484 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041912
Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. The Eternal Champion was the first in this series featuring the character Erekosë and includes the tales The Eternal Champion, The Sundered Worlds and Phoenix in Obsidian. The main character at the heart of the Eternal Champion stories is John Daker, a mortal man who is taken from our world into another and incarnated in the form of Erekosë, a long-dead hero. He finds that he has been summoned in order to lead the human race in their struggle against the Eldren, an alien race that Erekosë defeated in the past. Throughout, Daker/Erekosë must balance his mortal life with his present incarnation, while also learning to distinguish between truth and fiction, as the rules of this new world he finds himself in are quite different from those of Earth, and he cannot decide if magic is real or some other phenomena.
While Erekosë is not as well-known as Elric, Corum, or many of the other aspects of the Eternal Champion, he is perhaps the most important as it is this character that kicks off Moorcock’s Multiverse and is one of the most frequently mentioned aspects of the hero. In one story, told from different viewpoints in The Vanishing Tower and The King of the Swords, Elric and Corum meet a third aspect of the hero who joins with them to form “The Three Who Are One”. When they ask his name, he tells them to call him Erekosë, because it was in that form that he came closest to knowing true peace. In other works, however, it is hinted that Erekosë himself committed a crime of betrayal, and that the Eternal Champion is somehow punished for it; The Eternal Champion is the story of that betrayal.
The first book in this cycle is The Eternal Champion, which Moorcock wrote in less than a week when he was – get this – 17-years-old. Unusual for him, it is written in the first person and chronicles the story of how John Daker is transported to an alien world and resurrected as Erekosë in order to fight an evil race called the Eldren, only to find that all may not appear as it should be (no spoilers here). The tale is told in bright colors and melodramatic language, just as one would expect from a kid. It is also uneven – sometimes strong, sometimes weak – but then, what would you expect from a first-time effort? But what is of true interest is watching a young mind tackle deep subjects and, better yet, defy expectations as he delivers a shot to the solar plexus. This is what I guess one would call high-caliber Sci-Fi, as the world Moorcock crafts comes to life and is a descriptive as a travelogue. Though sparsely written, with only that which is needed to bring the tale along and not much else, even at this tender age Moorcock had learned that what isn’t said is as important as what is.
The Sundered Worlds is where Moorcock’s concept of the Multiverse first saw print. In a nutshell, it is “a multitude of alternative universes intersecting sometimes with our own and to which, of course, our own belongs – in infinite number of slightly different versions of reality in which one is likely to come across a slightly different version of oneself” (from the author, BTW). Renark von Bek undertakes to save various sections of this Multiverse from Armageddon, a suitable quest for an Eternal Champion, one should think. But just when you think this is just a typical fireballs-in-space extravaganza, one finds that there is a deeper story of a man inexorably and inevitable drawn to a hidden Destiny that he can neither avoid nor alter, in spite of his (admittedly) super-human efforts. Renark von Bek (you’ll see that name again in Moorcock’s works) goes about his mission with a cavalier attitude one recognizes from any number of Space Operas, and it is this very attitude of heroic, yet resigned, resolve that earns him the respect of his many friends and the grudging admiration of his enemies. Amazing technologies are on display as well, many of which became real: virtual reality, computer tablets, digital displays and advanced quantum physics. For great, dazzling yet classically-spirited science fiction adventure, The Sundered Worlds is a winner.
Phoenix in Obsidian (or The Silver Warriors, if you prefer) picks up right where The Eternal Champion ended; Erekosë finds himself plucked from his new home and bride to once again put the Cosmic Balance right, this time as Urlik Skarsol of the South Ice, a frozen world with a dying sun and a moon that has crashed into the Earth. This world is populated by a truly degenerate humanity hunkered down in a mountain fastness called the Obsidian City and is subject an alien invasion. One of the book’s first mysteries is just who has summoned Erekosë and for what purpose, or even if anyone here really worthy of saving. Erekosë (or Urlik Skarsol) soon discovers that there is no faith in this world, just people seeking pleasure while awaiting their inevitable doom. Moorcock again plays the contrarian and presents his protagonists with one ethical quandary after another. Fantasy and science fiction are blurred, while the many pseudo-Arthurian tropes to be found throughout the story are intriguing without being pedantic.
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