Giant Omnibus.

[Judge]

Hi, Mr. Moorcock, I hope I'm not repeating something that's already here but I was wondering if there's going to be an omnibus of omnibi (omnibuses?). A single collection of all the works of fiction and non-fiction you have ever written, I see it being at least A4 size and leather bound a real tome from the days of long ago. :D

P.S. Major respect, Sir!

[Ant]

Ah, a kind of "Moorcock Integral Edition", along the lines of the Vance Integral Edition (http://www.vanceintegral.com/)?

That would be very cool.

But, as for Vance (another great fantasist), a major commerical publisher seems unlikelt to get behind it, leaving it to a group of fans to organize.

I guess there'd be enough interested people on MWM to have a shot at this... I'd certainly volunteer. But we'd need to have people with publishing experience on board...

Ciao,
Ant

[mordenkainen]

Well, I'd say MM is more well-known than Vance (cool link btw), and maybe if the movie is a sucess...hmm, of course this would only work for Elric, wouldn't it?

[Jeremiah]

Quick...someone who's good at maths please work out exactly how huge it would have to be, and how many servants one would need to turn the pages....

[Judge]

I guess there'd be enough interested people on MWM to have a shot at this... I'd certainly volunteer. But we'd need to have people with publishing experience on board...

I can't say I have any publishinge experience but I would be 100% behind it if it ever did happen. The VIE idea sounds fairly possible and I'm sure we could drum together enough support to make it happen. If not here, then where?

hmm, of course this would only work for Elric, wouldn't it?

Why only Elric, surely the collected works should be EVERYTHING!?

[Governor of Rowe Island]

I feel like Homer Simpson with a donut in his hand, when I contemplate a definitive edition. Annotated! with differing texts included, all the graphics (novels and illustrations, comic strips, etc.)
John Davey would have to be involved, of course, in a major capacity.
The ordering of the stories alone would provoke major debate, if not schisms! The trouble I know it would cause still doesn't stop me selfishly wanting one. Or offering my help. It would be an honour to help in any capacity.

[Ant]

Why only Elric, surely the collected works should be EVERYTHING!?

VIE did do a few "subset" editions, but really only a very few of each, compared with the ~600 run of the full edition. (Which I surely would have subscribed to if only I'd had that money to spare... for some reason my SO thinks that there are more practical things to spend that much on... )

But completeness is the key of an integral edition.

Gr.,
Ant

[Ant]

(Me again.)

... but, perhaps a more modest hope -- if White Wolf's Son and the current Elric comic are to be the albino prince's last literary excursions -- would be a commercial series of slipcased illustrated editions of Elric, like Wandering Star's new editions of Robert E. Howard's stories (http://wanderingplanet.com/).

Like the Millennium and White Wolf series from the 1990s... only better! Including all the comics and graphic novels too... (Although reproducing James Cawthorn's Stormbringer at a standard hardback size would be problematic!)

Maybe the movies would raise Mike's profile enough for that...

mfG,
Ant

[Michael Moorcock]

Not sure it will be for a while. My mistake was not to blow my brains out when my mother died... We might have to wait -- well, YOU might have to wait -- until I follow my mum to the great semi in the sky. I'm actually tempted not to bother to put out any new editions in my lifetime and watch them slowly go out of print. Don't ask why I get a kick out of this. Maybe it's to do with clearing the decks. I sometimes feel too many tall trees have died for my lies already. :)

[mordenkainen]

Why only Elric, surely the collected works should be EVERYTHING!?

sure. I meant the movie will mostly help sell more Elric books, and therefore maybe not make a luxury ed. of ALL MM works an attractive idea to editors...
I wonder if they're selling much more copies of the Silmarillion now for example.

Not sure it will be for a while. My mistake was not to blow my brains out when my mother died... We might have to wait -- well, YOU might have to wait -- until I follow my mum to the great semi in the sky. I'm actually tempted not to bother to put out any new editions in my lifetime and watch them slowly go out of print. Don't ask why I get a kick out of this. Maybe it's to do with clearing the decks. I sometimes feel too many tall trees have died for my lies already. Smile

:?

[Judge]

sure. I meant the movie will mostly help sell more Elric books, and therefore maybe not make a luxury ed.

Sorry wasn't quite sure what exactly you meant. :oops:

Maybe it's to do with clearing the decks. I sometimes feel too many tall trees have died for my lies already.

Clearing the decks is good, it allows space for more creativity. Anyway, look at Milton, all of his best work was in his last years. Who knows, maybe the best is yet to come. 8O
And anyway what lies, its all true somewhere isn't it?

[Marca]

I feel like Homer Simpson with a donut in his hand, when I contemplate a definitive edition. Annotated! with differing texts included, all the graphics (novels and illustrations, comic strips, etc.)

Maybe not in any of our lifetimes but you never know. Actually I think the Millenium & White Wolf series do form a fairly inexpensive Moorcock Integral Edition of sorts, along with the other available volumes. I wish I had them all but have only managed to pick up about half the series so far. I'd forgotten how much is in the Earl Aubec volume for example. Numerous short stories, including some difficult to obtain ones and the complete Golden Barge novel...

[Kalessin]

A complete Moorcock omnibus would be ludicrous, imo...too friggin' long, and there's no connecting theme beyond authorship!

However, a complete EC omnibus...still obscenely long, but if ordered right, it would at least tell a single story - and of course while a full omnibus would get more and more out of date with every year while Mike continues to write, since he's claiming to have finished the EC series with this last Elric book....

[Ant]

... I think the Millenium & White Wolf series do form a fairly inexpensive Moorcock Integral Edition of sorts...

The problem with these is that neither is definitive. Although there is a large overlap, the Millennium set omits some stories that the White Wolf set includes, and vice versa.

And, of course, Mike has written new EC books since then: the Second Ether trilogy (Blood et seq.) and the new Elric trilogy (The Dreamthief's Daughter et seq.).

Nor does either series include graphic versions. Adaptations could arguably be omitted, but there are some original stories in graphic form, even before the current Elric comic: Elric's appearance in the Conan comic, for example.

Cordialement,
Ant

[Michael Moorcock]

I planned the omnibus sets as a kind of complete Eternal Champion and Orion also published most of my literary fiction in similar editions. It's still possible to pick up a few of these -- Behold the Man and other stories, A Cornelius Calendar, The Brothel in Rosenstrasse etc. in the UK and probably via ABE or ebay. As people in the US know, I've let pretty much all my fantasy go out of print here. That's partly because I'm still not sure how to offer it. My idea was to put the individual titles back into print. But maybe we could do both -- mass market individual titles and
maybe a limited edition set based on the Orion or White Wolf texts. I'm pretty sure John Davey still has the discs for the omnibus editions. The only Elrics not collected, of course, are the current series -- and The Dreamthief's Daughter exists in a superb illustrated edition. It's the finest special edition of an Elric ever done, in my opinion.
To be honest, I feel (perhaps nostalgically) that I'd like to be back in individual titles sold as mass market paperbacks. I was mulling over the idea of redoing the old DAW paperback series (with the yellow spines) again!
I think if the Elric movie came out, it would probably mean that all the other EC titles, at least, would also be published. That's my agent's
thought, which is why there are so few titles available in the US at the moment. Might be worth noting here that in publishing the books in omnibus editions (often four books per volume) I effectively cut my income by three quarters! At the time it was more important to me to have the omnibus sets done and it was a calculated risk, which I don't regret. It seemed more important at the time to have a coherent edition available to readers.