Oswald Bastable | |
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Created by | Michael Moorcock, inspired by E. Nesbit |
In-universe information | |
Gender | Male |
Nationality | English |
Oswald Bastable is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock. [1] He is the protagonist in The Warlord of the Air , The Land Leviathan , and The Steel Tsar , and appears in other stories.
E. (Edith) Nesbit created a character named Oswald Bastable and his five siblings in the 1890s [2] and featured them in numerous children's adventure stories narrated by Oswald. (These stories were completely separate from Nesbit's other children's fantasy adventures, Five Children and It and its sequels.) Many Bastable stories were first published in magazines as standalone pieces, not as parts of serialized novels, but they were later compiled into three episodic novels, The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), The Wouldbegoods (1901), and New Treasure Seekers (1904). Four more Bastable stories are in the collection Oswald Bastable and Others (1905).
Moorcock stated on the forums of his website [3] that his use of the name "Oswald Bastable" was not supposed to directly link his character with Nesbit's (i.e. to make his novels into sequels). Rather, he said that he was trying to connect with a particular "Fabian 'liberal' imperialism, still fundamentally paternalistic but well-meaning" which he felt belonged to Nesbit's era. Edith Nesbit and her husband Hubert Bland had been among the founders and leading members of the Fabian Society. Its proclaimed aim was to eventually get to Socialism, but in a gradual non-revolutionary way. It can be said that in practice this made its members into proponents of a continued, reformed British Empire. Moorcock's Bastable books explore various variants on the theme of imperialism and colonialism: the British and other colonial empires persisting into the later 20th century, or conversely collapsing already in the early 1900s, and so on.
The original character was born 15 August, as stated on page 201, in The Wouldbegoods . Oswald Bastable was Captain of the 53rd Lancers in British India, and one of four brothers. In Moorcock's work, Bastable is opium user, with opium playing somewhat the same role for him that Stormbringer does for Elric in Moorcock's "Elric Sequence" novels.
Michael John Moorcock is an English 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.
Stormbringer is a magic sword featured in a number of fantasy stories by the author Michael Moorcock. It is described as a huge, black sword covered with strange runes, created by the forces of Chaos. The sword has a will of its own and it is hinted that the sword may be controlled by an inhabiting entity. It is wielded by the doomed albino emperor Elric of Melniboné. Stormbringer makes its first appearance in the 1961 novella The Dreaming City. In the four novellas collected in the 1965 book Stormbringer, the sword's true nature is revealed.
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.
Edith Nesbit was an English writer and poet, who published her books for children and others as E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 such books. She was also a political activist and co-founder of the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party.
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.
Monsieur Zenith the Albino is an ambiguous villain created by writer Anthony Skene for the "Sexton Blake" series of detective pulp fiction.
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.
Oswald may refer to:
The Story of the Treasure Seekers is a novel by E. Nesbit first published in 1899. It tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family. The novel's complete name is The Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune. The original edition included illustrations by H. R. Millar. The Puffin edition (1958) was illustrated by Cecil Leslie. Its sequels are The Wouldbegoods (1901) and The New Treasure Seekers (1904).
The Land Leviathan is an alternative history novel by Michael Moorcock, first published in 1974. Originally subtitled "A New Scientific Romance", it has been seen as an early steampunk novel, dealing with an alternative British Imperial history dominated by airships and futuristic warfare. It is a sequel to Warlord of the Air (1971) and followed by The Steel Tsar (1981). This proto-steampunk trilogy is also published as the compilation volume A Nomad of the Time Streams.
The Steel Tsar is a sci-fi/alternate history novel by Michael Moorcock, first published in 1981 by Granada. Being a sequel to The Warlord of the Air (1971) and The Land Leviathan (1974), it is the final part of Moorcock's A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy regarding the adventures of Captain Oswald Bastable and which has been seen as an early example of steampunk fiction. The same cover image was used for the 1984 reissue of Judas Priest album Rocka Rolla and also the 1989 video game Ballistix.
A Nomad of the Time Streams is a compilation volume of Michael Moorcock's early steampunk trilogy, begun in 1971 with The Warlord of the Air and continued by its 1974 and 1981 sequels, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar. The trilogy follows the adventures of Edwardian-era British Army Captain Oswald Bastable in alternate versions of the 20th century.
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".
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.
Bastable may refer to:
This is a bibliography of the works of Michael Moorcock.
The Treasure Seekers is a 1996 British television family film directed by Juliet May and starring Camilla Power, Felicity Jones and Kristopher Milnes. In Edwardian Britain, a family have only a few days to raise enough money to stop their home being repossessed. It is based on the 1899 novel The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit.
The Wouldbegoods is a novel by E. Nesbit first published in 1901. It tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius Bastable, as well as Daisy and Denis Foulkes, and their attempts to perform good deeds, which usually go awry. The novel's complete name is The Wouldbegoods, Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers. The original edition included illustrations by Reginald B. Birch. The Puffin edition (1958) was illustrated by Cecil Leslie. It is a sequel to The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and was followed by The New Treasure Seekers (1904).