Tales of Albino (4)

 This novel follows on the heels of , continuing the intertwined saga of Elric, his daughter Oona, her husband and Elric’s son-in-law Ulric von Bek. Moorcock brings his Eternal Champion mythos to early North America, as seen through the eyes of both the native tribes and the immigrant Vikings. The Vikings call the native peoples skraelings or skraylings - which gives the title of the novel, . The Tree itself may well be the essence or objectification of Moorcock’s all encompassing Multiverse. The three plot strands follow Oona, daughter of Elric and the dreamthief; her husband Ulric von Bek, himself bearing strong ties to the Eternal Champion; and the most recognized of all the Champions incarnations, Elric of Melnibone.

We see the story from three perspectives, Oona's, her husband Ulrich Von Bek and Elric. Three disparate threads that are gradually drawn together. The writing is beautiful, Moorcock really taking it all in his stride, taking time to create a story of wonderful complexity, yet with a paradoxical simplicity. It builds slowly, gradually gathering steam as the story reaches its climax. Each step along the way is an opportunity to stop and look around at the strange and wonderful world he has created, where mass and time and scale mean little.

 In the elaborate fictional cosmos Michael Moorcock has created, Elric and the various von Beks are all aspects of the Eternal Champion who fights for the Balance, preventing both Law and Chaos from dominating the universe and trapping it in either barren sterility or pointless fecundity. Elric, the albino sorcerer and last prince of the inhuman empire of Melnibone, was the creation of Moorcock's adventurous pot-boiling inventive youth, just as the von Bek family featured in the heroic fantasies of his more thoughtful middle-life.

In The Dreamthief's Daughter, he brings together Elric and Ulric von Bek, last scion of the family, and we finally learn the sin for which the perpetual villain Gaynor the Damned was doomed: Nazi occultists are searching for the Grail and the Black Sword and must be prevented from attaining them. Ulric seeks allies wherever he can find them, including Oona, who wanders through dream realities and with whom he falls in love. This is fast-moving phantasmagorical stuff with ambiguously virtuous heroes and baddies whose villainy and charm is total. Moorcock's immensely powerful visual imagination and sense of the innate drama of crucial scenes make this a breathtaking read.