Edition: Granada, 1981
Review number: 765
The conclusion of The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy opens at almost the opposite point in the earth's history, with Jherek Carnelian and Amelia Underwood marooned in the distant past, in the Devonian period with a broken time machine. They are eventually rescued, and return to the end of time, depicted more sombrely than before, to witness the end of the universe that had been predicted by aliens, seeking to warn pleasure loving earth dwellers that their massive consumption would bring the end much sooner.
The way in which this points a finger at our society is if anything more obvious than it was a quarter of a century ago. The whole of the series is a commentary on the present, as much of science fiction is designed to be; this is a particularly successful example.
This third in the trilogy is much darker than the first two, and the description of the earth as the end approaches and things begin to fail is quite chilling. While pessimistic, the novel does have positive moments. All in all, it is a satisfying ending to one of the best trilogies in science fiction.
Showing posts with label The Dancers at the End of Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Dancers at the End of Time. Show all posts
Saturday, 24 February 2001
Friday, 9 February 2001
Michael Moorcock: The Hollow Lands (1974)
Edition: Granada, 1981
Review number: 749
Like the first volume in the Dancers at the End of Time trilogy, An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands is set partly just before the end of the universe, and partly at the end of the nineteenth century. It has little to add to what has been said by the earlier novel, and is mainly a continuation of the plot in a fairly predictable way.
Jherek Carnelian has returned to his own time when the Victorians attempted to hang him. He is still in love with Amelia Underwood, and now seeks a new time machine in which he can travel back to Bromley in 1896. He cannot throw himself into the creations which amuse the dwellers at the end of time in the same way that he used to. All he wants to do is to recreate what he saw in the past and to return there as soon as possible.
The virtues of The Hollow Lands are shared with An Alien Heat: the vivid description of the end of time, the bemusement of Carnelian in the nineteenth century, and the satiric parallels with twentieth century Western life. It is a little lighter and more humorous than its predecessor, but it is very much the middle novel in a trilogy.
Review number: 749
Like the first volume in the Dancers at the End of Time trilogy, An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands is set partly just before the end of the universe, and partly at the end of the nineteenth century. It has little to add to what has been said by the earlier novel, and is mainly a continuation of the plot in a fairly predictable way.
Jherek Carnelian has returned to his own time when the Victorians attempted to hang him. He is still in love with Amelia Underwood, and now seeks a new time machine in which he can travel back to Bromley in 1896. He cannot throw himself into the creations which amuse the dwellers at the end of time in the same way that he used to. All he wants to do is to recreate what he saw in the past and to return there as soon as possible.
The virtues of The Hollow Lands are shared with An Alien Heat: the vivid description of the end of time, the bemusement of Carnelian in the nineteenth century, and the satiric parallels with twentieth century Western life. It is a little lighter and more humorous than its predecessor, but it is very much the middle novel in a trilogy.
Friday, 1 September 2000
Michael Moorcock: An Alien Heat (1972)
Edition: Granada, 1981
Review number: 596
The first Michael Moorcock novel I ever read, An Alien Heat remains one of my favourites. On the surface, it is about the very far future, from the very last days of the universe (which is why it begins a trilogy called The Dancers at the End of Time). The people who live at the end of time are extremely powerful, controlling vast amounts of energy to make and remake matter at will. They spend their time in an endless round of sophisticated parties - so much so that sometimes parties are set up to fail deliberately, for the sake of variation - and pointless hobbies, such as creating hordes of living miniature soldiers to re-fight all the wars of history.
As a diversion, then, Jherek Carnelian (whose name is significantly a variant of Jerry Cornelius) decides to fall desperately in love. The chosen object of his affections is a time traveller, a young married woman mysteriously abducted from her house in Victorian Bromley. Having started this as a joke, Jherek finds himself falling in love in earnest, just when Amelia Underwood disappears, returned to her home by one of his friends as a prank. Playing the part of a distraught lover to perfection, he sets out to follow her.
The baroque world if the end of time is very vividly portrayed; by contrast, the nineteenth century seems rather less real. This is deliberate, because it is seen through Jherek's eyes, and he has very little understanding of what is going on around him. He has never come across money before, for example, and morality is to him just a game - in what is perhaps a slightly obvious attempt to shock, the novel opens with an incestuous sex scene with his mother.
The name of the central character of The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy makes it clear that there is a connection with the Jerry Cornelius chronicles. Characters with variants on this name crop up fairly frequently in Moorcock's work, and they are usually figures rather like a medieval jester. Their function is to comment on a world that they are separate from, to point out the absurdity of their surroundings.
The purpose of Jherek Carnelian is slightly more direct: it is to point out the absurdity of modern Western culture. There are many parallels between the end of time and consumer led capitalist society (and, in the sixties and seventies, many people feared the imminent end of the world in nuclear war). Moorcock clearly wants to mock our meaningless, pleasure obsessed lives, and does so reasonably subtly.
It is chiefly on its surface level as a brilliantly imagined tale of a decadent far future that An Alien Heat succeeds; the targets it aims at are rather too diffuse for it to be entirely convincing as a satire. It is as a writer of fantasy background that Moorcock is a master, and this novel shows off this talent at its peak form.
Review number: 596
The first Michael Moorcock novel I ever read, An Alien Heat remains one of my favourites. On the surface, it is about the very far future, from the very last days of the universe (which is why it begins a trilogy called The Dancers at the End of Time). The people who live at the end of time are extremely powerful, controlling vast amounts of energy to make and remake matter at will. They spend their time in an endless round of sophisticated parties - so much so that sometimes parties are set up to fail deliberately, for the sake of variation - and pointless hobbies, such as creating hordes of living miniature soldiers to re-fight all the wars of history.
As a diversion, then, Jherek Carnelian (whose name is significantly a variant of Jerry Cornelius) decides to fall desperately in love. The chosen object of his affections is a time traveller, a young married woman mysteriously abducted from her house in Victorian Bromley. Having started this as a joke, Jherek finds himself falling in love in earnest, just when Amelia Underwood disappears, returned to her home by one of his friends as a prank. Playing the part of a distraught lover to perfection, he sets out to follow her.
The baroque world if the end of time is very vividly portrayed; by contrast, the nineteenth century seems rather less real. This is deliberate, because it is seen through Jherek's eyes, and he has very little understanding of what is going on around him. He has never come across money before, for example, and morality is to him just a game - in what is perhaps a slightly obvious attempt to shock, the novel opens with an incestuous sex scene with his mother.
The name of the central character of The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy makes it clear that there is a connection with the Jerry Cornelius chronicles. Characters with variants on this name crop up fairly frequently in Moorcock's work, and they are usually figures rather like a medieval jester. Their function is to comment on a world that they are separate from, to point out the absurdity of their surroundings.
The purpose of Jherek Carnelian is slightly more direct: it is to point out the absurdity of modern Western culture. There are many parallels between the end of time and consumer led capitalist society (and, in the sixties and seventies, many people feared the imminent end of the world in nuclear war). Moorcock clearly wants to mock our meaningless, pleasure obsessed lives, and does so reasonably subtly.
It is chiefly on its surface level as a brilliantly imagined tale of a decadent far future that An Alien Heat succeeds; the targets it aims at are rather too diffuse for it to be entirely convincing as a satire. It is as a writer of fantasy background that Moorcock is a master, and this novel shows off this talent at its peak form.
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