'The King of the Swords' – Michael Moorcock (Mayflower)

I've pretty much given up on the 'Elric Re-Read' updates at this point. I don't know what's going on, let's just say that if a book could laugh in your face whenever you happen to look at it... 'Elric of Melnibone' would be laughing one hell of a lot right now.

'Corum' though... It's taken a little longer than I'd thought it would but I've actually gone and finished the first three books of 'Corum'. I'm just going to take a minute and feel a little pleased with myself for finishing a series, even though it's only three (very short) books long and I've read it before. Look my gout is killing me tonight, I need something to be happy about ;o)

Over these three books, I've gradually found out that Corum isn't as in control of his fate as I originally thought; it turns out that various Gods (Chaos and Law) have more say in this than Corum does so my original thoughts on Corum 'making things happen' don't hold as much water' as I originally thought. We'll go into this a bit more later on.

Having thought about it some more, I think what I like about Corum (as oppose to characters like Elric and Erekose, I don't know too much about Hawkmoon) is that he is a guy with a clear moral compass. The shades of grey in Moorcock's multiverse can sometimes lead to a hero, or 'hero', being caught out by indecision and the resulting introspection comes at the expense of the plot (and maybe that's why I'm having so much trouble with Elric...) Corum though... Corum knows what needs to be done and just gets on and does it. I like that in an Eternal Champion and it's going to be tough pacing myself with these books and not starting the next series straight away. There won't be any 'starting the next series' until I've had my say on 'The King of Swords' though so lets get to it.

Prince Corum Jhaelin Irsei: the Eternal Champion.

With his plane of existence at war with itself, thanks to the machinations and magic of Chaos, Prince Corum, his beloved Rhalina and the eternal companion Jhary-a-Conel must travel to the last five planes to confront Mabelode, the King of the Swords.

Joining forces with other aspects of the Eternal Champion - Elric and Ereköse - Corum must rescue Rhalina from the Chaos Lord's minions before attempting to defeat the King of the Swords and free his plane from its madness. But the stakes are also personal for Corum, for the captain who commands the forces of chaos is the same savage Mabden who slaughtered Corum's family...

'The King of the Swords' is the shortest of the three 'Sword Ruler' books but at the same time, feels like it has the most to say for itself. You'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise though as at the start, it feels exactly the same as its predecessors. There's a 'big bad' to fight and Corum and his friends must go on a quest to find what they need to defeat it. I mean, you're half expecting this anyway, as this has been the layout of the previous two books, and to be fair, if you're working your way through varying degrees of Sword Ruler then the same thing will happen more than once.

Did Moorcock just hit on a formula that worked for these books? Or is he having a little dig at the notion of the 'Hero's Quest'? How it essentially boils down to the same components and why do we just lap it up if it's just the same thing happening over and over again...? Actually, that's me thinking that (although I've got a point) so it's lucky that Moorcock is writing this and we have some cosmic trippy stuff (a whistle stop tour of the realms of Chaos), a 'crossover' event (I'll talk about that in a minute) and some rousing fights to see us through. It's all well polished and very readable as always.

And then it all changes (and not for the worse so don't worry!)

The first two books have shown Corum that while the ends justify the means, the Gods of Law are using him to play out their own agenda. This may well work out for humanity but how fair is it really? And if humans created their own Gods, is there any hope for humanity to ever fulfil it's potential? Anyone with a passing knowledge of Moorcock can guess what side he will come down on and... he does. It's a little heavy handed (which can take you out of the story a little bit) but this is offset by the way he shows you that it was the whole point of the story, the whole time. There's also the whole business with the 'Three Eternal Champions in One', a brilliant example of what humanity can do without Gods as well as a more than fine action sequence. The message is delivered in a heavy handed manner but you can't deny that it's a message worth considering.

Everything is rounded off very neatly and you can't help but feel that Corum deserves a break, And he really does so lets leave him here for a while and come back to the second trilogy another time. 'The King of the Swords' is a worthy ending to this trilogy, doing all the usual stuff as well as ever and making you think, just when you thought you had a handle on these books, Brilliant stuff.