Elric: The Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Ratings31
Average rating3.6
Looks like the first book was the odd one out. The Sailor on the Seas of Fate is as good as The Fortress of the Pearl although it's three short stories tied together by sea faring theme and immediately following each other, rather than one longer story.
I really wish I got into this series as teenager because I would've loved it as much as any passionate Elric fan. Almost in my 30's, it's still a solid read that aged quite well thanks to it's high fantasy theme. If it wasn't for the accusation that Sapkowski plagiarized Moorcock in The Witcher saga I wouldn't even have touched this series.
Oh Elric, you're such a passive knob. I actually like Moorcock's style, I just find the albino such bore compared to nearly every other character in the story. Honestly, Yrkoon seems so much more engaging in comparison. :)
WHAT
Three short slightly weird fantasy stories dealing with alternate selfs, parallel realities, different timelines colliding, world devouring entities, and more. Heavy consciously-burden Elric is confronted with more moral choices to again promptly ignoring them.
TLDR
- superficial protagonist
+ better then previous book
+ dreamy prose: things feel strange, fogginess, can't tell reality from imagination
PLOT
Sailing the the Future: After an frustrated attempt at mingling with the humans, Elric is running for his life when a mysterious ship comes to the rescue. He is tasked with saving the the world from two alien creatures.
Sailing to the Present: a former Melnibonean monarch pursues a woman that falls into Elric's protection. He must decide to give her up in exchange for his freedom or fight his way through.
Sailing to the Past: Elric sails to the land from where his ancestors migrated ten thousand years ago, in search of answers that will guide him into saving his people.
SUMMARY
Sailing the the FutureElric is fleeing from the enemies he made in the last city he ventured into. He is completely out of hope, almost dying from exhaustion and lack of supplies, including the special drugs that keeps him alive.He is once again embracing the death to come, thinking maybe this is for the best, when a ship appears from the sea coming through a dense mist. He approaches the vessel and notices something strange about the captain and the crew, but he does not have the luxury to picky given the situation.Once aboard the ship, he meets the other passengers, and find out that they too arrived at the ship under the same circumstances, all of them being near to death and without any hope to surviving. He finds out that the ship was actually expecting to find him there, and his name and the others were on a list held by the captain. He had a special mission for them: to save the galaxy from annihilation in the hands of two world devouring creatures, a brother and a sister.Elric was reticent about accepting such a quest, but he had little choice given the consequences of his inaction in the matter. The ship lead them into an island, where they found two strange houses. They entered the houses, met some resistance and most of the men died before they met the first of the alien creatures. What followed was a weird battle, where Elric melt his self together with other three passengers of the ship whom he felt some strange connection before.After the battle, they disjoined, returned to the ship and each one proceeded to their own path. It is implied that the other fighters that formed the super creature are in fact different incarnations of Elric, coming from different universes and different times.
ANALYSIS
Same impressions from the first, only a little better. Here there are a little more defined moral choices for Elric to face, but again they're not well developed.
When confronted with handing over the women he is protecting into the hands of a man that that obsessed with her, the only reason he gives to not caving in is that he gave his word he would protect her. Not that he cares what happens to her.
When asked to release a man from a terrible curse, he calls for demonic help. Here is a gross paraphrasing:
The demon says “I can lift the curse and save him, but doing this will bring death and destruction for the rest of the wo...“
Elric replies “Hey, could you just shut up please? I said to lift his curse. Do it now!”
You can find my review of this as part of my review for the eBook Elric collection for [b:Elric of Melniboné 30036 Elric of Melniboné (The Elric Saga, #1) Michael Moorcock https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388345555l/30036.SY75.jpg 388812]
The second installment of the Elric Saga (third one I've read) was another good read with interesting situations and further development of the characters of Elric and his sword. The world-building is fantastic and truly is the main draw to the series thus far.