The Dreamthief’s Daughter: A Tale of the AlbinoMichael Moorcock
Earthlight hardback, 342 pages, £16.99
Review by Mike Don (2002)
Back in the 1970s, I was addicted to Mike Moorcock’s vivid sword and sorcery. Since then, his tastes and mine have gone their separate ways. Novels appeared, more accomplished in literary terms, but somehow the spark had gone. So it’s my pleasure to report that the old anarchist is back on form.
The Dreamthief’s Daughter kicks off a new Elric trilogy. In comics terminology, it’s a crossover linking two avatars of the Eternal Champion to fight, yet again, an apocalyptic threat – from Law rather than Chaos, which makes a change.
The style may be more polished, the approach more ambitious, fusing the gaudy sorcery of Elric’s realm with ‛Occult Reich’ trappings (scarcely more exotic than the historic reality, by some accounts) and adding a lost world storyline which wouldn’t have disgraced Edgar Rice Burroughs.
But The Dreamthief’s Daughter has all the exuberance of yore, a driving plot, sentient swords and SS troopers. Elric lives! Coming soon, the Hawkwind album (I was joking!)