‘To Rescue Tanelorn’ – Michael Moorcock


I originally bought this copy of ‘The Singing Citadel’ as I’d never read the short story ‘The Greater Conqueror’ and at the time of writing… I still haven’t :o) I’ll probably pick the book up again, over the next week, but as I was settling down for a read yesterday, it struck me that I’d never read ‘To Rescue Tanelorn’ and having a soft spot for Rackhir the Red, I figured that I should really do something about that… And here I am.

The edition I’m reading from has ‘To Rescue Tanelorn’ weighing in at a slender thirty four pages so don’t expect anything too deep from this post then. More like quick thoughts on a quick read, you know how it goes… ;o)

The Lords of Chaos grow tired of their human servants renouncing Chaos and finding peace in the fabled city of Tanelorn. The time has come for the city to burn and the Chaos Lord Narjhan raises an army to do just that. In it’s way stand the defenders of Tanelorn but they are far too few to do anything other than delay the inevitable. It falls to Rackhir to seek aid from the Grey Lords but will any help come in time…?

I love reading Moorcock short stories and ‘To Rescue Tanelorn’ proved to be no different an experience. Makes me wonder why I’d never read it before but anyway…

At only thirty four pages long, there isn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre here so it ended up being a bit of a pleasure to watch Moorcock balance high stakes action with a little philosophising on the nature of the powers that govern Rackhir’s world. I won’t lie and say that I followed all the arguments because I didn’t but even I noticed how Moorcock shows us that the powers governing humanity only do so because humanity lets them. With a little belief in itself, humanity can take on the gods, that it created, and win. Not a bad message to take on board if you can.

What the reader gets then, is a tale that is full of action and spectacle but with a more thoughtful air to it that really got me thinking. It’s a good combination that ultimately makes ‘To Rescue Tanelorn’ very readable and easy to get caught up in. The only thing that it doesn’t have is much detail on Rackhir himself, he’s very clearly there to get a job done and bear witness to the true nature of things like the ultimate rule of Law and the Grey Lords. And thinking about it, that’s ok; his single-minded dedication to the defence of Tanelorn really emphasises how important that city is.

Not a bad read at all then, I’m very glad I finally gave it a shot. Give me a couple of days and I’ll have ‘The Greater Conqueror’ read as well ;o)

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