The Sword and the Stallion (Eternal Champion: Corum #6) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Sword and the Stallion
Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #6
Author: Michael Moorcock
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 122
Words: 43K

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Depressing as all get out. Corum almost dooms humanity and wastes months of time and then the love of his new life, Queen Medbh, is the instrument of his death. He has a nice shiny white sword named Traitor, that while not exactly the same of Elric’s Stormbringer, has many of the same properties, including lending strength to the user while it kills. And of course it lives up to it’s name, just like Stormbringer did for Elric.

 
Overall, this felt like Moorcock let things run out with a whimper. The Corum in this story does not feel like the Corum from the previous books. Corum from the Coming of Chaos trilogy was one consistent character. In this Prince of the Silver Hand trilogy it felt like the adventure determined what the character, who just happened to be named Corum, would be like. Really could have replaced Corum with any random Adventurer and it would have probably felt better. I can’t pin down exactly what made things feel this way, but it just hit me enough in all 3 books that I needed to mention it.

I mentioned in The Oak and the Ram that I thought this would be the last time I ever read the Eternal Champion stories. This book made that a surety and it convinced me not to try the Hawkmoon books either, not the original Hawkmoon series nor the sequel Castle Brass trilogy. So thanks for all the good memories, author, but I’ve outgrown you. Don’t feel bad because you’re not a Dickens or an Austen or even a Rex Stout, not many authors are after all.

★★★✬☆

On a side note, in one of my previous reviews, someone showcased a very psychedelic cover for the book. I tracked down all three of them and wanted to include them in this review. They are far out man, and you’ll be well served to remember that we used to have covers like this on a regular basis. I leave it up to you to decide if the passing of such things is good or bad.

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From Bookstooge.blog

Corum, with his human allies and the two remaining Siddhi allies, are on the eve of attacking the remaining Frost gods and to save the world for humanity. Corum hears about some allies on a magical island and along with one of the siddhi, goes there to attempt an alliance. Unfortunately, they are not very good allies and thus Corum and the siddhi miss the battle. The wizard Calatin creates a double of Corum and allies it with the frost gods, making Corum’s friends think he has turned traitor. Corum kills Calatin and does make an alliance with the Island Inhabitants. Unfortunately, humanity is on the verge of being wiped out and Corum is met with distrust upon his return. Thankfully, he persuades humanity to accept him and his new allies and the frost gods are either killed or returned to Limbo. The magician of the humans takes a magic artifact and helps the Island Inhabitants to return to their original plane of existence. Corum is offered a chance to end the cycle of death and rebirth as the Eternal Champion and live in a land of peace and happiness forever. He turns it down because he wants to be with Medbh, the queen of the humans. She attempts to kill him with a slingstone made from the brains of the evil duplicate and Corum’s new sword (a white counterpoint to Elric’s, appropriately named Traitor) and his silver hand deliver the coupe de grace. Corum dies and the cycle continues. The End.

• Corum: The Prince with the Silver Hand trilogy (2000 “Review”)

• All of My “Corum” Reviews

The Oak and the Ram (Eternal Champion: Corum #5) 4Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Oak and the Ram
Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #5
Author: Michael Moorcock
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 118
Words: 42K

Corum ends up helping to kill another of the Cold Gods, those beings stranded on his world from the Void.

This was much less mopey than the previous volume. Corum needs stimulation in his life to keep from settling into despair and running around trying to save the humans does the trick. In many ways, it seems humanity has given up. They don’t even try to survive. If it weren’t for Corum and his drive to fight, to overcome, to conquer the adverse circumstances before him, I don’t see what chance the world itself had. Thankfully, Corum is there and he does fight and he gives humanity a little breathing room.

I enjoyed this but at the same time I could feel that this is probably the last time I will be re-reading this particular book by Moorcock and once I finish the next and final Corum book, I will be done with the Eternal Champion mythos altogether. I am at a point in my life where reading about other peoples’ misery does not engender a feeling of “thank goodness I don’t have to experience that!” but instead it is like an ache of commiseration. Pain and anguish are too real to be enjoyed vicariously. Especially by someone of my temperament.

★★★★☆

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From the publisher

The seasons have turned from spring to summer across the quiet earth - yet the Fhoi Myore were hiding in mist, awaiting their chance to unleash their icy realm of death. To defeat the Cold Gods, Corum of the Silver Hand must restore the High King's power with legendary treasures - the Golden Oak and the Silver Ram - lost talismans that wield miraculous forces unknown to Corum...

• Corum: The Coming of Chaos Trilogy (2000 “Review”)

• All of My “Corum” Reviews

The Bull and the Spear (Eternal Champion: Corum #4) 4Stars

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Bull and the Spear
Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #4
Author: Michael Moorcock
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 128
Words: 46K

Corum survived the god wars. But now he is alone, as he outlived his wife and all the humans who he knew. There are no more adventures and Corum is bored, depressed and acting like a spoiled, selfish brat. Then he gets some weird visions, Jary-a-conel comes back and zippy-de-da, Corum travels to the future where humanity is on the edge of being wiped out by creatures from Limbo. Corum falls in love with yet another human princess and goes on another adventure to find a mythical spear which controls a mythical bull that can somehow defeat the limbo creatures even though it didn’t before.

Yeah, not loving this book as much as the previous ones. Corum comes across more like a boorish angsty teenager in this book instead of a melancholic lone survivor as in the previous books. It really lessened the tension of the following adventure.

It was a decent adventure and I really enjoyed that part. It was just overshadowed by the moodiness. It felt much more like Elric and his brand of emotion than Corum’s normal cool aloofness. Plus, having the creatures of Limbo coming into the world made them completely unlike the previous war between Chaos and Law. These creatures were more creatures of instinct than beings of malicious intent, which almost made it worse, because the normal way one would fight a reasoning, rational being have to all be thrown out the window. So that aspect really was fun.

I was going to use the omnibus edition cover for each of the books in this second Corum trilogy, but was able to track down these Berkley covers from the massmarket paperback from the mid-80’s. They match the previous covers in style and tone and I like that. Just a little thing, but little things matter.

★★★★☆

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From the publisher

In the ancient Castle Erorn, Corum of the Scarlet Robe dwells in isolation and sorrow. He has out-lived his great love, Rhalina, and is tormented by voices in his dreams—a crowd of shadowy figures chanting his name. Unable to ignore their calls for help any longer, he will travel through eons of time to an age of tragedy, where the people of Tuha-na-Cremm Croich, descendants of Rhalina, are persecuted by the giant gods of the Cold Folk.

A great black bull has the power needed to defeat the monsters of a new age. But to tame the bull, the Eternal Champion must travel to the fatally beautiful island of Hy-Breasail to find the invincible and magical Spear Bryionak...

• Corum: The Prince with the Silver Hand Trilogy (2000 “Review”)
• All of My “Corum” Reviews

The King of the Swords (Eternal Champion: Corum #3) 4Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The King of the Swords
Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #3
Author: Michael Moorcock
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 127
Words: 45K

While I still enjoyed this, I did not find the story as engaging as the previous two. Part of that was just how weak the gods of Law are. They control 10 of the 15 planes of existence and yet the single god of Chaos is more powerful alone then all of the gods of Law combined. They came across as weak and effete. So when I found out at the end that Kwll and his brother Rhynn had killed ALL the gods, both of Chaos and Law, I didn’t shed a tear. It did make me wonder what that meant for the Cosmic Balance, as Kwll seemed to go out of his way to emphasize how he and Rhynn didn’t believe in the Cosmic Balance and thus weren’t under control by the rules of it.

That kind of philosophizing permeated this book much more than in the previous two. Corum gets to meet Elric and Erekose (other incarnations of the Eternal Champion. Erekose is the only one who remembers every incarnation though and maaaaan, is he a whiny pants cry baby) and Moorcock waxes on (yes Mr Miyagi!) about the nature of reality, blah, blah, blah. I think the ideas here are great for teens and young adults to be exposed to, because thinking about the nature of reality is important. People are ignoring biological facts today, which is reality, and are reaping the consequences by going insane.

We do get to see Corum go whizzing around in one of the flying boats and boy howdy, does he go all over the place. He travels his own world, he travels to other planes of existence and has adventures. He even goes to Limbo. I would say this ends happily with him and Rhalina being at peace, but knowing there is another trilogy to come means Corum is going to get boned somehow. Eternal Champions are Eternally Unhappy.

Why Moorcock chose that line of reasoning is still a mystery to me. Maybe it was pure marketing? When you’re writing for the teen and YA crowd, tortured anguished heros usually sell better. I’d like to believe that he had better reasons than that but I don’t care enough to find out. I don’t even know if there are any biographies on the man. He is just a name on the cover to me and I suspect it will be better for me and everyone, if he stays that way.

★★★★☆

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From Wikipedia.com

A spell - determined to have been cast by the forces of Chaos - forces the inhabitants of Corum's plane to war with each other (including the City in the Pyramid). Desperate to stop the slaughter, Corum, Rhalina and Jhary-a-Conel travel to the last five planes, ruled by Mabelode, the King of the Swords. Rhalina is taken hostage by the forces of Chaos and Corum has several encounters with the forces of Chaos, including Earl Glandyth-a-Krae.

Corum also meets two other aspects of the Eternal Champion: Elric and Erekosë, with all three seeking the mystical city of Tanelorn for their own purposes. After a brief adventure in the "Vanishing Tower", the other heroes depart and Corum and Jhary arrive at their version of Tanelorn. Corum discovers one of the "Lost Gods", the being Kwll, who is imprisoned and cannot be freed until whole. Corum offers Kwll his hand, on the condition that he aid them against Mabelode. Kwll accepts the terms, but reneges on the bargain until persuaded to assist. Corum is also stripped of his artificial eye, which belongs to Rhynn - actually the mysterious giant Corum had previously encountered. Kwll transports Corum and Jhary to the court of Mabelode, with the pair fleeing with Rhalina when Kwll directly challenges the Chaos God.

In a final battle Corum avenged his family by killing Glandyth-a-Krae and decimating the last of Chaos' mortal forces. Kwll later located Corum and revealed that all the gods - of both Chaos and Law - have been slain in order to free humanity and allow it to shape its own destiny.

• Corum: The Coming of Chaos Trilogy (2000 “Review”)

The Queen of the Swords (Eternal Champion: Corum #2) ★★★★★

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Queen of the Swords
Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #2
Author: Michael Moorcock
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 123
Words: 44K

From Wikipedia.com

On another five planes, the forces of Chaos - led by Xiombarg, Queen of the Swords - reign supreme and are on the verge on eradicating the last resistance from the forces of Law. The avatars of the Bear and Dog gods plot with Earl Glandyth-a-Krae to murder Corum and return Arioch to the Fifteen Planes. Guided by Arkyn, Corum, Rhalina and companion Jhary-a-Conel cross the planes and encounter the King Without A Country, the last of his people who in turn is seeking the City in the Pyramid. The group locate the City, which is in fact a floating arsenal powered by advanced technology and inhabited by a people originally from Corum's world and his distant kin.

Besieged by the forces of Chaos, the City requires certain rare minerals to continue to power their weapons. Corum and Jhary attempt to locate the minerals and also encounter Xiombarg, who learns of Corum's identity. Corum slows Xiombarg's forces by defeating their leader, Prince Gaynor the Damned. Xiombarg is goaded into attacking the City directly in revenge for Arioch's banishment. Arkyn provides the minerals and confronts Xiombarg, who has manifested in a vulnerable state. As Arkyn banishes Xiombarg, Corum and his allies devastate the forces of Chaos. Glandyth-a-Krae, however, escapes and seeks revenge.

Alternate Synopsis

In the planes over which she rules, Xiombarg—a Greater God and one of the Lords of Chaos, known as the "Queen of the Swords"—is winning the battle against the humanoid inhabitants. She continues the fight in Corum's plane, sending Prince Gaynor the Damned to direct the barbarian armies.

Corum, with Jhary-a-Conel and Rhalina, crosses the planes and find a world claimed by Chaos with plains of dried blood and other outlandish geography. They meet the King Without A Country, the last of his people who is seeking the City in the Pyramid. They find the city which turns out to be a floating one that originated in Corums own world - and the inhabitants are his kin. The city is under intermittent attack and for the moment its superior technology defends it. It could return to Corum's world but needs special minerals to provide sufficient energy. They are able to send Corum and his companions back to seek the minerals in his own world. There he finds the last human city under threat from a monstrous army of barbarians and chaos allies. He seeks out Gaynor and defeats him in single combat. With Gaynor banished the barbarian armies are largely leaderless but still a terrible threat. Arkyn, a lord of law, supplies the materials needed and they are sent back to Xiombarg's worlds. At the same time the barbarian armies crash against the last city standing. At the last moment the Sky city comes between the planes to help the defenders. Driven by anger Xiombarg follows the Floating city through the rift between the planes. This is in violation of the Cosmic Balance and the balance sends her back and restores Donblas, Arkyn's brother lord of law. The sky ships of the City destroy the barbarian armies with their wondrous weapons.

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In many ways, I think the success of this book is because of its contrast with the Elric books. Elric is also an aspect of the Eternal Champion, but he is fighting on the side of Chaos. In fact, his patron is Arioch, the Prince of Swords, whom Corum killed in the previous book. Corum is fighting for Law but there are several times where he and Elric team up together as a greater aspect of the Eternal Champion, thus they are on the same side. That dichotomy is fun to read about but Moorcock doesn’t make it a point here, you have to have read his other stories for it to actually be seen.

The other fun thing is seeing how each eternal warrior views the other side. In Elric, he at one point goes to a world completely governed by Law. It is presented as a dead and static world with nothing alive, just monuments that last forever. In this book, Corum goes to a world completely run by Chaos and it is simply random destruction and presented as untenable for a stable mind. In both worlds, in both stories, each respective Lord of Chaos/Law lectures their Champion about the dangers of untrammeled Other. Chaos warns Elric of Law freezing the universe into a static perfection and Arkyn warns Corum about the entropy of Chaos which will lead to ultimate destruction.

This is also where the Companion is introduced. The Eternal Champion usually has a companion to help him and said companion is as eternal as the Champion. But where the Champion doesn’t remember his other aspects, the Companion sometimes does and this allows him to be of great use. But his end is usually as sad as the Champions. Jhary-a-Conel is as much a plot device as a real character but is nonetheless integral to the story. In many ways, he’s more fleshed out than Corum’s human love interest, but once you start reading more Eternal Warrior stories and see what happens to the Companion, you also realize what a completely melancholic character he has to be. So there’s almost no point in fleshing him out because you know he’s going to disappear into the next realm at some point (the best scenario) or he’s going to die horribly and be reincarnated again. Poor guy.

This is just as good this time as the previous time I read these. I think Corum really is one of Moorcock’s best creations and I sure hope the rest of the series holds up as well.

★★★★★

• Corum: The Coming of Chaos Trilogy (2000 “Review”)

The Knight of the Swords (Eternal Champion: Corum #1) ★★★★★

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Knight of the Swords
Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #1
Author: Michael Moorcock
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 147
Words: 52K

From Wikipedia.org/The_Swords_Trilogy

The Knight of the Swords is the first appearance of Corum, last survivor of the Vadhagh race. After his family is butchered by a group of Mabden (men) led by the savage Earl Glandyth-a-Krae, Corum tries to take revenge, but is captured instead; his hand is cut off and his eye put out before he escapes. He goes to Moidel's Castle, where he is taken in by a very different sort of Mabden, the Margravine Rhalina. Corum and Rhalina fall in love, but their romance is interrupted when Glandyth leads an assault on the castle. Rhalina uses sorcery (which Corum had never believed in) to summon a ship of the dead which drives off the barbarians. However the bargain required means that she must go with the ship's captain. Corum joins them and the ship takes them to the island of Shool, a near immortal and mad sorcerer who takes Rhalina hostage.

Shool trades Corum two artifacts to replace his lost hand and eye, the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn. The Eye allows Corum to see into an undead netherworld; the Hand serves to summon the last beings killed by Corum, to fight for him. Shool explains that Corum's ill fortune has been caused by a Greater God, Arioch, one of the Sword Rulers. When Arioch and his fellow Chaos Lords conquered the Fifteen Planes, the balance between the forces of Law and Chaos tipped in favor of Chaos. Corum is sent to steal the Heart of Arioch, which will give the sorcerer power to become a great god himself. After an adventurous journey which teaches him more about the metaphysics of Chaos, Corum reaches Arioch's palace. There he finds the Heart, at which point Shool's unknowing role as an agent of Arioch is revealed. The Hand of Kwll crushes the heart, killing Arioch. Corum returns to the island to rescue Rhalina. As it turns out, Shool's powers were entirely of Arioch's gift, so he can no longer threaten Rhalina or Corum. The couple return to their home on Moidel's Mount.

It has been 23 years since I last read the Corum books by Moorcock. I have always meant to re-read them much sooner, but it always seemed that something else was pushing to the front of the line. Once again, they were a staple of my highschool and college days. Back then I read all 6 books in 2 collected omnibuses entitled Corum: The Coming of Chaos and Corum: The Prince with the Silver Hand. This time around I wanted to make sure to read each individual story so there would be as little blurring in my mind as possible.

This was great. The Vadhagh, the race that Corum belongs to, is very unlike the Melniboneans (of which the Eternal Champion aspect of Elric is a member) and thus their destruction was sad and melancholic instead of fiercely just. It makes Corum a much nicer protagonist and makes his fears and desires that much more relatable.

Having read this before, and several of the other Eternal Champion aspect series, I was familiar with the whole Cosmic Balance that Moorcock hangs everything on. Corum isn’t so much a rogue agent trying to do his own thing but is an unwitting agent of Law because he hates what Chaos has done (killed off his entire race!). As such, his adventures feel very much like he is a ball being batted back and forth without trying to forge his own path. While it can make the read feel a bit unsettling, it is also rather a comforting feeling because you know that Corum is as much along for the ride as the reader is.

My only quibble is the romance side of things. Corum has gone on for hundreds of years (I can’t remember if it ever says how old he is, but his father was close to 1000 when he was killed at the book’s beginning) without being interested in romance with another Vadhagh but suddenly, he’s shacking it up and risking his life for a human woman? It wasn’t that it rang false so much as it just felt very quick. Of course, in a story that is under 150, that is kind of to be expected I guess. Which is why it is only a quibble and not a real issue :-D

But for a sword and sorcery, it gave me everything I wanted. Corum gets his eye plucked out and his hand cut off. And then gets mystical items to replace them. Which allows him to call forth those he has killed from a kind of hell to fight on his behalf. He’s not a great swordsman OR magician, which ties into the idea of him being batted around. But as a reader we get our fill.

I am already looking forward to Corum’s next adventure as he battles the Queen of the Swords.

★★★★★

• Corum: The Coming of Chaos Trilogy (2000 “Review”)