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Submitted by Jordan 
(Jun 06, 2008)

I'm amazed by Michael Moorcock. In my opinion, he is possibly the most creative writer I've had the good fortune to stumble upon. I'm sure some of this stems from the fact that he does not read fantasy himself. Too much fantasy today is recycled from other author's works.

He also writes well-fleshed stories in such an economic fashion (most of his novels are less than 225 pages in length). Somehow, he escapes the trappings of most fantasy authors, pressured by editors to cram their works with filler. Moorcock gets to the point, and still gives just as much beautiful prose and character development as the larger works of fantasy. Basically, you get more for less with Moorcock. Nothing annoys me more than reading a massive thousand page novel which should have been edited down to half of the size.

Another thing which I find particularly interesting about the "Eternal Champion" books is that the "hero" of the book just may be fighting for the side of Chaos - something I've never come across in any other author: the concept that Chaos is not the only force which can ruin the world; that too much of Law can upset the Balance as well.

His characters break out of the stereotypical roles, and his work is not plagued by the predictable happy endings the typify the fantasy genre. One of my favorite characters is Corum, and his story resonates with me particularly for it's tragic conclusion. I found it much easier to care about Corum than probably any other character I've ever read about, and the story rings more true to real life, and is therefore more believable.

Moorcock is an all-around exception writer, and quite prolific. I've personally read over thirty of his novels to date and I can't wait to read more.