Gloriana

by Michael Moorcock

Book Overview

In this "spellbinding" ( The Sunday Times) award-winning fantasy, the vast empire of Albion is ruled by the beautiful and forlorn queen, Gloriana, who must battle against a nefarious scoundrel,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0445202718
• ISBN13: 9780445202719
• Release Date: August 1986
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 378 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and beautiful, tragic and tremendous

Moorcock's homage to Peake is not an imitation, like so many of those Tolkien clones. It is a brilliant and gorgeous story which Moorcock insists is an allegory not a fantasy. Much happens at Gloriana's court, the center of a magnificent Empire which includes 'Virginia' (America) but don't expect magic. This is essentially a bizarre love story, plus a study of what empires need to maintain the myth of their moral superiority over their subjects and as such it has quite a lot to say about our current political condition. But first and foremost this is an imaginative tour-de-force. If you're a Moorcock fan, this is a book to give to the unconverted. It's not S & S and it isn't a realistic novel, but, like the world of Spenser's Faerie Queene, it is a story full of scintillating writing and glowing descriptions. This is in the finest tradition of non-Tolkien British fantasy of which Moorcock is the unchallenged master. This particular edition, with its afterword by Moorcock, as well as lyrics for some of his music for the book (rumored to be released some time next year by Moorcock's record company) which remind you that among his many other talents, Moorcock is a capable musician song-writer and poet. This is the best edition yet published and I recommend it highly. I now have three copies on my shelves, each of which is slightly different! Grab one while you can. As long as you're not expecting swords and sorcery, you won't be disappointed!

Long Live Gloriana, Queen of Albion!

If I could only have one volume of Moorcock in my library, I do believe that this would be it. I have heard this exquisite fantasy compared with Peake's Ghormanghast- except that an American will find Gloriana actually readable and enjoyable. I can't think of a richer fantasy world encompased in a single self-sufficient novel. And while it is fantasy, it is not sugar-sweet and naive, it is fantasy most worldly and sophisticated. This global Elizabethan empire is quite convincingly atmospheric, as is London and the great palace itself. You want it to exist, hell, you want to go there. You would not hesitate to pledge fealty to Gloriana the First, Queen of Albion, Empress of Asia and Virginia. You want to believe in the ideal she represents, in a world that would otherwise redescend into darkness and madness....

Fine embroidery with words

Gloriana, queen of Albion, was born of rape from tainted stock. Taller, wiser, more beautiful and more kind than all other mortals-- she lacks the ability to find sexual (emotional) completion. Captain Quire is an artist of evil, who seeks an appreciative patron for his finest works. Quire is bidden to weaken Albion and force the queen to marry and sets about it with his usual skill. But Gloriana is no ordinary opponent, and whether the two of them will find destruction or redemption in each other becomes the crux of the novel.Moorcock clearly delights in detail-- historial Elizabethan era, with the tiny twists that make it an alternative universe. Decadence, Dr. Dee, automatons, travelers from other realities, court seasons and public poetry make up the stage-setting which is almost more compelling than the story itself.

Superb writing and characterisation only matched by Peake

The cleverness of this book takes my breath away. No wonder it won the World Fantasy Award and no wonder Peter Ackroyd, among others, picked it as his Book of the Year (and seems to be dipping into it ever since!). As a student of Elizabethan, Jacobean and Carolignian literature, I am highly impressed both by the underlying philosophical argument (very late Renaissance) and the prose, which is more Carolignian than Elizabethan. Moorcock specifically says that while the book has some direct reference to Spenser's The Fairy Queen, it has none to Elizabethan England. What always astonishes me is how readers who don't read widely seem to know exactly why a book is bad! This is very much a book for grown-ups and I suppose it wouldn't appeal to bigots, but it's very hard to see bigots even beginning to understand it. The main characters represent Virtue and Vice, very much in a Jonsonian mode, but the plot has a more Jacobean feel -- Captain Quire the assassin, who enjoys his work and practises it like an art, an intellectual killer with a rationale subtler than Hannibal Lector's, and Gloriana, the burdened symbol of her Empire, the embodiment of all her nation regards as virtuous, yet unable to enjoy an organism and devoting all her free time to that quest, desperately seeking it in sensation, because she cannot trust herself to love. The book falls into four parts, following the seasons, very much a late Renaissance idea, and contains parodies of public poetry. The range of other characters, both comical and sinister, is brilliant. And so are the scenes -- the dance on the ice, the great masque, the hunt -- a major set piece for each season. Platonicism instead of Christianity. This is a well-considered and profoundly knowledgeable book, like most of Moorcock's ambitious fiction. This follows in theme books like Behold the Man and The Brothel in Rosenstrasse -- how much of the person is the embodiment of others' desires ? How do those desires mould the destiny of the person ? This is a superb piece of literary fiction. It is foolish to list it as generic fiction at all. It deserves a demanding and literate readership.

Moorcock's richest, most surprising work!

It is England under Elizabeth as it might have been if the Gods of Chaos still lurked in the walled-up secret corridors abandoned since mad, incestuous, violent Henry VIII was o'erthrown. In a palace in whose walled-in corridors lurk madmen and shadows, the frigid Queen seeks satisfaction, and a man who regards assassination as an art form seeks fulfillment. Moorcock's most surprising, rich and intense work, far beyond Elric and Corum.