Moorcock's demented imagination for baroque insanity, rather than his hand with theme or character, makes these Hawkmoon books stand out. ( )

The fourth and final volume of The History of the Runestaff. This is mostly a parallel narrative, chronicling the further adventures of Dorian Hawkmoon (the hero) in America in one thread and showing how Baron Meliadus (the villain) makes a bid for power in the centre of the Granbretan Empire, until both threads converge in an epic battle where the final confrontation takes place. There is little doubt of course that the hero will prevail in the end, but even so, the ending is not entirely happy – the final image of the novel is that of a woman weeping…

The Runestaff pretty much continues in the same vein as the previous three instalments of the series, and everything I said about those applies to this novel as well. One thing that is not so much fundamentally different but more in the foreground than in previous volumes is Moorcock satirizing British society of the 1960s, like in this passage where he lists

“… the terrifying ancient gods of Granbretan – Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga, who were said to have ruled the land before the Tragic Millennium – Chirshil, the Howling God; Bjrin Adass, the Singing God; Jeajee Blad, the Groaning God; Jh’Im Slas, the Weeping God and Aral Vilsn, the Roaring God, Supreme God, father of Skvese and Blansacredid the Gods of Doom and Chaos.”

I admit that I didn’t get most of the references here on my own (only Churchill and Harold Wilson, to my embarrassment) but he is poking fun at various politicians and other public figures of the period the novel was originally written in – Wikipedia has the details, if you’re curious. I would not be at all surprised if there were more, less obvious satiric references to all kinds of British customs – the wearing of masks, for example, and the pathological fright of all Granbretans to take them off and show their faces is almost certainly a comment on the famous “stiff upper lip.”

Moorcock deftly mixes satire, grotesque and tragedy here, and all by using a pulp adventure plot as his vessel. Like the other novels in The History of the Runestaff tetralogy, this concluding volume never aims to be anything but fun and entertainment, but like the rest of the series succeeds in that without insulting the reader’s intelligence, because it never relies simply on repeating familiar clichés but uses them to do all kinds of interesting things and thus ensuring that the novels are still fun even if read with a somewhat more sophisticated attitudes decades after one first devoured them as a teenager.

Hawkmoon and D'Averc protect the Runestaff from the forces of the Dark Empire of Granbretan and return to the dimension-shifted sanctuary of Castle Brass. Unfortunately, their solace is short-lived, as the scientists of Granbretan figure out a way to send a shattering sound wave through the dimensions to destroy the device that keeps Castle Brass out of the normal world. This return to their original plane of existence forces Hawkmoon, Count Brass and the rest to undertake a desperate attempt to storm the heart of the Dark Empire - with only 500 men.

A solid conclusion to the quartet. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more about Count Brass. I'm also wondering how the different timelines weave together, seeing as how we witness the death of the Warrior in Jet and Gold. I still wouldn't put Hawkmoon up as the best of the Eternal Champion's incarnations, but I'm sure there's more to read yet. ( )

Just as volume 3 wandered away from the general theme of the first book, this one continues that trend. I didn't care for it as much as the first 2. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.asp?book=1088 ( )