‘The Eternal Champion’ – Michael Moorcock (Grafton Press)

In an ideal world, I’d start reading all series at the beginning and finishing at the end. That’s the whole point of a series of books isn’t it? You start at the beginning, finish at the end and read all the books in between. The end result is that the setting and the plot build up over a number of books and you end up with a complete picture by the end. However, this is all well and good if you’re living in an ideal world but I’m not; at least as far as buying books from overseas (I’m looking at you Glen Cook) and second hand books goes. If I waited until I had complete sets of these series then I’d never get any reading done at all!

I’ve already banged on long enough about how difficult it can be to get hold of certain of Moorcock’s books that have perhaps been eclipsed by his more iconic creations. The Millennium editions are prohibitively expensive now so I’m left scrabbling around in second hand bookshops etc and hoping that I get lucky... Like I said, if I wait on getting full sets of each trilogy then you won’t see much here at all and that’s why, after having read ‘Phoenix in Obsidian’, I’m going back to the beginning of Erekose’s story and reading ‘The Eternal Champion’...

John Daker is called from our world into a world of the far future where, as the Eternal Champion Erekose, he must fight to protect Humanity from the demonic scourge of the Eldren. This is not the only fight to be fought though as Daker must also fight his own fragile mind in order to come to terms with the fact that his identity may span more worlds than the two that he is currently aware of. And what if the battle lines of the future aren’t as clear cut as he was originally led to believe? A hard choice awaits our Champion, a decision that neither Humanity nor the Eldren would have him make...

 ‘The Eternal Champion’ is one of those books that I can’t help but find myself liking, despite the little bits here and there that tempt my opinion to go in the other direction. As such, it’s a bit of a difficult one to write about so please bear with me...

I think that the biggest issue I had with ‘The Eternal Champion’ (both in this read and when I first read it some years ago) is that the two opposing sides, Humanity and Eldren, are so polarised that you can see the big twist coming from a mile off. For me this was especially the case as one of the two opposing parties never got to state their case until almost three quarters of the way through the book. If you’re anything like me, you’ll see the big twist coming from a mile off (although the fact that I’d read the book before probably worked against me here) and you might just find yourself wondering if it’s worth carrying on with the read. I stuck with it though and I’m glad that I did; the tension might not be there but there’s still plenty to recommend ‘The Eternal Champion’.

Science Fiction and Fantasy literature is full of people being snatched from the comfort of their everyday life and dumped somewhere strange to get on with it the best they can. Most of these people will attempt to make some sense of their new surroundings but not Erekose. Our hero takes Humanity at its word and immediately begins working out ways of defeating the Eldren... Now you could say that this approach is a little too simplistic (and if you do then maybe the twist in the tale will get you after all...) but what really appealed to me here was the sense of just how earnest Erekose is about it all. Our hero doesn’t ask questions, he just gets on with doing what he believes to be the right thing; he is basically pointed at the enemy and left to do his thing. It’s interesting to see how the questions start to arise as the book progresses and Erekose goes from being a person who would wipe out an entire race (because he thinks he should be in love with the daughter of the King) to someone who is able to look at the bigger picture. Erekose’s tendency to act first, and think about it later, does get the better of him one more time and that just makes the final scenes all the more tragic...

All of this is set against a lush backdrop that is familiar enough to be accessible yet, at the same time, alien enough to be eye catching. The battle scenes really make the plot surge forward as well, whether these battles are fought at land or on the sea. Moorcock’s Erekose strides the battlefield like some earthbound god of war and although you know that nothing can touch him, you can’t help but feel a little stirred by the way in which he takes his fight to the enemy.

‘The Eternal Champion’ was signposted a little too clearly, for me, to really surprise in the way that it wanted to but this is more than made up for by the roar of constant battle and the developing character of Erekose himself. My review for ‘Phoenix in Obsidian’, the second book in the trilogy, is over Here. All I need to do now is find a copy of ‘The Dragon in the Sword, and I’ll be able to finish off Erekose’s story.

Eight and a Half out of Ten
 
Cover Art courtesy of The Image Hive