My Experiences in the Third World War was a collection of stories by Michael Moorcock, alone and in collaboration with other creators. It was published by Savoy Books in 1980. [1]
My Experiences in the Third World War was a collection of stories by Michael Moorcock, alone and in collaboration with other creators. It was published by Savoy Books in 1980. [1]
The title is based upon the three stories "Going to Canada", "Leaving Pasadena" and "Crossing into Cambodia". These relate the adventures of a Russian KGB agent in an alternate historical timeline, in which World War 3 has broken out, this being an apocalyptic conflict in which the United States and the Soviet Union are allies. The collection also includes The Dodgem Division, a previously published Jerry Cornelius short story and extracts from The Adventures of Jerry Cornelius: The English Assassin .
The three stories were supposed to be chapters of a commissioned larger book (to be called Reminiscences of the Third World War) rather than a collection. Savoy Books had been convicted the year before in High Court for selling bootleg records imported from America. [2] [3] The fines and penalties prohibited the cash-strapped publisher from going forward with the full project.
The final three stories were written by Moorcock under his pen name of "James Colvin". "Peace on Earth" was co-written with Barrington J. Bayley (under his pen name of "Michael Barrington"). "Peace on Earth" recounts "two spacefarers [search] for an answer to the fathomless ennui caused by their immortality". [4]
In "The Lovebeas", deadly fallout from years of orbital nuclear testing by the world's governments is slowly killing all life on Earth. The Lovebeast, a creature floating above the Earth that has stored Love within itself for millions of years, wishes to Love mankind. Dying artist Charlie Curtis may be the conduit by which the Lovebeast can connect to humanity. [5] [6]
In The Real Life Mr. Newman (a.k.a. Adventures of the Dead Astronaut), is about a dying English astronaut who returns to an Earth whose cities have been changed to reflect the subconsciousness of their inhabitants. [7]
"The English Assassin" were extracts of a Jerry Cornelius comic strip co-written by Moorcock and M. John Harrison and drawn by Mal Dean and R. Glyn Jones, originally serialized in the International Times from June 1969 (Issue #57, pg.8) to January 1970 (Issue #71, pg.25).
The short story "The Dodgem Division" had first been printed in Speculation magazine (issue No.23; 1969).
"Crossing into Cambodia" had first appeared in the Maxim Jakubowski anthology Twenty Houses of the Zodiac . Going to Canada, "Leaving Pasadena", and "Crossing into Cambodia", It was reprinted in The Opium General and other stories by Harrap in 1984. The short story "Casablanca", the earliest story in the series, was first published in the later anthology Casablanca by Victor Gollancz Ltd. in 1989. All four stories were published together for the first time in the collection Earl Aubec and Other Stories by Millennium in 1993 and White Wolf in 1999.
"The Lovebeast" (1957) and "The Real Life Mr. Newman" (1961) were first printed in The Deep Fix collection (Compact Books 1966). The Deep Fix also reprinted the short stories The Deep Fix (Science Fantasy magazine No.64; 1963), "Peace on Earth" (New Worlds magazine Vol. 30 – No. 89; 1958), and The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius (New Worlds magazine Vol.49 – No.154; 1965).
Michael John Moorcock is an English–American writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s.
Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character created by English writer Michael Moorcock and the protagonist of a series of sword and sorcery stories taking place on an alternative Earth. The proper name and title of the character are Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné. Later stories by Moorcock marked Elric as a facet of the Eternal Champion.
Michael John Harrison, known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories (1971–1984), Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space (2012).
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional character created by English author Michael Moorcock. The character is an urban adventurer and an incarnation of the author's Eternal Champion concept. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous gender. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books have little connection with one another, having a more metafictional than causal relationship. The first Jerry Cornelius book, The Final Programme, was made into a 1973 film starring Jon Finch and Jenny Runacre. Notting Hill in London features prominently in the stories.
The Eternal Champion is a fictional character created by British author Michael Moorcock and is a recurrent feature in many of his speculative fiction works.
New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine that began in 1936 as a fanzine called Novae Terrae. John Carnell, who became Novae Terrae's editor in 1939, renamed it New Worlds that year. He was instrumental in turning it into a professional publication in 1946 and was the first editor of the new incarnation. It became the leading UK science fiction magazine; the period to 1960 has been described by science fiction historian Mike Ashley as the magazine's "Golden Age".
Edwin Charles Tubb was a British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western novels. The author of over 140 novels and 230 short stories and novellas, Tubb is best known for The Dumarest Saga, an epic science-fiction saga set in the far future. Michael Moorcock wrote, "His reputation for fast-moving and colourful SF writing is unmatched by anyone in Britain."
Gideon Stargrave is a comics character created by Grant Morrison in 1978 for the anthology comic Near Myths, and later incorporated into their series The Invisibles. The character is based on J. G. Ballard's "The Day of Forever" and Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius, which led to accusations of plagiarism from Moorcock.
The Dancers at the End of Time is a series of science fiction novels and short stories written by Michael Moorcock, the setting of which is the End of Time, an era "where entropy is king and the universe has begun collapsing upon itself". The inhabitants of this era are immortal decadents, who create flights of fancy via the use of power rings that draw on energy devised and stored by their ancestors millions of years prior. Time travel is possible, and throughout the series various points in time are visited and revisited. Space travellers are also common, but most residents of the End of Time find leaving the planet distasteful and clichéd. The title of the series is itself taken from a poem by a fictitious 19th-century poet, Ernest Wheldrake, which Mrs. Amelia Underwood quotes in The End of All Songs. "Ernest Wheldrake" had been a pseudonym used by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
The Warlord of the Air is a 1971 British alternate history novel written by Michael Moorcock. It concerns the adventures of Oswald Bastable, an Edwardian era soldier stationed in India, and his adventures in an alternate universe, in his own future, wherein the First World War never happened. It is the first part of Moorcock's A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy and, in its use of speculative technology juxtaposed against an Edwardian setting, it is widely considered to be one of the first steampunk novels. The novel was first published by Ace Books as part of their Ace Science Fiction Specials series.
The Hawkwind, Friends and Relations series of albums was released in the early 1980s containing live and studio performances by Hawkwind and related bands.
The Final Programme is a novel by British science fiction and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. Written in 1965 as the underground culture was beginning to emerge, it was not published for several years. Moorcock has stated that publishers at the time considered it was "too freaky".
The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century: A Romance is a novel by British fantasy and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock. It is part of his long running Jerry Cornelius series. It was first published in 1976 by Quartet Books in the UK.
The Cornelius Quartet is the collective name for the Jerry Cornelius novels by Michael Moorcock, although the first one-volume edition was entitled The Cornelius Chronicles. It is composed of The Final Programme, A Cure for Cancer, The English Assassin and The Condition of Muzak. The collection has remained continuously in print for 30 years.
Una Persson is a recurring character in many of Michael Moorcock's 'multiverse' novels. She has also been used as a character in stories by other writers. She was the character Moorcock chose to start a round-robin story in The Guardian.
Barrington J. Bayley was an English science fiction writer.
This is a bibliography of the works of Michael Moorcock.
The Time Dweller is a collection of short stories by Michael Moorcock. The stories contained in the collection were published between 1963 and 1966, and the collection itself was published in 1969.
The Opium General and other stories by Michael Moorcock was a hardcover collection of novellas, short stories, and articles. It was published in 1984 by Harrap. It was a collection of new work and rare items.
Twenty Houses of the Zodiac is a 1979 English-language anthology of twenty science fiction short stories, many of them translated into English, for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention. It was edited by Maxim Jakubowski and published by New English Library. Many of the included writers had never previously had their work translated into English. The majority of the English translations are unique to the anthology and were not previously or subsequently printed. It includes an introductory essay by Jakubowski.