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Eternal Champion #8
Sailing to Utopia
THE ETERNAL CHAMPION - doomed to live forever in a thousand incarnations, eternally travelling the wayward currents and nameless brances of a chaotic multiverse.
This eighth volume in Michael Moorcock's acclaimed Eternal Champion series, newly revised for it's U.S. publication (and including the first ever North American publication of THE DISTANT SUNS), follows the adventures of Arflane, Ulrica, Ryan, Max Von Bek and the first cyberpunk hero, Jerry Cornelius, as they hurtle over frozen oceans, plunge into timestreams, flee into space, and unravel a stellar mystery.
463 pages, Paperback
First published December 12, 1991
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460 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,206 books3,706 followersMichael 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, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 19, 2023
The first of the White Wolf editions I didn't quite finish. Very glad I'd picked this volume up as a remainder instead of paying 2023 prices for it.
July 17, 2019
These four stories (3 novels and a short story) have been packaged together as part of the Tale of the Eternal Champion. In this case it is purely a marketing exercise as none of them fits into the Eternal Champion mythos. The last novel (The Distant Suns) and the short story that finishes the collection (Flux) do, at least, feature characters that have appeared in other Eternal Champion stories (Jerry Cornelius in the case of The Distant Suns and von Bek in Flux) but they don't really tie in with their other appearances at all.
There is somewhat of a common theme, at least in three of them (the exception being The Ice Schooner), that being that they all present a dystopian future, primarily brought about by overpopulation, one of Moorcock's bugbears.
Overall, not a bad collection, and The Black Corridor is a very good and pretty dark look at paranoia.
There is somewhat of a common theme, at least in three of them (the exception being The Ice Schooner), that being that they all present a dystopian future, primarily brought about by overpopulation, one of Moorcock's bugbears.
Overall, not a bad collection, and The Black Corridor is a very good and pretty dark look at paranoia.
June 6, 2020
Welp, I've been terrible. I started this in 2017, thinking I'd make more progress towards reading all The Tale of The Eternal Champions books. Little did I know that after finishing The Ice Schooner I wouldn't be resuming this collection of Moorcockian oddments until two relationships and a pandemic later!
Sailing to Utopia, while nominally an Eternal Champion book, is possibly the most peripheral of the books included in this Orion-published series. Of the four stories within, only the Ice Schooner is full writ by Moorcock. The Black Corridor, The Distant Suns, and Flux are all collaborations. They're also all scifi stories rather than the usual fantasy fare Moorcock writes. Middling scifi stories, to boot.
The Ice Schooner is likely the strongest of the lot. Bear with me because at this point it's been more than 2 years since I read it, like I said. It takes place in a frozen, post-apocalyptic Earth wherein a society of whalers ride the ice and battle land whales, massive beasts they subsist on. Konrad Arflane is one of these whalers, and by chance he saves a powerful man, then finds himself in command an expedition to the fabled city of New York. It's a gritty survivalist tale that seems to owe much to Melville, and has some fun bits of worldbuilding. Overall though it felt like a lost of wasted potential to me, especially with some of its more generic post-apoc trappings and the clunky exploration of honor-culture and religion.
The Black Corridor is an awkward nightmare. Taking place in a starship inhabited by an off-kilter bourgeoisie entrusted with safeguarding his dormant family and friends. It jumps back and forth between the ship and the protagonist's past on the overpopulated dystopian Earth leading up to the interstellar expedition. It's a dreary, sometimes monotone story that somehow managed to still get under my skin. This one genuinely disturbed me at times. I can't say I really liked it per se, but I think it ultimately made the biggest impression on me with its unreliable narrator and Bester-flavoured misanthropy.
The Distant Suns is easily the weakest of the four. I still had fun with it, but oy. It's also a Jerry Cornelius story, no less! Overpopulation has brought Earth to the point of societal collapse, and an expedition of Jerry Cornelius, his wife Cathy, and scientist Frank Marek is sent to find an inhabitable world before the aforementioned societal collapse. Warp space hijinks ensue, characters overtly discuss HG Wells's The Time Machine while experiencing what's essentially a pre-Tau Zero Tau Zero-style reboot of The Time Machine (no really), and every antagonal character either A) Gives up or B) is destroyed by random acts of the universe. Thoroughly unimpressive.
Flux, a time travel short retconned to have a Von Bek as the protagonist, fared better by my estimation than its preceding tale. Mostly owing to its brevity. Max Von Bek is an employee of the European Community, a unified future version of Europe (EU anyone?) that's so overpopulated as to have towering cities that bring to mind the Megacities of Judge Dredd fame. With societal collapse imminent, Max is thrown ten years into the future in a desperate bid by the rules of the European Community to figure out how to worm their way out of their current predicament...by, uh, seeing how things worked out...? Probably a good time to mention this also trumped Distant Suns by easily being the funniest of the tales contained within this volume.
While an interesting read, I'd hardly call any of the stories within essential. Even for the Moorcock completionist, this material is strictly bottom of the book-pile. I don't regret reading any of it, and I was entertained (If intermittently). But I feel a bit like a kid who just munched down the least favourite part of their dinner. Definitely craving a denser, more intellectually stimulating literary dessert right about now.
Sailing to Utopia, while nominally an Eternal Champion book, is possibly the most peripheral of the books included in this Orion-published series. Of the four stories within, only the Ice Schooner is full writ by Moorcock. The Black Corridor, The Distant Suns, and Flux are all collaborations. They're also all scifi stories rather than the usual fantasy fare Moorcock writes. Middling scifi stories, to boot.
The Ice Schooner is likely the strongest of the lot. Bear with me because at this point it's been more than 2 years since I read it, like I said. It takes place in a frozen, post-apocalyptic Earth wherein a society of whalers ride the ice and battle land whales, massive beasts they subsist on. Konrad Arflane is one of these whalers, and by chance he saves a powerful man, then finds himself in command an expedition to the fabled city of New York. It's a gritty survivalist tale that seems to owe much to Melville, and has some fun bits of worldbuilding. Overall though it felt like a lost of wasted potential to me, especially with some of its more generic post-apoc trappings and the clunky exploration of honor-culture and religion.
The Black Corridor is an awkward nightmare. Taking place in a starship inhabited by an off-kilter bourgeoisie entrusted with safeguarding his dormant family and friends. It jumps back and forth between the ship and the protagonist's past on the overpopulated dystopian Earth leading up to the interstellar expedition. It's a dreary, sometimes monotone story that somehow managed to still get under my skin. This one genuinely disturbed me at times. I can't say I really liked it per se, but I think it ultimately made the biggest impression on me with its unreliable narrator and Bester-flavoured misanthropy.
The Distant Suns is easily the weakest of the four. I still had fun with it, but oy. It's also a Jerry Cornelius story, no less! Overpopulation has brought Earth to the point of societal collapse, and an expedition of Jerry Cornelius, his wife Cathy, and scientist Frank Marek is sent to find an inhabitable world before the aforementioned societal collapse. Warp space hijinks ensue, characters overtly discuss HG Wells's The Time Machine while experiencing what's essentially a pre-Tau Zero Tau Zero-style reboot of The Time Machine (no really), and every antagonal character either A) Gives up or B) is destroyed by random acts of the universe. Thoroughly unimpressive.
Flux, a time travel short retconned to have a Von Bek as the protagonist, fared better by my estimation than its preceding tale. Mostly owing to its brevity. Max Von Bek is an employee of the European Community, a unified future version of Europe (EU anyone?) that's so overpopulated as to have towering cities that bring to mind the Megacities of Judge Dredd fame. With societal collapse imminent, Max is thrown ten years into the future in a desperate bid by the rules of the European Community to figure out how to worm their way out of their current predicament...by, uh, seeing how things worked out...? Probably a good time to mention this also trumped Distant Suns by easily being the funniest of the tales contained within this volume.
While an interesting read, I'd hardly call any of the stories within essential. Even for the Moorcock completionist, this material is strictly bottom of the book-pile. I don't regret reading any of it, and I was entertained (If intermittently). But I feel a bit like a kid who just munched down the least favourite part of their dinner. Definitely craving a denser, more intellectually stimulating literary dessert right about now.
May 20, 2015
Sailing to Utopia is the eighth in the White Wolf's collections of Moorcock's works. It's organized roughly around a theme of environmentalism, but otherwise the four pieces have nothing to do with one another. It's far from my favorite of the volumes, being mostly tedious and/or unpleasant, with the occasional nice bit of imagery.
The Ice Schooner: On the one hand, the post-industrial Ice Age setting is vivid and the religious man who refuses to believe in climate change is engaging, if unsubtle. Moorcock's barbaric, grim heroes are what he does best, and Captain Arflane is a fine example of the breed. The "land whales" are convenient - the language and imagery of whaling is easily accessible, and the idea of hairy, ice-skidding landbound whales just different enough to feel fantastic.
On the other hand, the sexual politics are rather appalling. Which I have learned to expect from Moorcock, but it doesn't actually become more palatable.
The Black Corridor: A grim little psychological thriller. I hadn't seen xenophobia extrapolated to an agoraphobia and paranoia epidemic before, and it's an interesting way to make the political personal. But it does make the characters rather hard to relate to, and there aren't any sympathetic ones to speak of. I suspect this would have worked better for me if I'd read it when it was politically relevant, as it doesn't seem to have aged all that well.
The Distant Suns: Pure pulp sci-fi, with a "new Earth" planet discovered to solve all of Earth's problems, inhabited already by actual humans for reasons that are handwaved. Possibly when it was written, the horrors of overpopulation were new and interesting, but this is another one that didn't age well.
"Flux": A short story along the lines of The Time Machine, with a clever little twist ending. Not particularly notable otherwise, alas.
The Ice Schooner: On the one hand, the post-industrial Ice Age setting is vivid and the religious man who refuses to believe in climate change is engaging, if unsubtle. Moorcock's barbaric, grim heroes are what he does best, and Captain Arflane is a fine example of the breed. The "land whales" are convenient - the language and imagery of whaling is easily accessible, and the idea of hairy, ice-skidding landbound whales just different enough to feel fantastic.
On the other hand, the sexual politics are rather appalling. Which I have learned to expect from Moorcock, but it doesn't actually become more palatable.
The Black Corridor: A grim little psychological thriller. I hadn't seen xenophobia extrapolated to an agoraphobia and paranoia epidemic before, and it's an interesting way to make the political personal. But it does make the characters rather hard to relate to, and there aren't any sympathetic ones to speak of. I suspect this would have worked better for me if I'd read it when it was politically relevant, as it doesn't seem to have aged all that well.
The Distant Suns: Pure pulp sci-fi, with a "new Earth" planet discovered to solve all of Earth's problems, inhabited already by actual humans for reasons that are handwaved. Possibly when it was written, the horrors of overpopulation were new and interesting, but this is another one that didn't age well.
"Flux": A short story along the lines of The Time Machine, with a clever little twist ending. Not particularly notable otherwise, alas.
August 15, 2018
Sailing to utopia is not an eternal champion book and I am unsure why is on the list. It is a collection of four slightly irrelevant four stories of sci-fi nature.
The first is “ice schooner” the only good story that can be seen as eternal champion relevant. It is a post-apocalyptic setting where the earth is frozen and humans survive using the few available resources. The story is really good and the characters and setting are what set Moorcock apart from other fantasy writers. The story is a quest through ice and snow and the narration and details stand out. This is a five stars story.
The second part “black corridor” is an indifferent dystopian story of a journey through space of a group of friends who try to escape earth. The characters are shallow and the story is so boring I skipped many pages. This is a one-star story.
The third part “distant suns” is a Jerry Cornelius story about traveling into space to found an earth-like planet to accommodate a growing population. Back then it was a nice scenario today it seems naïve. Besides that, the story truly lucks in inspiration and scope. One star story.
Finally “flux” is a story about von Bek’s travel through time in the future to find answers. Again maybe back then it was interesting today it seems out of place because of its simple storytelling. One star again.
The book’s worth is “ice schooner” you can skip the rest and maybe leave this book hidden in the back of your library. There are many other better books to spend your time.
The first is “ice schooner” the only good story that can be seen as eternal champion relevant. It is a post-apocalyptic setting where the earth is frozen and humans survive using the few available resources. The story is really good and the characters and setting are what set Moorcock apart from other fantasy writers. The story is a quest through ice and snow and the narration and details stand out. This is a five stars story.
The second part “black corridor” is an indifferent dystopian story of a journey through space of a group of friends who try to escape earth. The characters are shallow and the story is so boring I skipped many pages. This is a one-star story.
The third part “distant suns” is a Jerry Cornelius story about traveling into space to found an earth-like planet to accommodate a growing population. Back then it was a nice scenario today it seems naïve. Besides that, the story truly lucks in inspiration and scope. One star story.
Finally “flux” is a story about von Bek’s travel through time in the future to find answers. Again maybe back then it was interesting today it seems out of place because of its simple storytelling. One star again.
The book’s worth is “ice schooner” you can skip the rest and maybe leave this book hidden in the back of your library. There are many other better books to spend your time.
March 3, 2010
• As I continue to read further and further into the Eternal Champion series, I seem to get more irritated by the fact that Moorcock really seems to have abandoned the story of the eternal champion himself, and is now just trying to get people to read the rest of his stories. Look, the stories in this book weren’t all bad. It’s just that this book had nothing whatsoever to do with the eternal champion or even the multiverse for that matter. The first story was the best in my opinion. I hope that some later story is about Arflane. The third story was about one of his more famous characters Jerry Cornelius. The story itself was pretty good, but I don’t see why he’s so popular. Overall, if I had just picked up this book and read it not knowing it’s supposed to be part of the Eternal Champion Saga, I think I would have like it. After reading with that knowledge I guess I feel a little cheated.
August 31, 2011
Contains three books about journeys: The Ice Schooner, The Black Corridor, and the Distant Suns, as well as a short story Flux. Some I had read before. The Black Corridor was haunting. The others were more pulpish in nature.
October 14, 2015
First story "The Ice Schooner" is one of Moorcocks best, the other three are just junk and can very well be skipped since they don't tie in with any storyatcs. Dissappointing Omnibus :-(
December 30, 2012
Ahhh, brain hurts!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews