Revenge of the Rose is one of the more Detailed Elric stories. Moorcock brings some well crafted characters to the table and allows us to see Elric dealing with some empathy, possibly a little remorse but don't forget what he is and what drives him. This is considerably longer than the books before but ties the Odyssey of Elric closer together. ( )

el Señor de los Dragones inicia la búsqueda del alma de su padre Saldric con el propósito de liberarle de una agonía eterna y eso supone un viaje por misterioros planos del Multiverso que le llevarán a conocer a la Rosa y a la Nación Gitana.

One of Moorcock's more tightly plotted longer pieces. It doesn't have so much of that make-it-up-as-you-go feel to it. Imagining different places and questioning tradition is what Moorcock's world building is all about. This one has a nice finish as Moorcock lets Elric get one up on everyone. It almost feels like Moorcock is getting very sentimental about his albino prince.

You will be astounded by the vision of the Gypsy Nation endlessly wandering the planet in their massive wooden cities. ( )

So baroque and decadent in places, this book felt more like a sequel or sidequel to Gloriana than an Elric book, and indeed a character from Gloriana is a major part of the story; Ernest Wheldrake may even get more "screen" time than Elric. Ditto the book's many awesome female characters, especially the titular The Rose (she is never referred to as simply "Rose"). In the climactic battle (mild spoiler here) (very mild), Elric is the only male among the good guys who ride out, to give you some idea. ( )

This was my second time though this book, and I'm still not really sure how I felt about it. At times, I was mesmerized and awed by the scope of Moorcock's descriptive style, and at others I wanted to pitch it into an open flame.

If a good editor got ahold of this book and weeded out all the extra adjectives and rambling style of weaving philosophy into a narrative, we could have this thing cut down to about a third of its length and it would make a pretty damn good novella.

As it is, we have a philosophical discussion or twelve between the characters in a narrative that switches from past tense to present and back without any apparent rhyme or reason. And while I admit that Moorcock has used his fifty-plus years of being a published writer to neatly perfect his vocabulary and sentence building, is it completely necessary to hit the readers constantly with the Faulker effect? This being the ability to craft a sentence that winds on and on and fills up half a page, stating quite a bit of information, yet leaving the reader exhausted and going 'the hell?' well after coming up for air again. A period looks like this, Michael: "." It creates a pause in the narrative.

Whatever happened to the good old fashioned early pulp style mayhem and blood and guts Elric stories? Influenced heavily by Robert E. Howard, full of blood and dragonfire and a soul devouring runesword?

Well, those things are here, if you can weed through everything else. Moorcock does have some cool supporting characters in this. I enjoyed Wheldrake for awhile, but eventually wished Moonglum was back. I did like The Rose, Clarion Phatt, the three sisters, Ebsen Snare the werewolf, the big toad, Elric's father's lingering spirit, and Gaynor the Prince of the Damned.

Elric himself was pretty cool, in that we get a glimpse into his humanity. The thing is, he was too likable in this book. He's eternally damned, and needs to act like it. We don't get any scenes like in previous books where he holds back and allows innocents to be devoured by Chaos in order to keep on the task at hand. In here, he's the anti-anti-hero.

But I will say that I loved the whole part involving the Gypsy Nation. That was such a cool and sinister plot element, that I am giving this book a bump of a single star just for including it. No spoilers in the review, but it rocks.

So now it's back to the omnibus containing this book, where next up are the stories from The Bane of the Black Sword. First up: "The Stealer of Souls". Now, it's time for some good old fun! ( )