Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, Part 2: Von Bek & John Daker || Spoiler-free review

Gosh, what a great channel. Thanks for sharing your passion with us.

What a fantastic set of videos! I first read Moorcock when the War Hound and the World's Pain came out (that Rowena Morrill cover is fantastic- I bought the first edition so I could have it), and I just loved that book and later the sequels. But I had no idea where to go next. Heck, I didn't even know all of these books were related, and I still didn't know the extent of the relationships until these videos. So I tackled Jerry Cornelius after that and I remember being very disappointed. Then I tried Elric and loved them but I was thoroughly confused, and we had no Wiki or anyone to ask at that time so I just gave up. I really appreciate finally have a clear and concise explanation regarding this set of books. Thank you!

I love reading summaries of Moorcock novels, but his prose is a little difficult for me to get through. But man... some of his images...

One of the reasons he was turning out books at high rate was the need to keep the magazine, New Worlds afloat.

Thanks for undertaking this video series. I learned about Moorcock through Appendix N, which was a Gary Gygax's list of books that inspired the creation of D&D.

I have a small sampling of Moorcock's Elric, but I lacked some of the context you provided here. The quantity over polish mentality you describe helps me frame the writing when I eventually will revisit it. Just goes to show that most novels should not be read entirely in a vacuum since inevitably there is a human behind the work!

Oh John Daker, he makes some interesting choices lol💗

Elder Scrolls, JRPGs, Isekai. What else did he influence?

Excellent thank you.

Wow, I learned a lot. Coming from a German speaking country where it could be difficult to get one's hands on "non-commercial" fantasy I was utterly unaware of the influences on Moorcock that you have talked about. I will definitely have to read some of those!

I guess it's that background that plays into how I perceived the von Bek books. To me, they felt very much like German Sturm und Drang literature, with a healthy dose of folklore. Von Bek's deal with the devil recalled the stories I had grown up with, just with allegorical and philosophical depth. Suffice to say that I love the novels.

As for easing into the EC books - I started out with the Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon stories (German translations) before managing to get hold of other Eternal Champion books. Definitely agree that the Bek stories are a better starting point. I would also argue that the use of familiar Judaeo-Christian imagery helps to ease readers into the wider concepts of Chaos, Law, and the Balance.

And I just want to mention here that Klosterheim is an amazing antagonist. Poor guy.

I read all of Moorcock’s works I could get my mitts on in the Seventies, but I did not continue following his writing after my college days. I therefore did not know about the Von Bek stories until I saw this video.
I should track down the original paperbacks. I don’t want the edition you are using, because it won’t fit on the shelf with my other Moorcock books.

I really enjoyed "The War Hound and the Worlds Pain" as not only does it provide an excellent blueprint for the Eternal Champions journey but it is told in a way appropriate for a story of the time and region it is set in.

My intro to the eternal champion was An Alien Heat (as an aside, imagine being a 12-year-old Lutheran school student in 1977, reading that while lying in a hospital recovering from meningitis. It was...eye opening ) followed quiclkly by the Elric and Hawkmoon books, and then everything else he wrote that I could find.

Dang this sounds awesome. I'm buying it.

I enjoyed Elric & Hawkmoon characters like Dave Adverc

Lemmy said that he admired MM's single mindedness when writing. 😊

I think Asimov had a similar problem or feature, depending on how you look at it; Foundation is a wonderful book but terribly dense and Asimov's narrative voice wasn't the most natural back then. Well I started reading Prelude to Foundation, written in the 80s two years before he died. While it's definitely a retcon style book, his narrative prose had advanced so much by that point, it's a breeze and a joy to read!

Also it feels like Moorcock wanted it all lol he wanted to write fantasy, sci fi, alt history, horror, suspense, etc. He said "mmm nah, I'll use ALL of them" 😅

Von Bek's story is indeed a more mature ones especially in the range of sentiments and the introduction of the multiverse. Also it started as a 30 years war novel, a big plus for me at the time. Love your look into the sprawling work of Moorcock.

I read The War hound and World’s Pain back in the 1980s. I am now ready to continue the journey.

collecting all of this - hard to find this stuff here in the 3rd world

And on to part 2. For reasons that aren't worth discussing, I avoid stories featuring any kind of pseudo-biblical Satan. Also, I have a friend whose tastes have always been polar opposites of mine and he LOVES "The Warhound and the World's Pain". Therefore, as a contrarian youth, I never read the story. I think that you have convinced me to set aside those old prejudices and give the stories a shot.

On the other hand, I have read all of the stories in The Eternal Champion. I find Moorcock's conception of John Daker to be maudlin and depressing. I would much rather read heroic fiction than tragedy. The Dragon In The Sword (which I read when it was released) was for many years one of my favorite Moorcock stories. I found it endlessly creative and, for once, he added to his own mythos in a way that didn't actively destroy my enjoyment of the story. I wish that some of his explanations of things were a little more concrete and less, shall we say, open to interpretation, but 1980's Moorcock wasn't that kind of writer. However, when I re-read the story a few years ago I found it tedious and, once again, maudlin. Of course, our feelings about books change with time as we, the readers, change. So, if I read the rest of the Von Bek stories, I'll re-read The Dragon In The Sword again as well and see how it (and I) have aged.

However, I will say that my (over 40 year old) memories of Phoenix In Obsidian was that it was a much better, more fully realized story than The Eternal Champion. Yes, it's very nearly the same plot, but I enjoyed it more. I remember the characters feeling more motivated, and less like they were just stumbling in a daze from point to point constantly taking the wrong action because someone told them what to do. Young author Moorcock clearly had issues with authority. You might also get this impression from... everything else he ever wrote.

One thing about Moorcock, I can't read too much of him at a time. So, if I'm going to re-read these stories, it will be a project lasting years. I'm OK with that.

As you said, Moorcock is an uneven author. The real trick is to not just roll your eyes and stop reading when you hit a rough patch, because rough patches will be hit.

Where does the Gollancz publishing order fit into all this? Maybe it's beyond the scope of what you're trying to cover, but as someone who hasn't read any Moorcock, I felt confident in looking for von Bek first after watching your video, only to find that Moorcock worked with Gollancz over a decade later than the White Wolf editions to once again seemingly change the order of the whole "series." The Gollancz ones start with Elric, then Corum, then Hawkmoon... vob Bek and John Daker look to be in the middle, which is completely different than what you're covering. I'll probably just read in order of the Gollancz editions, but all these different orders of publication are a bit dizzying. Do you think von Bek is the best starting point, or is that simply how you presented it because you are following the White Wolf volumes?

Unfortunately the von bek omnibus and separate printings all seem out of print, and kindle doesn’t have them :-/

They sound really cool

I have that paperback first edition of The Sundered Worlds, such a goofy cover illustration. A lot of the early paperbacks are just goofy, like the Mayflower first edition of The Black Corridor which is an out of focus photograph of a plastic spaceship, and is just so much worse than the UK Ace first edition which has this incredibly evocative fractured illustration of a screaming man (P.S. Definitely look for that Avon paperback if you can find it if you want to read The Black Corridor, all the subsequent editions majorly screwed up the typographic illustrations and I don't think it's ever been remedied.)

Sadly these omnibus editions are expensive and hard to find now.

You're like ASMR: The Person.

And here I came expecting to see Slash and Larcen 🙄😂

This dude‘s voice is really hypnotic. I can’t tell if he’s whispering or intentionally keeping his voice low yet firm yet sympathetic? I’m not a gay man, but….

This is a great channel but I suggest it is better to start with the early writing in the magazines, then later the early Elric, you then discover the multiverse as an emerging concept, not delivered on a plate. Also try the totally different "Mother London" and "Byzantium Endures". For audiophiles try Hawkwind - Warrior on the edge of time.

It's very interesting that this writer came up with a lot of his stories and put many to paper in his youth when he was very young Ed Greenwood said he also did the same thing. I would say that's very good for such young fellows excellent video and have a good day😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊well done.

oh. ok. that makes sense. okay. um, I get it now. the entirety of Shin Megami Tensei (a series of Japanese RPGs usually centering around philosophical conflicts between law and chaos, usually represented by the Abrahamic God and Lucifer respectively) is essentially a usually narratively unambitious and often politically conservative ripoff of eternal champion. Eternal Champion might just be Shin Megami Tensei but good.

Long collection is loooooooooooooong.

My dad introduced me to Moorcock as a teen, and I thank him for helping me develop a foundation to truly enjoy more sophisticated works with clearer understanding as a result. I can't imagine trying to tackle Herbert or Asimov without having journeyed across the Seas of Fate or viewed the Maschenheem.

I can’t believe I just found out about this…. Need to start Von Bek stat. 😮

MM says that he deliberately changed the order of the two sets.

Great vid. So, The Sundered Worlds is a von Bek tory but on the eternal.champion volume?

I love that you threw in Monty Python's depiction of God in the Holy Grail while reiterating that Lucifer wanted to offer to God as a peace offering. I laughed quite uproariously!

I have the Michael Moorcock Collecton edition of "The Eternal Champion" from Orion, and I enjoyed "The Dragon in the Sword" the most, since I finally met John Dakar himself, and the Eternal Champion saves himself by insisting on that identity.... and as a reward, John Dakar gets to go home, to London, to live as a mortal man, in peace, with his wife.

I loved the idea of The Warhound and the World's Pain
And Von Bek is such a cool character !
I also love the Corum stories !

Erekose is a cool character !

Fabulous! I'm enjoying your series around the Eternal Champion very much. I'm a longtime MM fan and you really do his works justice in these.

I never knew how expansive the eternal champions was. Ive heard about corum and hawkmoon but ive only read the elric saga (which i absolutely adore) now i wanna read these other ones

Its really interesting, but why make book series if the character, setting and world completely change in each book, with almost no connection to each other?? It seems like he just wanted to write a bunch of different stories

When I last read The Eternal Champion (novel), I was struck by how incredibly non-action-oriented it was, yet still such a compelling read. But I disagree with you in that I love Phoenix In Obsidian (or The Silver Warrior, as I first read it) and think it's a worthy successor and much different tale from the first. I'm currently working my way thru the omnibus for the second time. I'm on book 10, Dancers at the End of Time, and I've read many of his books outside of this collection before. I can honestly say, it really doesn't matter which order you read them in. Keep to a single series, but other than that, little matters. I do think what the publishers did makes some sense tho. Eternal Champion (vol 1) is the "beginning," and Count Brass (vol 15) is the "end," so keeping them roughly in those positions makes a lot of sense, but the rest of it is really an intentionally murky and non-sequential middle/muddle. Fantastic stories, every last one. Every time I think I have a favorite, I read another and change my mind. Plus there are so many other works not found herein that are worth checking out too, such as the Cornelius Chronicles (whose absence I don't understand), and books written after this collection was published. Also, thanks for this series. I've been reading him since my teens, and I feel like I'll be reading him for the rest of my life and never fully grasp everything. He's my Proust, as it were. I just don't have his scope. Btw, given that this is your part 2, and part 5 just came out, where is part 4? Or are you being Moorcockian and holding out on releasing it until you feel like it?

This man should do ASMR or narrate for audible audio books.

Thank you so much for the video. it was very informative!

All hail the Emperor of Mankind! 👑

warhound and worlds pain is one of my favourite books , but i presumed it was the rolling stones sympathy for the devil turned into a story rather than anything miltonian

i like elric best but i'd like to live in jerek carnelian future world where because anything is possible, they all just in search of a cure for boredom