The Dreamthief's Daughter: A Tale of the Albino

Amazon editorial review Elric, the albino sorcerer, last prince of the inhuman empire of Melnibone, was the creation of Michael Moorcock's adventurous pot-boiling inventive youth, just as the vonBek family featured in the heroic fantasies of his more thoughtful middle-life. Yet, in the elaborate fictional cosmos Moorcock has created, Elric and the various vonBeks are all aspects of the Eternal Champion who fights for the Balance which prevents both Law and Chaos from dominating the universe and trapping it in either barren sterility or pointless fecundity. In The Dreamthief's Daughter, he brings together Elric and Ulric vonBek, last scion of the family, and we finally learn the sin for which the perpetual villain Gaynor the Damned was doomed; Nazi occultists are searching for the Grail and the Black Sword, and must be prevented from attaining them. Ulric seeks allies wherever he can find them, including Oona, who wanders through dream realities and with whom he falls in love. This is fast-moving phantasmagorical stuff with ambiguously virtuous heroes and baddies whose villainy and charm is total. Moorcock's immensely powerful visual imagination and sense of the innate drama of crucial scenes make this a breathtaking read. --Roz Kaveney

also by Michael Moorcock in our collection:

• Stormbringer : Elric
• Alien Heat
• Black Corridor
• Blood
• Blood Red Game
• Breakfast in the Ruins
• Brothel in Rosenstrasse
• The Bull and the Spear
• Byzantium Endures (Flamingo S)
• Casablanca
• The Champion of Garathorm (The Chronicles of Castle Brass)
• Chinese Agent
• The City in the Autumn Stars
• Cornelius Chronicles/Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century/the Alchemist's Question: 003
• The Cornelius Chronicles: "English Assassin" and "Condition of Muzak" Bk. 2
• The Cornelius Quartet: The Final Program, a Cure for Cancer, the English Assassin, and the Condition of Muzak
• Corum: "Knight of the Swords", "Queen of the Swords", "King of the Swords" (Tale of the Eternal Champion S.)
• Count Brass (Eternal Champion S.)
• A Cure for Cancer
• Dragon in the Sword
• Elric at the End of Time
• Elric of Melnibone (The Tale of the Eternal Champion)
• The End of All Songs: The Dancers at the End of Time Book III
• The Entropy Tango
• The Eternal Champion (Tale of the Eternal Champion S.)
• Fabulous Harbours
• Final Programme
• The Fortress of the Pearl
• Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen (Fantasy Masterworks S.)
• The Golden Barge
• The History of the Runestaff: "The Jewel in the Skull", "The Mad God's Amulet", "The Sword of the Dawn", "The Runestaff" (Fantasy Masterworks S.)
• The Hollow Lands (Dancers at the End of Time, Book 2)
• The Jewel in the Skull
• King of the City
• King of the Swords
• Knight of the Swords
• The Land Leviathan (The Oswald Bastable Series)
• The Laughter of Carthage (Flamingo S.)
• Legends from the End of Time
• Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius
• London Bone
• The Mad God's Amulet (History of the Runestaff)
• Mother London
• The New Nature of the Catastrophe (Tale of the Eternal Champion S.)
• The Oak and the Ram (The Book of Corum)
• Opium General
• Phoenix in Obsidian (Mayflower Science Fantasy)
• Quest for Tanelorn
• The Russian Intelligence
• Sailor on the Seas of Fate
• Shores of Death
• Silverheart (A Novel of the Multiverse)
• Singing Citadel
• Sleeping Sorceress
• Stealer of Souls
• The Steel Tsar (The Oswald Bastable Series)
• The Sword and the Stallion (The Sixth Book of Corum)
• The Sword of the Dawn (History of the Runestaff)
• Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming
• Von Bek: "Warhound and the World's Pain", "City in the Autumn Stars", "Pleasure Gardens of Felipe Sagittarius" (Tale of the Eternal Champion S.)
• The War Amongst the Angels
• War Hound and the World's Pain
• Warlord of the Air (The Oswald Bastable Series)
• The Winds of Limbo (Roc S.)
• Wizardry and Wild Romance