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The Vanishing Tower (The Elric Saga #4)
The swashbuckling and fantastic adventures of the moody albino prince -- Elric -- and his soul-drinking runesword, called Storm-bringer. The two are on a quest for The Vanishing Tower, which stands at the nexus of space and time and is a gateway into other dimensions. Elric must conquer the demon that inhabits the tower and tame the soul of his black runesword.This tale an...more
Hardcover, 192 pages
Published
June 28th 1981
by Archival Press
(first published January 1st 1971)
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Getting hard each time to write reviews for these. So much happened in this book that it would be impossible to sum it up properly, so it's easier just to think of what the highlights were for me.
Mostly I was happy to finally see the fabled city of Tanelorn. I loved the idea all along that there was a city that exists in every world and lasts for all time. I was glad it turned out to be more than just a myth.
Not many fantasy novels use the somewhat sci-fi device of alternate realities, but Moor...more
Mostly I was happy to finally see the fabled city of Tanelorn. I loved the idea all along that there was a city that exists in every world and lasts for all time. I was glad it turned out to be more than just a myth.
Not many fantasy novels use the somewhat sci-fi device of alternate realities, but Moor...more
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The Vanishing Tower (Elric 4) &
The Bane of the Black Sword (Elric 5)
both by: Michael Moorcock
I haven’t even finished Bane yet, but I’m confident enough to write the review ahead of time.
Here’s how it goes: Elric is chasing some guy that wronged him a book or two ago, and in the process has various adventures – almost all of which are resolved rather abruptly by one deux ex machina or another. It’s very bizarre. I’m like, “Is there a story here?” Half the time it feels like a loosely padded o...more
The Bane of the Black Sword (Elric 5)
both by: Michael Moorcock
I haven’t even finished Bane yet, but I’m confident enough to write the review ahead of time.
Here’s how it goes: Elric is chasing some guy that wronged him a book or two ago, and in the process has various adventures – almost all of which are resolved rather abruptly by one deux ex machina or another. It’s very bizarre. I’m like, “Is there a story here?” Half the time it feels like a loosely padded o...more
Jun 11, 2012
sologdin
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
ruling-class-protagonist,
speculative
So, three novellas, structurally identical, wherein each the same lame antagonist threatens something that Elric wants preserved simply because he hates the antagonist, who returns from prior installments with new armies (one for each novella here) and new versions of the Fell Sorcery, only to be--surprise!--countered by Elric & Co., when they very luckily accidentally find a useful numinous object or when they very originally and unintuitively invoke the aid of some divine patron or other,...more
Notice: I have made a review for every book of this series and they need to be read in order since they are supposed to feel like an on-going impression. So if you read the second without reading the first will feel rather off.
I am mostly focusing on the style of storytelling and a lot less on if it reads well or something sophisticated like that. For the same reason I tend to have lots of SPOILERS which means that if you read this text you will know THE OVERALL PLOT and how much I DIDN’T like...more
I am mostly focusing on the style of storytelling and a lot less on if it reads well or something sophisticated like that. For the same reason I tend to have lots of SPOILERS which means that if you read this text you will know THE OVERALL PLOT and how much I DIDN’T like...more
You always get the feeling that most of the shorter Eternal Champion novels were written on the run, kind of like Anthony Trollope sitting down for so many hours to write so many pages per day. The Deus ex machina is always too much a part of this sort of Moorcock's sloppier slap-dash fantasy writing.
A pretty good start rambles about in typical Moorcock fashion into various travels, adventures, and perils involving a powerful sorcerer with much fantastical mayhem and swashbuckling. The best thi...more
A pretty good start rambles about in typical Moorcock fashion into various travels, adventures, and perils involving a powerful sorcerer with much fantastical mayhem and swashbuckling. The best thi...more
Again, Moorcock writes three interconnected novellas, that connection being Elric's confrontations with the evil wizard Theleb K'aarna. In the first, Elric consorts with a Goddess of Order. In the next, he is captured in the City of Beggars (an intriguing and original location). And in the third, he meets up with a couple other incarnations of the Eternal Champion to get his hands on a deus ex machina to save his friends. While the Eternal Champion concept is an interesting one, I feel like its...more
Jan 23, 2008
Robert Beveridge
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
finished,
owned-and-gave-away
Michael Moorcock, The Vanishing Tower (DAW, 1970)
Some wag is bound to notice the odd release dates on the DAW definitive editions of the six "classic" Elric novels and ask "what's up?" It only starts making sense when you pair the books with the events therein; Moorcock makes mention of the events in The Vanishing Tower, for example, in The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (q.v.). Those events hadn't yet taken place in Elric's time, as Elric notes in The Sailor on the Seas of Fate; however, they had a...more
Some wag is bound to notice the odd release dates on the DAW definitive editions of the six "classic" Elric novels and ask "what's up?" It only starts making sense when you pair the books with the events therein; Moorcock makes mention of the events in The Vanishing Tower, for example, in The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (q.v.). Those events hadn't yet taken place in Elric's time, as Elric notes in The Sailor on the Seas of Fate; however, they had a...more
La suite des aventures d’Elric. Le format est ici similaire aux tomes précédents : ce sont des collections de nouvelles ayant un fil conducteur commun. Elric tente ici de se venger du sorcier de Pan Tang Theleb Kharna. Il va faire la connaissance d’un personnage-clé de son univers.
Les thèmes abordés sont dans la droite ligne de ce qui fait Elric, et plus généralement l’œuvre de Moorcock. Une profonde angoisse de l’homme face au silence du monde qui l’entoure.
Les thèmes abordés sont dans la droite ligne de ce qui fait Elric, et plus généralement l’œuvre de Moorcock. Une profonde angoisse de l’homme face au silence du monde qui l’entoure.
There are certain places in fiction that seems to have a life of their own, that seem to exist outside of ink and paper, Rick’s Café, Yoknapatawpha County, Lankhmar, The House of the Last Lamp, or Tanelorn where weary heroes go to find peace.
Elric of Melniboné is not the average sword & sorcery hero. He springs from an ancient pre-human race, steeped in black sorcery and evil. Elric is an albino, preternaturally weak except for two things. He is allied with the foulest of all the foul deitie...more
Elric of Melniboné is not the average sword & sorcery hero. He springs from an ancient pre-human race, steeped in black sorcery and evil. Elric is an albino, preternaturally weak except for two things. He is allied with the foulest of all the foul deitie...more
May 16, 2012
Frank Dedge
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
lunch-time-books
The best book so far. The combination of Theleb + Myshella + Nadsokor + Urish + Tanelorn + the Eternal Champions + the Elenoin in one small novel proved irresistible to me. After the deception of the previous book, the Weird of the White Wolf, this one was read in a breeze. Funny though that this novel was actually written the first three as it provides the seed for countless possible adventures.
I ended up enjoying these -- not the _best_ fantasy I've ever read (though, admittedly, I'm more of an SF person), but far from the worst, and Elric's struggles make for a more interesting lead character than most heroes. Someday I'll have to track down the final two books in the series (the used bookstore where I found these only had the first four).
Dec 26, 2011
Kevin
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
sword-and-sorcery
Books 1-3 all involve Theleb K'aarna the sorcerer from Pan Tang and Books 1 and three feature Myshella the Empress of the Dawn or the Dark Lady of Kaneloon. Book 3 is another tale of the Eternal Champion. The Elric Saga gets deeper and some story-lines are tied together.
I love these Elric books, the best stuff Moorcock did. It's genre pulp so don't look for high-mindedness. But a classic anti-hero, whoopin ass with sword and sorcery. I first found these around 13 and they still hold up...at least for my inner 13 year old.
The Vanishing Tower is a continuation of "The Elric Saga" where the wandering albino prince makes the acquaintance of, and adventures with his multiverse brothers, and learns a great deal about his fate, and the fate of his world.
A good example of heroic fantasy. For an extended review, please visit my blog here: http://tesatorul.blogspot.ro/2013/01/....
I definitely enjoy all of the Elric Saga. The older books will appear here as I have time - this is the most recent one I finished, though as usual I haven't completed them all in order.
Sleeping Sorceress is imaginative and emotionally interesting- the protagonist in this story is moody and irrational and does not follow a normal mood progression for a hero, occasionally delving into depths that are fairly dark even for Elric. The imagery and world here are terrific, in fact I'd love to set an r...more
Sleeping Sorceress is imaginative and emotionally interesting- the protagonist in this story is moody and irrational and does not follow a normal mood progression for a hero, occasionally delving into depths that are fairly dark even for Elric. The imagery and world here are terrific, in fact I'd love to set an r...more
Somewhat disappointing on a reread. Mostly filler material. It sort of ties the Chronicles together better, but adds almost nothing to the whole.
I have to say that the writer has talent, but way too dark for me. Although I did finish the book and decided it was worth the reading.
και κάπου ενώνεται με τους υπόλοιπους προμάχους και αφήνει υποψίες και ελπίδες οτι το Έπος συνεχίζεται
Elric's back in another weird fantasy tale.
Elric gets to deal with more schizzle, a woman and his counterparts.
*note to self. Copy from A.
Love this one!
Sep 05, 2007
Tom
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fantasy and Dark fiction fans
Shelves:
fantasy
The fourth book in the Elric saga serves more as an primer to Michael Moorcock's Multiverse and the Eternal Champion yet also moves the plot along towards its inevitable conclusion.
After more mundane adventures, Elric joins other versions of the Eternal Champion to destroy the Vanishing Tower that threatens the entire world.
After more mundane adventures, Elric joins other versions of the Eternal Champion to destroy the Vanishing Tower that threatens the entire world.
The first two story are awesome, the third one a bit pretentious for my taste.
Alter egos, each with a series of thin paperbacks, appear and join forces with Elric, who is falling deeper into existential angst.
Note, this is a variation on the novel also called "The Vanishing Tower."
Still some of the earlier Elric stories and they're quite entertaining.
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Michael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956,...more
More about Michael Moorcock...
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956,...more
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