Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, Part 1: Enter the Multiverse

It is still amazing to me none have been put to film.

Love Michael Moorcock. Wish there were or would be some animated series or TV series I think elric and the eternal champion saga would be amazing as an animated anthology series

I read "In the Name of the Rose" when I was 17. I remember being overwhelmed with the world building, to the point it was almost holotropic; to conceive of the imagery he evokes, you have to cast aside the world you are in and fully immerse yourself. Such a creative and challenging piece, but something that filled me with curiosity and creative energy!

I have the same editions you show in the video. Just missing Volume 8 & 15.

I enjoyed his Elric stories a lot. Moorcock's writing makes it seem like he is trying to explain his glimpse into a dream. A stream of conciseness across the page.

Still my favorite series.

Did anyone else come here because of the band Eternal Champion?

The entire video sounds like an intro that never ends. But thank you.

I played a game for the Sega CD system called Eternal Champions which was awesome! Way better than Mortal Kombat!!!

So this video isn't about the book series

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what an amazing video and production and... that voice!

Sounds kind of the general idea of yin yang and Buddhist cycles of reincarnation?

Your background music track is far too loud. It's very annoying.

I really enjoyed this and it had a lot of interesting information, but if I may offer a suggestion please find a longer music clip, the repeated looping is very annoying.

WTF is going on with the background music? Not only it makes the narration hardly audible, it’s also anxiety inducing. Way too distracting. Hope the next 2 videos aren’t like this.

Just read the books.

He also wrote a very weird but entertaining Dr Who novel, The Coming of Terraphiles that also deals with his multiverse.

I just discovered Moorecock, happened to come across a collection of his Corum books. I’m really enjoying it, the ideas are certainly big!

Not an Eternal Champion story per se, The Coming Of The Terraphiles merges Doctor Who into the Eternal Champion multiverse, as well as making a few nods to HHGTTG (the possibility of Arthur Dent as an aspect of the Eternal Champion is strangely compelling).

Elric is the best of the best of moorcock.

We could all use alittle Moore cock

Nope. He’s not read in the states because he’s not easily accessible. Either the books are too hard to find or way too expensive for most people.

You have such a great voice.

Maybe get an epic ambient loop that lasts longer than eight seconds. The repeating four chords that never resolve, just looping infinitely, drove me bonkers. Couldn't make it halfway through the video. It's like watching the first eight seconds of the Gargoyles theme forever and ever, without Goliath ever saying, "One thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness, it was a world of fear; it was the age of Gargoyles."

That chiton’s “Dune” tidbit is much appreciated

first read Moorcock in 77... after a lot of mythology and folktales, some Burroughs and Orwell, but before Tolkien and Herbert and Zelazny and Asimov et al. And the eternal champion series gave me a leg up when started play D&D in 82. When asked, I just say start with Elric, then Corum, then Hawkmoon, then Erokose. Von Bek was interesting (Warhound and World's Pain is a fave), and found Cornelius not that interesting when I was younger... another fave has no discernible connection to eternal champion- Behold the Man.

One of my absolute favorite Fantasy series & authors. So easy to get caught up in it & feel yourself a bystander within his novels!

Michael Moorcock is a pornstar name. No one will ever convince me otherwise.

You have a great voice

Where to start ?

Moorcock is one of my all time favorite authors, and what inspired me to play and DM Dungeons and Dragons for decades. I have read this series multiple times, and while Elric is probably my favorite, the tales of Corum of the One Hand and Dorian Hawkmoon are also favorites. Why Elric, the classic anti-hero, has not been made into movies, boggles my mind, as Moorcock offers so much to mine for on screen adventures. I would love to see massive floating ziggurat barges chasing after the invading human fleet in the first Elric story. That would be amazing. Thank you for this video, it really brought me back to my teenage years in the 70s :)

I haven't read much of Moorcock's work outside of Elric, but that character is iconic. I bought the Saga Press collection last year and I'm looking forward to diving back in. Maybe I'll get some Hawkmoon in there, too.

A genuine genius...

I have a huge collection of Moorcock. Began reading him in the early 1970s in my teens. I would play Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and other acid rock while reading Elric traversing dimensions like "Sailor on the Seas of Fate". He's a Grandmaster of Sword and Sorcery. We'll not see his like again.

Moorcock's "Behold the Man," while a bit sloppy in execution, is one of the most poignant sci-fi stories I'd ever read.

The warhound and the worlds pain is my favorite book.

Pump the brakes a bit on the Dungeons and Dragons part. It's well known that Gary Gygax was largely inspired by Lord of the Rings, not Morcock. Its been said 'You can draw a straight line from LotR to Gygax and DnD then onward to computer RPGs". There are some influences here and there such as Blackrazor from White Plume Mountain as a homage to Stormbringer, and Elric even appears in an early source book (Deities and Demigods) but so did a lot of other heroes from fiction. That said, the Elric Saga is the only series I've ever read twice.

More like Multiverse of Awesomeness

There was one of his Eternal Champion books where 4 different eternal champions join together to become one champion to defeat an enemy.

Michael Moorcock, an author we love and collect in our home. Jerry Cornelius is our fav, spy and assassin, along with Una Persson. Thank you for offering a brilliant presentation.

I always hold the highest respect for booktubers who appreciate classic works, and you are a great example of delivering that. I hope that in 2025, there will be even more interesting content to discuss. I deeply value all your efforts, Sir.

I read the Elric books (as many as had been written) back in the early 80s and enjoyed them. I recently tried reading them again and just couldn't get into it.

There was a movie in the late 60s or early 70s based on Jerry Cornelius. Quite a mind-blowing cinematic adventure, if you can find it somewhere.

I believe a big reason Moorcock hasn't maintained a heightened popularity is thanks to Andrzej Sapkowski's blatant xerox job with the witcher novels and the subsequent video games & Netflix series based on them.

Currently reading the Elric series again. His writing is excellent. He is descriptive, without being overly verbose. He and Zelazny are two of my favorites.