Wrapped Up? You Guess!

[xidrep]

Well, it turns out that the entire multiverse is contained within a tiny drop of oil. A drop of oil that is clinging precariously to the cooling vanes of a cylinder head. A drop of oil that is clinging precariously to the cooling vanes of a cylinder head of a Maybach RB102 twelve-cylinder engine. A Maybach RB102 twelve-cylinder engine that is straining in the confines of an airship gondola. An airship gondola that is powering the mighty Zeppelin 'Stormbringer'. The mighty Zeppelin 'Stormbringer' that is captained by a certain Bastable. The certain Bastable who is married to Una Persson. The Una Persson that the certain Bastable rescued from her dull job at Agak, Gagak and Ferkit (Solicitors). The Solicitors whose branch in the village of Shanalorm just outside Dorking was recently repainted by a pale, moody youth going by the name of Elric...
But none of this has, of course, yet happened.
Then they'll wake up, and it was all a dream.

[Michael Moorcock]

Don't get your hopes up.
This is more of a riff than a revelation!
More to do with context than spectacular scenery.
Sorry...

[kid]

How about... ... .... Elric wins! :lol:


For some reason, I had a moment of thinking that the above was funny... meh. I hope the end includes giant, hydrogen filled seahorses. And someone called Kathleen.

[Judge]

What about Elric cut free from the cycle and free to choose his side as well as his time and place, the ultimate planes travler. Allowed freedom and knowledge at last. Or possibly just allow him to remain in Tanelorn.

[Michael Moorcock]

Good ideas. Somebody should write them. Preferably when I'm dead!
All I've done, really, is stress how context is important to the actions of the hero. I feel I've already resolved the series. In a sense all this does is add another dimension to the central argument of the stories.
I really don't want to raise anyone's hopes here.

[steeltsar]

I can't help feeling that if there were "an ending", an "explanation", a "conclusion", it really would diminish everything that went before. I really can't help feeling that such a thing would be an anticlimax - and, in a multiverse, an impossibility.

Nick Roeg's aching film "Mona Lisa". It could all be the daydream of a little car mechanic who wants to be someone, who wants to matter, to experience the deep complex things he feels. It could. But who's to say what's more real?

[xidrep]

Aye. In fiction, the moment of creation crystallises reality.

[Mikey_C]

It could be something like the conclusion of the first Brainstorm Comix where Brian Talbot's 'psychedelic alchemist' Chester P Hackenbush's ultimate bad trip is to discover that he's actually a character in a comic strip. But - hey - that's been done already! :roll:

[Michael Moorcock]

There IS a revelation of sorts, but it doesn't really concern Elric. It does concern the Eternal Champion overall, though.

[xidrep]

Does the EC get stranded forever in the limbo between worlds?

M! I reach no planet!

Sorry. Feeble.

[steeltsar]

Mona Lisa.
Neil Jordan, not Nick Roeg. Sorry, I often transpose those two.

Adlerian, yes, I agree I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Dancers At The End Of Time played a part in the last words...

[Ant]

If I had my wish, Lord Jagged would have invented the Multiverse as a simulation ....

That's already been hinted at...

“it’s almost as if you were this fellow �Arioch’…�

Una to Lord Jagged, “Elric at the End of Time�

Ciao,
Ant

[Ant]

According to Mike's ennumerations of the avatars of the Eternal Champion in Phoenix in Obsidian and The Dragon in the Sword there are many we've never read stories of... at least, stories by Mike's hand.

• • Alerik
  • Alivale
  • Artos the Celt – the “historical� King Arthur?
  • Asquiol of Pompeii
  • Brian
  • Clen of Clen Gar
  • Clovis Marca
  • Cornell – probably not the Jerry Cornell of The Chinese Agent
  • Franik
  • Goldberg
  • Ilanth
  • Klan
  • Malan’ni
  • Mejink-La-Cos
  • M’v Okom Sebpt O’Riley, Gunholder of the Qui Lors Venturers
  • Oshbek-Uy
  • Pournachas
  • Powys
  • Rashono
  • Roland – from the mediأ¦val epic The Song of Roland, with his sword Durandana
  • Ryan
  • Shaleen
  • Ulysses – from Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey
  • Umpata
  • Ghardas Valabasian, Conqueror of Distant Suns

Plenty of opportunity here, for other authors if not for Mike himself, should he sanction further EC stories... and, of course, there will be many others...

In a short story, "Transfigured Knight" (a pun on Schأ¶nberg), that I wrote many years ago, I tied my hero, Arأ³ch, in with Elric and King Arthur, and his sword with Stormbringer and Excalibur.

Arأ³ch was one of a quartet of heroes that together comprised an avatar of Elric et al. -- and of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, who Leiber described as "two long-sundered, matching fragments of a greater hero". They were kind of naأ¯vely based on D&D archetypes as well. Arأ³ch (m) was a fighter, Sأ؛lأ© (f) a "fallen" paladin, Imأr (m) a ranger, and Enjأ? (f) was a rogue. Note that their names had a similar origin to Corum's...

Gr.,
Ant

[Michael Moorcock]

This suggests you haven't read some of my fairly hard to get, these days, sf which was published in the US but hasn't appeared in England since around 1994/5 in a pack of Penguins. Also some of the names of characters were changed to fit them into the von Bek mythos. Clovis Marca is, as I recall, from The Twilight Man, Asquiol of Pompei (a planet, not a city) is from The Sundered Worlds, Klan is from an aborted series started in Tarzan Adventures (Klan the Spoiler) which never went anywhere, Powys is Alan Powys from The Fireclown, Ryan is from The Black Corridor. Most of the others were characters I considered writing about but never did, including Roland and Brian Borhu! And yes, I'd say anyone who wants to work up the rest is welcome! But I'd still rather it happened when you see my name in the obituary columns... :)

[GuyLawley]

And Clen Of Clen Gar appears in the graphic novel The Swords Of Heaven, The Flowers Of Hell. Storyline by Michael Moorcock, finished script and artwork by Howard Chaykin.

Can't remember the year of publication, but it's often to be found on eBay and ABE. Long out of print.

My memory of the book also suggests that Clen was "played" by Burt Lancaster and Ermizhad (or her avatar) by Sophia Loren. Anyone else spot the strong resemblances? I think Mr Chaykin may have use a bit of photo-ref here and there.