Hmm, old-school heroic fantasy just isn't my cup of tea, I'm afraid. There's some powerful and some vivid imagery here, but overall the prose is (horribly) dated and the characterisation is paper-thin (especially for the few female characters *shudder*). The concept itself is still an interesting one (the last king of an ancient and cruel folk is a frail albino with a cursed, soul-drinking sword), but we get endless scenes of the emo antihero angsting shallowly and not much else, despite all the potential for some really substantial storytelling about a non-traditional warrior-sorceror. And the fact that Elric, who has always been a completely self-immersed and immoral character, suddenly gives two hoots about the ultimate fate of the world in the final stages of the book feels very hollow. Still worth reading for its place in fantasy canon (pretty radical stuff when it was written, I believe), but it doesn't make me want to pick up any other of the Elric books. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1230921.html

This is the Fantasy Masterworks edition which brings together The Stealer of Souls and Stormbringer, which I think are the first two Elric books published though apparently several more were subsequently inserted into the internal continuity.

I found the stories a quick and undemanding read. Elric's tortured relationship with his soul-drinking sword and his own family heritage makes him an unusually compolex hero. Moorcock's prose is always engaging and often rises to the entertainingly baroque. His roots in Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft are clear (I think a bit less Tolkien). As I have noted before, immersive fantasies don't always work for me but this was an entertaining enough ride. ( )

Possibly Moorcock's finest creation. Bold, exciting and straight to the point - this puts many so-called epic fantasy to shame! ( )

Elric is my favourite fantasy character of all time, a classic anti-hero who you can't help but admire despite his obvious dark side.

And what serious fantasy fan can help but love a character with an intelligent sword which steals enemies' souls and is called Stormbringer!? ( )