The Warlord of the Air

by Michael Moorcock

Book Overview

It is 1973, and the stately airships of the Great Powers hold benign sway over a peaceful world. The balance of power is maintained by the British Empire - a most equitable and just Empire, ruled by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441870600
• ISBN13: 9780441870608
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Ace
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Steampunk Anti-Utopia

Warlord in the Air is an amusing send up of the technological utopianism of Edward Bellamy and - especially - H. G. Wells. The novel follows the story of Oswald Bastable, a British soldier in 1903 who wakes up 70 years in the future. This future is not our own, however: he awakes in a world without war, a world with technological marvels including kinematographs, wireless telephones, and air ships, where neither of the World Wars occurred. But the price of universal peace, it seems, is the continuation of colonialism: none of the empires of the 19th century broke up; none of the revolutions of the 20th transpired; India, most of China, and many other parts of the world remain violently subjugated. Counterfactual versions of Joseph Conrad, Ronald Reagan, Lenin, Mick Jagger, and a number of others appear. All in all, a satisfying Edwardian steampunk novel. What some other reviewers fail to realize is that the framing story of Oswald Bastable's unexplained time travel to the alternative future is self-consciously patterned on narratives by Bellamy, Wells, and similar utopian authors of the 19th and early 20th century. This conceit - along with the colonial scene it takes place in - is meant to communicate that the novel's future is an extrapolation from the utopias of the time period, one that reveals the racism and imperialism underlying some of their visions. Moreover, since the novel functions as a commentary on Bastable's original era, it would be incomplete without some reference to it.

Excellent

An excellent novel, a delightful throwback to late Victorian fiction filled with cameo appearances and pop culture references. Definitely worth the read.