In this Elric story, our hero becomes more familiar and entwined in the multiverse. From this point on it seems that Moorcock really starts to develop Elric into a very complex character. ( )

You always get the feeling that most of the shorter Eternal Champion novels were written on the run, kind of like Anthony Trollope sitting down for so many hours to write so many pages per day. The Deus ex machina is always too much a part of this sort of Moorcock's sloppier slap-dash fantasy writing.

A pretty good start rambles about in typical Moorcock fashion into various travels, adventures, and perils involving a powerful sorcerer with much fantastical mayhem and swashbuckling. The best thing about this is the conjunction of three incarnations of the Eternal Champion, the fabled city of Tanelorn, and a shout-out for Dorian Hawkmoon.

These Eternal Champion novellas are mostly reminiscent of sword and sorcery pulp writing with a little more edge to it. They are fun reads with favorite characters (Elric and Von Bek being my personal favs) but lack the depth and the atmosphere of the longer EC novels. ( )

Books 1-3 all involve Theleb K'aarna the sorcerer from Pan Tang and Books 1 and three feature Myshella the Empress of the Dawn or the Dark Lady of Kaneloon. Book 3 is another tale of the Eternal Champion. The Elric Saga gets deeper and some story-lines are tied together. ( )

I don't know what it is about Elric, but damn, I just love this character, and this world. I wouldn't call Moorcock the best writer on the planet, not by a long shot, and there's honestly times when this series feels like he's making it up as he goes along, but overall, it's just an honestly enjoyable reading experience, and this one, with Elric chasing Theleb K'aarna hither and yon, is no exception. ( )

I liked this somewhat less than a few of the previous books in the Elric Saga, but only because it had less of the nearly meta-multiple-worlds eternal hero/villain in it except for the last tale.

The rest of it seemed very natural for a sword and sorcery adventure and rather plain. You know, a mysterious woman, albeit overpowered and in need of more overpowered help, almost throwing herself at evil (debatable) albino Elric after he avows he needs nothing, not even a reason to do whatever he wants.

Eternal brooding nightmare of a man, serving chaos though not always being served BY chaos, always/never regretting, tossed by fate, used by his malicious soul-drinking sword, and in a never-ending search for wisdom.

Good. Very good stuff.

In general.

This one reads like what Stephen King will eventually do better in his Dark Tower. Still, interesting to see the seeds. :) ( )