Moorcock Mondays: The Stealer of Souls

Stormbringer RPG supplement

We just finished The Stealer of Souls this past weekend. The title was the first Elric "novel" that Michael Moorcock published. It's a fix-up of the first several Elric stories he wrote. The book begins with Elric mobilizing the fleets of his allies, the merchant princes of the Isle of the Purple Towns, to sack the home of his forefathers: the Melnibonean city of Imrryr. The first story ends with Imrryr's destruction in flames. And the destruction of the raiders' fleet, thanks to Melnibonean dragons.

I read the first Jerry Cornelius novel earlier this year, so I understand exactly what Alan Moore meant in his essay, "The Return of the White Duke", when he points out that both sequences begin with the hero (Elric or Jerry) setting out to burn his father's home to the ground, AND rescue an imprisoned female kinswoman. In both cases also, it is a servant who opens a back door to allow the hero ingress to carry out his plan.

For Alan Moore, this is one sign that Elric has a presence, even within many of Moorcock's more literary and experimental traces. There's lipstick traces of Elric everywhere.