Vietnam War, set in a London which has been taken over by American 'military advisors', who are occupying Europe. Here Jerry also visits America and meets Indians, black power activists and so on in his search for his sister and for the black box which enables people both to change identity and travel through the multiverse, through multiple versions of our own realities, all of which bear satirical or ironic reference to the world we know. By The English Assassin Jerry is in a coffin, living dead, being traded between his enemies and friends across a Europe embroiled in civil war which prefigures what has since happened in Yugoslavia, Russia and elsewhere. The style and the substance of the books matures and deepens as you go, but also the characters become more complex and interesting. We meet Bishop Beesley and his
daughter, Miss Brunner, the Thatcher-like character, Major Nye, the embodiment of idealistic imperialism and Colonel Pyat, whose story is continued in Moorcock holocaust series beginning with
Byzantium Endures. References to both American and European history, especially imperial expansion, abound, but there are some wonderfully funny and dramatic scenes. Here you can see how much has been borrowed for whole series of comic books, movies and other novels, including Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright series and Grant Morrison's Invisibles series, along with a lot of alternative history series, such as Harry Turtledove's. But Moorcock is also a literary writer, so there is always much more going on. By the time we get to the resolving volume The English Assassin, the books are making more and more sense on more and more levels.
This is probably the richest and most mature of the books and Moorcock manages a heart-rending Christmas resolution which has the same mixture of melancholy and merriment you find in the best Dickens. At last you start to understand why literary critics have likened Moorcock to a modern Dickens. Also, you realise that everything you have read up to this point can be interpreted in a TOTALLY different light. Don't expect anything like the regular sci-fi tale, however good. This is more like Pynchon or
DeLillo and can only be fully appreciated if you accept it as a literary novel, rather than the popular adventure novel it sometimes pretends to be! A genuine masterpiece and deserving of every praise it has received. I remain stunned and deeply
impressed. And I thought it wasn't possible to feel like this
from a novel any more. I'm now reading King of the City, which
is a weird kind of development from this. I'm looking forward to finding a copy of Mother London, which I'm told is even better!
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