New Treasures: A Cure For Cancer by Michael Moorcock
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Titan Books has been doing a marvelous service for modern fantasy fans, as they gradually reprint Michael Moorcock’s back catalog — including some of the most fondly remembered fantasy of the 20th Century. They began with his early steampunk trilogy Nomad of the Time Streams (starting with The Warlord of the Air), and continued with the complete Chronicles of Corum. This year they’ve turned their attention to the Cornelius Quartet, starring the hippest adventurer in fantasy, scientist and rock star Jerry Cornelius.
The first volume, The Final Programme (which we gave away three copies of last month) was published on February 2. Volume Two, A Cure For Cancer, arrived earlier this month. A mirror-image of his former self, Jerry Cornelius returns to a parallel London, armed with a vibragun and his infamous charisma and charm, and hot on the trail of the grotesque Bishop Beesley. Click on the cover above for the complete book description (or just to gawk at the trippin’ cover art).
A Cure For Cancer was published by Titan Books on March 1, 2016. It is 340 pages, priced at $9.95 in paperback and $7.99 for the digital version. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.
I’m a big fan of the Eternal Champion books – Even Kane and Erekose. But I found the Cornelius Chronicles to be unreadable and never finished the first book. My least favorite Moorcock.
I’m a big Moorcock fan and I once tried reading the Cornelius books as well but couldn’t get into them.
I just bought these new editions and I’m going to give them a go. However, if I end up just slogging through the first volume, I probably won’t finish them.
I wonder if they would even be remembered if it wasn’t for the success of Moorcock’s other works. Hopefully I’ll see the merit of what makes these worth being re-published.
The Cornelius quartet are my favorite of the eternal champion books!
I find endless amounts of new material every time I go back to read them. As a quadrilogy, thy are amazing and are very very emblematic of the era. They form a gonzo poem.
Plus without Jerry, there would be no Richard Jeperson, or Luther Arkwright, or JC Chance!
It help that my favorite band played in those books, too 😉
The Cornelius Quartet is Moorcock at his most experimental. I read ‘The Condition of Muzak’ first (and the year it came out – 1977: I was thirteen) which I’d still rate as the strongest in the series. There are some great set-pieces in the books – and this one in particular – but the random cut-and-paste structure might not be for everyone.
I picked up the original Cornelius Chronicles (the whopping red Avon paperback omnibus) back when I was in my first Moorcock phase and read through it at least a couple of times, but am not sure I ever quite figured out what was going on. I do remember some fine individual scenes, though. These days I think I’m more inclined to just kind of admire them in the abstract rather than trying to revisit them.
And I hope that this will be followed with Castle Brass — I think that’s the last major Eternal Champion sequence not currently available digitally.
> And I hope that this will be followed with Castle Brass
That’s a fine suggestion, Joe. I hope you’re right!