Mini-Reviews 1: Simak & Moorcock

Two brief reviews this month: one lukewarm, and one hearty recommendation.

The Werewolf Principle (Clifford D. Simak, 1967)

I really thought I was going to like this one. Simak comes highly recommended, and the premise (as described by some Wikipedia editor) sounded fantastic:

An astronaut returns to Earth with two different creatures trapped inside him, so in times of stress morphs into either a "werewolf" or an impregnable pyramid.

“Man who is a werewolf and also a werepyramid” is one of those things I never knew I needed in my life until I heard about it. And when I started the book it seemed like it was going to be full of stuff that I love: psychedelic sci-fi, Freudian pop-psychology, monstrous transformations.

In the end, though, it turned out to be just boring, not even bad in a fun way (hence why this is a mini review and not a full post). The central question, e.g. “Why is this amnesiac randomly turning into a werewolf and also a sentient pyramid?" gets answered very abruptly about 1/3 of the way through the book. And it's a pretty good answer! But it sucks all the momentum out of the story from that point forward. I already got what I wanted, why am I still hanging around?

The other problem is that Simak just doesn't seem interested in what I would consider the fun parts of the premise. Case in point: in his werewolf-form, the hero can instinctively pick up psychic signals from alien civilisations across the universe. And there's a really tantalising page where we get impressions of all these aliens, who range from 2001-style monoliths to sentient fungi to space-dwelling fishers of the cosmic void. Cool! But that's literally just one page. Most of the book is filled instead with vague, noodly discussions about the role of technological progress in society.

There is also a lot of what I think of as “consumer catalogue sci-fi”, where the worldbuilding amounts to a series of predictions about new technological products. In the future your house will talk to you, your car will fly, your kitchen will have an automatic nozzle that spits out your breakfast, etc. Some of these predictions are even accurate: for instance, the protagonist's house is powered by solar panels on the roof. But being accurate doesn't actually make them interesting to read, especially when there's zero thought about the social and cultural implications of these technologies. (The house has a fully functional AI and Holodeck-style immersive television, yet the characters still get their news from a newspaper that's printed out of a fax machine each morning.)

Overall, this novel seems perched awkwardly between the older, technologically focused sci-fi of the 1950s, and the New Wave style that emerged in the late 60s. I could say that it fails because it falls between these two camps. But really, I just don't like the 50s style and I do like the New Wave style, so I like this novel precisely as much as it leans into the latter style… which is not very.

Speaking of New Wave:

The Corum Novels (Michael Moorcock, 1971)

So there's a thing that happens online in fantasy-reading spaces, where one person will criticise some bland, generic fantasy novel from the past few years—typically YA or progression fantasy—and then they'll get a reply like this: “Stop overanalysing it. It's just dumb fun.”

And I'll want to shout, “No! These books aren't dumb fun! They're bloated, slow-paced and actively unpleasant to read!” The reason I'm like this is because I've read the actual pinnacle of dumb fun fantasy: the Corum novels.

The series follows the adventures of Corum Jhaelen Irsei, who is the last survivor of the immortal Vadhagh (elves, basically). Corum's long youth is brought to an end when his family is slaughtered by the invading Mabden (humans), who also cut out Corum’s eye and chop off his hand. So begins a quest for vengeance that eventually leads Corum to replace his lost body parts with powerful new transplants: the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll. But the powers of the Eye and Hand come with their own price, which ultimately entangles Corum in a vast cosmic conflict between the forces of Law and Chaos.

Even from this brief summary you can see there is a lovely sense of causality in the plotting of these novels. Every plot beat contains the seeds of the one that follows it. Every solution leads to another problem.

The result is some of the most finely-paced, compulsive pulp novels I have ever read. These books are slim, but packed with energy. They feel like what you'd get if you took a 500-page epic fantasy and ran it through a dehydrator; cooking off all the excess bloat, until only the most vivid images and the most perfect set pieces remain.

Aside from their velocity, what sets these novels apart from other pulp fantasy is their existential outlook. Although the series has no shortage of heroes and villains, Moorcock sets them against a backdrop of impersonal, cosmic forces. Law and Chaos only very loosely align with human conceptions of good and evil. And there is a recurring theme of Corum struggling to define his own morality within the ever-narrowing strictures of his fate.

This gives the series a certain sense of mythic grandeur. But make no mistake, these novels are dumb fun. You can’t take them too seriously. There are multiple villains who speak in ALL CAPS DIALOGUE. The third book has a chapter called “The Castle Built From Blood”. (It is about a castle that is built from blood.)

Of the trilogy, the first book (The Knight of the Swords, 1971) is the best and most tightly structured. The opening sequence, leading from Corum’s mutilation to his fateful restoration, is pitch-perfect. And the second half is a wild journey through a series of psychedelic landscapes, each chapter like a jewel on a multicoloured string.

The second novel (The Queen of the Swords, still 1971) offers more of the same, in a good way. The stakes are higher, the scope is larger. Corum gets a cool flying ship. Then the third book… goes a little overboard.

You might already know that many of Moorcock’s novels are tied together in a long meta-series called The Eternal Champion. The idea is that Corum, Elric, and various other characters are all incarnations of a single archetypal hero. But in The King of the Swords (1971, yes all three novels were published in 1971), some time travel shenanigans allow three of these heroes to team up, in possibly the first ever multiversal crossover event.

It would be nice to write here something like: these modern Marvel movies are such garbage, back in the day Moorcock knew how to do a crossover right. But honestly, this book suffers from all the same issues that make the Marvel multiverse movies so annoying. The three heroes are constantly bickering over the spotlight. They don't fit together thematically. And the appearance of the two co-stars never goes deeper than the fan-service level of “Hey, you recognise this guy, don't you?”

Despite these shortcomings, the trilogy ends on a very satisfying note, with a final twist (on the second-to-last page, no less) that puts a cap on the series' existential themes. But I shan’t spoil that for you.

Availability: The Werewolf Principle and the Corum novels are all available as ebooks.

Lastly, a brief word on how my own novel is going: really well! House of the Rain King has gotten a great response from readers. Someone called it a "tremendous first novel". Someone else wrote me to say they had stayed up till 3am to finish it. The D&D blog Throne of Salt just posted a lovely review of it.

Just eyeballing the sales numbers, I have a feeling that a large chunk of Paperback Picnic subscribers have already purchased the book. So I won't spend too much more time plugging it here. I do want to write a post or two about the classic novels that inspired it, particularly Gormenghast and The Tombs of Atuan. So keep an eye out for that soon-ish.