'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...

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