'Crimson Eyes' – Michael Moorcock
It's another shorter
looking post today as I'm being audited at work, next week, and I'm
not even remotely ready for it. Short of pulling a sickie, as the
auditors, ring me up (something I am seriously considering), I'm
going to have to take this one on the chin and try to be as ready as
I can be. Fingers crossed and we'll see how it goes...
But onto the reading...
After reading 'The Last
Enchantment' the other day, I thought I'd check out another short
story while I try and make some time to (finally) finish 'Elric of
Melnibone'. 'Fabulous Harbours' had only just come through the door
and a quick glance over the table of contents saw 'Crimson Eyes' jump
out as the story to read. I mean a story called 'Crimson Eyes', by
Michael Moorcock, has to be about Elric, doesn't it? Well... Kind of
and not at all, all at the same time.'Crimson Eyes' only ended up
being about that amazing detective, Sir Sexton Begg...
Murder is the name of
the game and in the middle of any number of high ranking corpses, Sir
Sexton Begg not only knows the rules, he also believes that he has a
trump card to play. Family connections mean nothing in this game
though, especially when a certain sword is hungry. Sir Sexton Begg
will be very lucky if he lives to see in the New Year...
And there was I,
thinking that 'Fabulous Harbours' was just a collection of short
stories. Nope and nope again. 'Fabulous Harbours' is a collection of
short stories set in the world of 'Blood' and 'The War Amongst the
Angels'. It goes without saying that any kind of familarity with
these two books will be of benefit here. I got off relatively lightly
with 'Crimson Eyes'. I did have to ask Twitter what 'BBIC' stood for
('Barbican Begg International Corporation', thanks again
@breakfastruins) but had met Seaton Begg in 'The Metatemporal
Detective' (which might contain 'Crimson Eyes', I'm not sure, it's
been ages since I read that book) so I knew roughly what I was
letting myself in for. Basically, Sherlock Holmes but ten times the
detective. Our man Begg is so awesome at being a detective that he
spends the story wandering from witness to witness, putting the story
together, and then strolls over to have it out with the villain of
the piece. He can't arrest him but that's ok, solving the case is
reward in itself.
If your main plot line
is this nonchalant then you had better be sure that you have
something else up your sleeve to give your story a bit of punch. Of
course Moorcock has plenty of this. Being of a certain age and
political slant, I'm not ashamed to say that I did a little cheer
when Lady Ratchet met her end. The really cool moment thoughis seeing
Begg face off against Von Bek and his sword...
Being a relative
newcomer to Moorcock's work (every time I think I've read everything,
I keep finding more books...), I'm still trying to get my head round
all the business with the Grail so there's a whole layer of other
stuff going on here that I can't really comment on until I understand
it better. What is incredibly cool though is watching Moorcock's take
on the classic 'detective facing off against arch-nemesis' trope. It
crackles with energy and not all of it coming from the sword. It's an
amazing portrayal of two men at the absolute top of their game, both
being incredibly cool about the fact that they know that this isn't
the end and that there will be more confrontations to come. There's a
whole undercurrent of shared history holding this moment in place and
the only thing that comes close to breaking it is the moment where it
looks like Von Bek might lose control of his sword. It's a real
'heart in your mouth moment', an affect only slightly spoiled by Begg
being a little too cool for the moment and getting things back under
control. You knew he would.
'Crimson Eyes' was a
lot fun then and hints at depths to its story that will have me
returning to this tale once I have at least read 'Blood' first ('War
amongst the Angels' is taking some finding but I'm on it). You can
find 'Crimson Eyes' as part of 'Fabulous Harbours' as well as in 'The
Metatemporal Detective' (yep, I looked on Wikipedia...)
Is Von Bek really Elric though, or just another possible version of him? That's the real question...
Comments
Post a Comment