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Michael John Moorcock (born December 18 , 1939 ) is a prolific British writer primarily of Science Fiction and science Fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels. Moorcock's most popular works by far have been the '' Elric '' novels, starring the character Elric of Melniboné, an Anti-hero written as a deliberate reversal of what Moorcock saw as cliches commonly found in fantasy adventure novels inspired by the works of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien , and a direct Antithesis of Robert E. Howard 's Conan . Moorcock became editor of ''Tarzan Adventures'' in 1956 , at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit '' Sexton Blake Library.'' As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine '' New Worlds '', from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the New Wave in the UK and indirectly in the U.S. His serialisation of Norman Spinrad 's '' Bug Jack Barron '' was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council 's funding of the magazine. During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of " James Colvin ," a 'house pseudonym' used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin later appeared in New Worlds. Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials 'JC', and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ , the subject of his 1967 Nebula Award -winning Novella '' Behold The Man ,'' which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a Time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. In his literary novel ''Breakfast in the Ruins,'' the introduction refers to Moorcock's early death, a hoax believed by many readers. WORKS )]] His work is complex and multilayered. Central to many of his fantasy novels is the concept of an "Eternal Champion," who has potentially multiple identities across multiple dimensions. This Cosmogony is called the " Multiverse " within his novels. The "Eternal Champion" is engaged in a constant struggle with not only conventional notions of good and evil, but also in the struggle for balance between Law and Chaos . Thus the criticism of Metanarrative s common in Post-modern Critical Theory finds its expression in a form widely read and understood at a variety of levels. Moorcock's most popular works by far have been the '' Elric '' novels, starring the character Elric of Melniboné. Moorcock wrote the first Elric stories as a deliberate reversal of the clichés common in the fantasy adventure novels inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (work that Moorcock despises) as well as the work of Robert E. Howard . The popularity of Elric has overshadowed his many other works, though he has worked a number of the themes of the Elric stories into his other works (the "Hawkmoon" and "Corum" novels, for example). His Eternal Champion sequence has been collected in two different editions of omnibus volumes comprising fifteen books containing several books per volume, by Victor Gollancz in the UK and by White Wolf Publishing in the US. One of Moorcock's popular creations was Jerry Cornelius (another JC), a kind of hip secret agent of Ambiguous Sexuality ; the same characters featured in each of several Cornelius books. These books were most obviously satirical of modern times, including the Vietnam War, and continue to feature as another variation of the Multiverse theme. The first Jerry Cornelius book, ''The Final Programme'' was made into a feature film. Most of Moorcock's earlier work consisted of short stories and relatively brief novels: he has mentioned that "I could write 15,000 words a day and gave myself three days a volume. That's how, for instance, the Hawkmoon books were written." {Link without Title} Since the 1980s , Moorcock has tended to write longer, more literary 'mainstream' novels, such as ''Mother London'' and ''Byzantium Endures,'' which have had positive reviews, but he continues to revisit characters from his earlier works, like Elric, with books like ''The Dreamthief's Daughter'' or ''The Skrayling Tree.'' With the publication of the third and last book in this series, ''The White Wolf's Son'', he announced that he was 'retiring' from writing heroic fantasy fiction, though he continues to write Elric's adventures as graphic novels with his long-time collaborator Walter Simonson . He has also completed his 'Colonel Pyat' sequence, dealing with the Nazi Holocaust, which began in 1981 with ''Byzantium Endures'', continued through ''The Laughter of Carthage'' (1984) and ''Jerusalem Commands'' (1992), and now culminates with ''The Vengeance of Rome'' (2006). Although Moorcock is mostly known for the books mentioned above, he also wrote several novels and novellas which are set on Earth millions of years in the future, at the End of Time. The strange characters inhabiting this world, '' The Dancers At The End Of Time ,'' may seem weird at first, but Moorcock's language and storytelling manage to capture the reader after some pages. Not really fantasy (or dark fantasy, as his writing style has been called by many), these stories are an example for the mastery with which the author handles science fiction, fantasy and classical fiction. His novel '' Gloriana, Or The Unfulfill'd Queen ,'' while set in an alternate Earth history, is not strictly a fantasy but nevertheless won the John W. Campbell Award in 1978 and the World Fantasy Award in 1979. The novella ''Behold the Man'' received the 1967 Nebula Award, and both ''The Sword and the Stallion'' and ''The Hollow Lands'' won the British Fantasy Award (also known as the August Derleth Award). Moorcock received The Guardian Fiction Prize for ''The Condition of Muzak,'' the last volume in the first Jerry Cornelius sequence, in 1977. He was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, the Prix Utopiales, in Nantes, France, in 2004. Moorcock is prone to revising his existing work, with the result that different editions of a given book may contain significant variations. The changes range from simple re-titlings (''e.g.'', the Elric story ''The Flame Bringers'' becoming ''The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams'' in the 1990s Gollancz / White Wolf omnibus editions) to character name changes (''e.g.'', scout leader "Egan" becoming "Reagan" in the omnibus edition of ''The War Lord of the Air''), major textual alterations (''e.g.'', the addition of several new chapters to ''The Steel Tsar'' in the omnibus editions), and even complete re-structurings (''e.g.'', the seminal 1966 novella ''Behold the Man'' being expanded to full novel length for republication in 1969). MUSICAL INTERESTS He has also collaborated with the British rock band " was largely based on the Elric novels. Moorcock appear on stage with the band occasionally during the Black Sword tour. His contribution were removed from the original release of the "Live Chronicles" album, recorded on this tour, due to legal reasons but has subsequently appeared on some double CD versions. Moorcock also collaborated with former Hawkwind frontman and resident poet, Robert Calvert (who gave the chilling declamation of "Sonic Attack"), on Calvert's albums ''Lucky Leif and the Longships'' and ''Hype,'' An album ''The New Worlds Fair'' by "Michael Moorcock and the Deep Fix" was released in 1975 , which included a number of Hawkwind regulars in the credits. A second version of the album "Roller Coaster Holiday" was issued in 2004 . ("The Deep Fix" was the title story of an obscure collection of short stories by "James Colvin" published in the 1960s ). Moorcock wrote the lyrics to three album tracks by the American band , referring to the sword Stormbringer in the Elric books, '' Veteran Of The Psychic Wars '' showing us Elric's emotions at a critical point of his story (this song may also refer to the "Warriors at the Edge of Time," which figure heavily in Moorcock's novels about John Daker; at one point his novel "The Dragon in the Sword" they call themselves the "veterans of a thousand psychic wars"), and ''The Great Sun Jester'' , about his friend, the poet Bill Butler, who died of a drug overdose. Moorcock has even performed live with BÖC (in 1987 at the Atlanta, GA Dragon Con Convention) and Hawkwind. VIEWS ON OTHER WRITERS Moorcock is a fervent supporter of the works of Mervyn Peake , and an almost equally fervent detractor of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien . He met both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis in his teens, and claims to have liked them personally even though he does not admire them on artistic grounds. Moorcock criticises works like '' The Lord Of The Rings '' for their Merry England point of view, famously equating Tolkien's trilogy to '' Winnie-the-Pooh '' in his essay " Epic Pooh ." {Link without Title} He cites as an example of an author who writes fantasy that is not escapist and contains meaningful themes, Fritz Leiber , one of the pioneers of sword and sorcery fiction. These views can be found in his study of Epic Fantasy '' Wizardry & Wild Romance ,'' which was revised and reissued by MonkeyBrain Books in 2004 . Likewise, Moorcock has criticized writers who he perceives as having hidden Political agendas. Among his targets are Robert A. Heinlein and H.P. Lovecraft , both of whom he attacked in a 1978 essay. In this essay (caustically entitled "Starship Stormtroopers"), he compared Heinlein's '' Starship Troopers ,'' to '' Mein Kampf ,'' calling it " Xenophobic ." Likewise, he attacked Lovecraft for having Anti-semitic , Misogynistic and extremely Racist viewpoints, which he included in his short stories. However, other have pointed out that Moorcock himself also has hidden, if rather vaguely expressed, Anarcho-socialist political agendas in his own novels - for example, sympathethically portrayed monarchs in Moorcock's works frequently abdicate or impose exile upon themselves (eg. Elric). SHARING FICTIONAL UNIVERSES WITH OTHERS Moorcock has allowed a number of other writers to create stories in his fictional Jerry Cornelius universe. Brian Aldiss , M. John Harrison , Norman Spinrad and James Sallis , among others, have written such stories. In an interview published in '' The Internet Review Of Science Fiction ,'' Moorcock explains the reason for sharing his character: :I came out of popular fiction and Jerry was always meant to be a sort of crystal ball for others to see their own visions in — the stories were designed to work like that — a diving board, to use another analogy, from which to jump into the river and be carried along by it. All of these have tended to use Jerry the way I intended to use him — as a way of seeing modern life and sometimes as a way of commenting on it. Jerry, as Harrison said, was as much a method as a character and I'm glad that others have taken to using that method. [http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10115 He is also a friend and fan of Comics writer Alan Moore , and allowed Moore the use of several of his own Copyright characters in Moore's '' The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen ''. In 2000 , Moorcock wrote a 50,000 word outline for a computer game, which was then improved upon and fleshed out by Storm Constantine , resulting in the novel, ''Silverheart''. The story is set in Karadur-Shriltasi, a city at the heart of the Multiverse . BIOGRAPHICAL Moorcock was a member of the Swordsmen And Sorcerers' Guild Of America (SAGA) , a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's '' Flashing Swords! '' anthologies. In 1997 , Moorcock was one of the guests of honor at the Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas and as Guest of Honour at the World Fantasy Convention in Corpus Christi, Texas (2000) received a 'Howie' World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2002 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall Of Fame . In the 1990s , Moorcock moved to Texas in the United States . In 2004 , he announced plans to move back to Europe , probably eventually settling in France and Spain . SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
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