Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What an impressive "end"! :) Of course, I already know there are a number of books that continue on, but I have to assume they take place before this Final Battle.

The black blade always gets the final laugh. Indeed.

I need to back up. These Elric tales are epic in the purest sense of the word. Forces of Chaos and Law rage across all lands and the multiverse... all time, as well. Elric's sword, Stormbringer, was designed to destroy the gods of Chaos together its twin, a blade of Law. Both are intelligent, drinkers of souls, and bloodthirsty as hell.

Elric straddles the line between both forces, focused on revenge as everything he's ever known or loved dies before him. He's a god-killer.

You know all those epic fantasies we love so much by all the biggest names in fantasy? Robert Jordan, Neil Gaiman, or hell, all of D&D pull from this author's epic ideas. Incarnations of Chaos, elementals, incarnations of Law (order), and Men. So many huge armies live and die, the continents change, the death toll utterly immense. Think about the fourth season of Babylon 5. It's this scope. This immensity.

But realize Elric came out long before all those. This is what Tolkien COULD have been had he gotten out of the minor details of all these lives and not fought for the static continuation of everyone's lives as the greatest good. Moorcock ramped up the stakes to the same level of Melkor versus all the Illuvatar and beyond since the stakes were for all time and all worlds across the multiverse. :)

Just saying... this is some impressive stuff. :)


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