• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Dying for Tomorrow by Michael Moorcock Michael Moorcock: Death Is No Obstacle. When John Steinbeck was once asked how he went about writing, he replied, ‘With a pencil.’ Some writers are reluctant to give away too much about their inspiration, their influences, their thinking and writing and editing processes, as if wanting to perpetuate the Romantic fallacy that genius and inspiration just strike and that the lucky, ‘gifted’ individual is driven to pick up a pen and write down what the Muse dictates. Despite his prodigious gifts and his long-standing success as a novelist, Michael Moorcock is only too happy to share the secrets of his craft. In a 1992 book, Death Is No Obstacle , which is essentially a long transcript of interviews the writer Colin Greenland had with Moorcock in 1990, Moorcock happily reveals some of the ‘tricks of the trade’ of writing genre fiction, as well as thoughtfully exploring his own relationship with various genres of popular fiction. The book isn’t easy to get hold of – copies tend to go for around £50 online. I’m indebted to my university library, which owns a signed copy. In a previous post on Interesting Literature , I’ve outlined some of Moorcock’s top tips for writing a genre novel in a matter of days, which are taken from the first chapter of Death Is No Obstacle . The rest of the book covers, in order, comedy and science fiction (including a revealing discussion about Moorcock’s own self-confessed failure to write straight science fiction, partly because he has no great love for much mid-century SF), comic strips and commedia dell’Arte, didactic fiction (featuring Behold the Man , Moorcock’s remarkable novel about a time traveller who ends up living in the time of the Crucifixion), non-linear fiction, where it went wrong (featuring, perhaps surprisingly, a discussion of the ‘failure’ of Gloriana ), and imitating and remodelling (Conrad et al). ‘Where It Went Wrong’ might almost be a subtitle for Death Is No Obstacle , offsetting that main title’s triumphalism: Michael Moorcock is one of the most self-effacing and self-critical authors, who is always acknowledging that his penchant for experimenting – with genre, with form, with subject matter – doesn’t always result in a successful novel. As he says somewhere, ‘I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I’d rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas.’ There are some surprising revelations here, such as Moorcock’s assertion that, despite his admiration for the work of Mervyn Peake, he wasn’t all that influenced by Peake in his own writing, occasional works such as The Golden Barge (Moorcock’s first novel, written when he was still a teenager) and his original ‘farewell’ to fantasy, the 1978 novel Gloriana , excepted. Instead, what emerges is Moorcock’s fondness for writers of adventure fiction: Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs (whose Barsoom novels Moorcock paid homage to in a trilogy of planetary adventures from the 1960s), and Joseph Conrad. Indeed, Moorcock talks at length with Colin Greenland in Death Is No Obstacle about his ‘use’ of Conrad: rather than copying Conrad’s plots per se , Moorcock would take his cue from the general form and structure of Conrad’s narratives in order to find a framework for the story he wanted to tell. (There’s a detailed, and fascinating, discussion of how Moorcock did this with his own novel The Ice Schooner , which owes a debt to Conrad’s little-known late adventure novel The Rescue .) What Moorcock advises writers to do here is to find the right ‘plot’, or at least kind of story, in the work of another writer which you, the young writer, can use as a vehicle to tell your story. Rather than a fantasy author imitating other fantasy authors such as Tolkien, the budding author of fantasy fiction should turn to earlier writers who were writing very different novels, including social realist fiction (Moorcock name-checks figures as different as Benjamin Disraeli, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and Von Grimmelshausen), and find the right structure for the fantasy novel they want to write. This is why reading as much as possible is important. At one point in Death Is No Obstacle , Moorcock effectively paraphrases T. S. Eliot’s famous statement that ‘immature poets imitate; mature poets steal’. Rather than plagiarising the exact stories of other writers, the well-read author develops an almost intuitive understanding of the form and shape of the novel, and can then plunder earlier writers – and sometimes, the earlier the better – for ideas. One of the things to emerge from the book is the importance of writing as improvisation and the ability to think on your feet. True, Moorcock encourages the writer to plan meticulously before sitting down to write – you need a plot outline if not advance knowledge of everything that’s going to happen, and a list of images for your invented fantasy world that makes it coherent and consistent – but as you write you also need to know how to introduce things which you ‘might need later’. Both Moorcock and Greenland praise Dickens for being able to do this so well, particularly in Bleak House , where the opening paragraphs set up a number of details which Dickens will later return to and use as part of the story. In a sense, Moorcock’s ability to write a prodigious amount of work at a rapid rate, his self-identification as a writer of popular fiction, and his almost instinctive understanding of form and plot, make him much closer to Dickens than to J. R. R. Tolkien. Oliver Tearle is the author of The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History , available now from Michael O’Mara Books. Michael Moorcock. From World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award–winner Michael Moorcock, comes the first book in his famous Elric of Melnibone series, brought to vivid new life with stunning illustrations.In one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epic. The White Wolf. From World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award–winner Michael Moorcock comes the final installment of the Elric of Melnibone series, brought to vivid new life with stunning illustrations.In one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics. The Michael Moorcock Library: The History of the Runestaff Volume 2. Published for the first time ever, Titan Comics is proud to present the concluding chapter of Michael Moorcock’s epic fantasy masterpiece, The Chronicles of Hawkmoon. Adapted and illustrated by the critically lauded and acclaimed artist and wr. The Michael Moorcock Library - The James Cawthorn Collection - The History of the Runestaff Vol. 1. In a post-apocalyptic world where sorcery and science live side by side, the Dark Empire of Granbretan, formerly Great Britain, has risen from the ashes of nuclear Armageddon to become the mightiest empire the world has ever known. Now under the desp. The Black Corridor. The world is sick. The Forces of Chaos have energised the planet. Leaders, fhrers, duces, prophets, visionaries, gurus, and politicians are all at each others' throats. And Chaos leers over the broken body of Order. So Ryan freezes his family into su. MICHAEL MOORCOCK WITH SPIRITS BURNING. Spirits Burning is a musical collective that has released a combination of ambient, jazz and full-on space rock with input from many of the genre's luminaries, most notably Gong's Daevid Allen and members of Hawkwind. Spirits Burning is overse. Swords and Deviltry. Here is the beginning of the legendary epic that has become a classic of fantasy adventure. At first, they seemed like an unlikely pair: Fafhrd, the white-robed princeling of the barbaric cold waste; and the Gray Mouser, a wizardling suspended betwee. Michael Moorcock's Legends of the Multiverse. Elric of Melinoboné. Duke Dorian Hawkmoon of Köln. Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei of the Scarlet Robe. The unflappable English Assassin Jerry Cornelius. Time-lost Oswald Bastable. Count Renark von Bek of the Sundered Worlds. Over the years. London Bone and Other Stories. Mysterious fossils found deep under London's streets create a whole new 'heritage' industry - but what does selling London's history mean for the city? In these remarkable stories Moorcock explores the parts of London most of us will never see, and c. The Condition of Muzak. Civilization as we know it has been annihilated. The decay and chaos of the multiverse have left Europe in a surreal, yet ever-fashionable, mess. Jerry Cornelius finds himself in an increasingly futile series of guises, part of a cast of characters d. A Cure for Cancer. A mirror-image of his former self, Jerry Cornelius returns to a parallel London, armed with a vibragun and his infamous charisma and charm to boot. On the trail of the grotesque Bishop Beesley, Jerry hunts for a mysterious device capable of manipula. The King of Swords. The old races have perished. Across the fifteen planes of reality, the ceaseless struggle between Law and Chaos continues. Corum, the Prince in the Scarlet Robe, has destroyed two of the company of Chaos, but Mabelode the Faceless will not see his a. The Queen of Swords. Prince Corum has defeated the Chaos Lord Arioch. But any peace for him and his faithful Rhalina is brief. His actions have evoked the murderous anger of Arioch’s sister, the dreaded Xiombarg. The Prince in the Scarlet Robe must continue his odysse. The Knight of Swords. A dazzling and brilliant fantasy from one of the true giants of the genre. The first book in the legendary Corum series by Michael Moorcock!Corum is the last survivor of the Vadhagh race and an incarnation aspect of the Eternal Champion, a being th.

Load more

  4

Copy Link