![]() Family intrigue is at its heart, with Elric’s cousin eyeing up the Emperor’s Ruby Throne for himself. ![]() The art may have its shock value, but the story occupies a deeply considered world. Elric’s world is a gothic marvel, stunningly realised.Įlric’s literary heritage also shines through. It’s a brutal imagining of a horrific world and its artwork, if you can handle the content, will take your breath away. Meanwhile, down in his dungeons, a torturer is dismembering spies for information, piercing them with a thousand needles and somehow keeping them alive throughout. His court drink from the open wounds of sacrificial human victims and partake in orgies of debauchery. ![]() We’re immediately immersed in a dark, satanic country called Melniboné, where Elric is emperor. This French adaptation is beautifully rendered, embracing rather than shying away from the worst habits of Elric’s people. With books appearing sporadically since, Moorcock is a pioneer of darker, grimmer fantasy, taking Tolkien out of the world of black and white, and into a more morbid, vampiric world, where fetishism and torture rule. ![]() Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories have been informing the subconscious world of fantasy since the character first appeared (in a novella called The Dreaming City, published in Science Fantasy magazine in 1961, but later reprinted 1965’s Stormbringer). ![]()
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