Sort of a gothic superman,
Elric was an albino emperor of a dying race.
He was kept alive by drugs and potions until
he found the black sword "Stormbringer".
The sword passes energy to Elric from the
soul or life force that it sucks out of it's
victim(s), thus giving Elric the strenght
to exist on his own.
The Elric series was
fantastic in the portrayal of what I would
consider to be almost the anti-hero, sometimes
with cruelty and sometimes with compassion.
The other eternal champions series were pretty
good as well, but not as good as the Elric
saga. I will add reviews below as I have time.
Elric
of Melnibone (Elric Saga, Book 1) - Elric
of Melniboné is a requisite title in the hard
fantasy canon, a book no fantasy fan should
leave unread. Author Michael Moorcock, already
a major player in science fiction, cemented
his position in the fantasy pantheon with the
five-book Elric saga, of which Elric of Melniboné
is the first installment. The book's namesake,
the brooding albino emperor of the dying nation
of Melniboné, is a sort of Superman for Goths,
truly an archetype of the genre. The youthful
Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir
to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world
ended less than 500 years hence. More interested
in brooding contemplation than holding the throne,
Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes
that no other worthy successor exists and the
survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation
depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish
cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically
weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize
Elric's throne, usually over his dead body.
Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming,
reaching its climax in a battle between Elric
and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer
and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains
control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an
event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga.
The
Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Elric Saga, Book 2)
-
The
Wierd of the White Wolf (Elric Saga, Book Three)
-
The
Vanishing Tower (Elric Saga, Book Four) -
The
Bane of the Black Sword (Elric Saga, Book 5) -
Stormbringer
(Elric Saga, Book 6) -
The
Revenge of the Rose -
The
Dreamthief's Daughter: A Tale of the Albino
- In the elaborate fictional cosmos Michael
Moorcock has created, Elric and the various
vonBeks are all aspects of the Eternal Champion
who fights for the Balance, preventing both
Law and Chaos from dominating the universe and
trapping it in either barren sterility or pointless
fecundity. Elric, the albino sorcerer and last
prince of the inhuman empire of Melnibone, was
the creation of Moorcock's adventurous pot-boiling
inventive youth, just as the vonBek family featured
in the heroic fantasies of his more thoughtful
middle-life.
In The Dreamthief's Daughter,
he brings together Elric and Ulric vonBek, last
scion of the family, and we finally learn the
sin for which the perpetual villain Gaynor the
Damned was doomed: Nazi occultists are searching
for the Grail and the Black Sword and must be
prevented from attaining them. Ulric seeks allies
wherever he can find them, including Oona, who
wanders through dream realities and with whom
he falls in love. This is fast-moving phantasmagorical
stuff with ambiguously virtuous heroes and baddies
whose villainy and charm is total. Moorcock's
immensely powerful visual imagination and sense
of the innate drama of crucial scenes make this
a breathtaking read. - Amazon.com
