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The Eternal Champion is a fictional character created by British author
Michael Moorcock Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) 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 wo ...
and is a recurrent feature in many of his
speculative fiction Speculative fiction is an umbrella term, umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from Realism (arts), realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or ...
works.


General overview

Many of Moorcock's novels and short stories take place in a shared
Multiverse The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...
: an array of interconnected parallel universes, many-layered dimensions, spheres, and alternative worlds, spanning from the
Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...
to the End of Time and from planet Earth to faraway galaxies. All these regions of spaces and parallel timelines are given shape by two metaphysical forces which are perpetually opposed to each other: Law and Chaos, which represent perpetual stasis and ever-changing disorder. Since a clear-cut prevalence of either Law or Chaos would erase all life from the Multiverse, a third force known as the Cosmic Balance enforces certain limits on the powers of Law and Chaos, which in turn ensure the continued existence of the Multiverse. Law, Chaos, and the Balance are implied to be non-sentient, but they do manifest through god-like beings who express one facet or another of the three cosmic principles, and in turn, these deities can empower mortal creatures as their heralds and representatives. The Eternal Champion is an appointed
paladin The Paladins, also called the Twelve Peers (), are twelve legendary knights, the foremost members of Charlemagne's court in the 8th century. They first appear in the medieval (12th century) ''chanson de geste'' cycle of the Matter of France, wh ...
of Balance who is bound to exist in each and every world and age of the Multiverse, so that Law and Chaos are perpetually kept in check; however, he often does not know of his role or struggles against it, never to succeed. Since he must intervene whenever either Law or Chaos has gained an excess of power, requiring him to tip the scales accordingly, he is always doomed to be surrounded by strife and destruction, although he may go through long periods of relative quiet. All the different Eternal Champions are implied to be different facets or "incarnations" of one semi-conscious being (a platonic archetype of a sort): most of them are peerless fighters and generals and have an unbreakable bond with a sentient Chaos-aligned weapon, the Black Sword, which, in turn, takes on a different form for each Champion. Likewise, many Champions are aided by an Eternal Companion and an Eternal Consort: a sidekick and a love interest who are themselves aspects of two semi-divine figures. This recursivity through the Multiverse is further underlined by the number of Champions, Companions, and mentor-figures to the Champions Moorcock has given the ''J'' and ''C'' initials, as a form of naming ''fil rouge''; in the same vein, many Champions and Companions belong to one branch or another of the extensive von Bek dynasty. Space- and time-travels through the Multiverse are in fact possible, to the point that one humanoid species called the Eldrens is spread among many different worlds and ages and interacts with many different Champions; however, cosmic laws establish that no two Eternal Champions can coexist in the same situation, or the very fabric of reality would be severely damaged. The only exceptions are cataclysmic events such as the end of a Cycle of Cycles of the Multiverse's progression, or an invasion by hostile entities from an entirely separate multiverse: in these cases, different incarnations of the Champion may join forces to thwart the impending threat, possibly by temporarily merging their individual bodies into a true demigod of immense power.


Incarnations

The following list presents all known Champions in alphabetical order, mentions their respective Swords, Companions, and Consorts, and briefly summarizes their individual plotlines and publishing history: * Alerik * Alivale * Konrad Arflane: the hero of the
postapocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...
novel ''The Ice Schooner'' (1969), Arflane lives during a new
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
that has engulfed most of Earth and forced the surviving humans to revert to a hunting-gathering economy; he sets sails on the eponymous ice schooner to reach the fabled settlement of New York and scavenge all ancestral knowledge that could help restore human civilization. * Artos the Celt * Asquiol of Pompeii: the main character of the science-fiction novella "The Blood Red Game" (1963), Asquiol is leading a human colonizing force into a parallel universe and has to fight for supremacy against a hostile native species. "The Blood Red Game" was eventually combined with the earlier novella "The Sundered Worlds" (1962) into the full-length novel ''The Sundered Worlds'' (1965), making Asquiol somehow of a guest character into the Von Bek saga. * Aubec, Earl of Malador: Aubec debuted in a 1964 short story titled either "The Dream of Earl Aubec" or "Master of Chaos" depending on the collection: he lives in the same world as Elric of Melniboné many generations before that character's birth, serves as a national champion of the human kingdom of Lormyria and is the paramour of the Lormyrian monarch, Queen Eloarde. Moorcock planned a whole series about Aubec's wars against Melniboné in order to ensure human independence, eventually reconnecting to Elric's saga as a direct prequel, but the project was eventually aborted; consequently, "The Dream of Earl Aubec" was reincorporated into Elric's series as a prologue. * Captain
Oswald Bastable Oswald Bastable is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock. He is the protagonist in ''The Warlord of the Air'', ''The Land Leviathan'', and ''The Steel Tsar'', and appears in other stories. Origin in Nesbit's Oswald Bastable E. Nesbi ...
: the main character and narrator of the '' Nomad of Time'' trilogy (1971–1981), Captain Bastable is an officer of the British Imperial Army stationed in the Raj in the early 20th century, until a series of time-travel incidents transports him into three different uchronias: a 1973 where the World Wars have not been fought and the British Empire is now encroached by
decolonizing Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholars of decolon ...
movements; a 1904 where Europe has been left in tatters by a precocious and even more devastating
Great War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
; a 1941 where the British and
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
Empires are firmly allied. Bastable's misadventures in these alternative timelines are constructed as a biography and literary historians regard them as the prototypes of the
steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...
subgenre. * Brian *
Jherek Carnelian ''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". T ...
: one of the last humans to be alive on Earth as the Multiverse is nearing the End of Time, Carnelian is a creature of semi-divine power, hedonistic interests, and obnoxious morality (not unlike his fellow End-Timers), but his lifestyle changes forever once he falls in love with Mrs. Amelia Underwood, a time traveler from the Nineteenth Century; the couple's courtship, relationship and shared adventures across time and space are the subject of a trilogy called ''
The Dancers at the End of Time ''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". T ...
'' (1972–1976); this series is complemented by the ''Legends at the End of Time'': five semi-autonomous short stories and novelettes taking place at the End of Time, themselves composed in the late Seventies (with an additional sixth one being published in 2008). This series is characterized by a high number of cameos from other leading and supporting characters of the Eternal Champion mythos. * Jerry Cornelius: an adventurer and dimensional traveler Moorcock created in the mid-1960s and developed for the following forty years, resulting in an early tetralogy of novels, '' The Cornelius Quartet'' (1968–1977), a ponderous collection of short fiction, '' The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius'' (1976), and a later hexalogy of novels, ''The Cornelius Calendar'' (composed in two stages, 1976–1981 and 2002–2008), with more tales in the working. Cornelius' saga consists of a wide array of surreal situations kept together by the character's uniquely fluid identity and it represents an influential form of experimental literature in the wider context of psychedelic counterculture. This series also includes two spin-off works, a
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
licensed novel titled '' The Coming of the Terraphiles'' (2010), whose Captain Cornelius is, in fact, Jerry's incarnation in the
Whoniverse The Whoniverse is a British media franchise and shared universe consisting of the BBC television series ''Doctor Who'', its Doctor Who spin-offs, spin-offs, and other associated media. The shared universe nature was established by crossing ove ...
; and ''The Distant Suns'' (1975), a late example of
pulp Pulp may refer to: * Pulp (fruit), the inner flesh of fruit * Pulp (band), an English rock band Engineering * Pulp (paper), the fibrous material used to make paper * Dissolving pulp, highly purified cellulose used in fibre and film manufacture ...
space opera Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes Space warfare in science fiction, space warfare, with use of melodramatic, risk-taking space adventures, relationships, and chivalric romance. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, i ...
Moorcock co-authored with James Cawthorn, depicting Jerry as an air force Colonel and a space explorer. Moreover, it is implied that Lord Jagged of Canaria from Jherek Carnelian's series, Jaspar Colinadous from one of Elric's adventures, Dorian Hawkmoon's Jehamia Cohnahlias, Corum's Jhary-a-Conel, and John Daker's Jermays the Crooked are Jerry's counterparts in their respective dimensions. Jerry's version of the Black Sword is a Needle Gun (later morphed into a Vibragun), his Consort is his own sister Catherine (depicted as his wife in ''The Distant Suns'', to avoid any incestuous undertones), and he has a conflictual bond with fellow dimensional adventurer Una Persson. * Jerry Cornell: in 1966 Moorcock edited (and in fact ghost-wrote) a sizeable section of the
spy novel Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intellig ...
''The LSD Dossier'' by Roger Harris and eventually authored two novels starring Harris's original main character, secret agent Nick Allard; later on Moorcock revised his solo works into a stand-alone series centered upon Agent Jerry Cornell (1970–1980), an overt
parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...
of character tropes and clichés from Ian Fleming's
James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
series. * John Daker: a human implied to come from 20th-century Earth, he is forced by Balance to reincarnate into various aspects of the Champion while staying fully aware of all his identities after every transmigration. Through his own series, he takes on four different personas: *# Lord Erekosë: a warrior from an unspecified age of Earth's history and the only human capable of holding the radioactive sword Kunajana. At the beginning of the novella " The Eternal Champion" (1962; expanded into a novel of the same title in 1970) Erekosë has been dead for generations, but a necromantic ritual resurrects him as a new existence for John Daker; the reborn Erekosë consequently gets entangled into a world war between humans and Eldrens and into a love triangle between the two factions' princesses, Eldren Ermizhad and human Iolinda. *# Count Ulrik Skarlsol: once his missions as Erekosë are resolved, Daker is forcibly transferred into Count Ulrik Skarlsol, Lord of the Frozen Keep, a hybernated hero native to an ice-bound planet. During the novel '' Phoenix in Obsidian'' (1970) Count Ulrik embarks on a quest for the mysterious "Chalice" (possibly a counterpart of the Holy Grail) and is forced to wield the Cold Sword, an extremely powerful and malevolent form of the Black Sword. *# Clen of Clen-Gar: Daker assumes this identity during ''The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell'' (1979), a graphic novel co-authored by Moorcock and Howard Chaykin which bridges the time gap between the second and third prose novel. Clen is a human lord of a prosperous bucolic territory called "Heaven", whose "Angel" denizens are responsible for the abysmal state of their neighboring land of "Hell"; as the two countries clash in war, Clen gets romantically involved with Lady Gradesmor from Heaven. *# Prince Flamadin: Flamadin is the ruler of a dimension called Draachenheem and owns both the Dragon Sword (a Black Sword comparable in power to Ulrik Skarlson's Cold Sword) and the Actoris Stone, an enchanted gem that would later become Elric of Melniboné's family heirloom. In ''
The Dragon in the Sword ''The Dragon in the Sword'' is a novel by Michael Moorcock published in 1986, the last of his '' Erekosë'' series following '' The Eternal Champion'' and '' Phoenix in Obsidian'' (both 1970). The first published text is slightly abridged; the ful ...
'' (1986) Daker as Flamadin and his companion from 20th-century Germany, Ulrich von Bek, travel across many interconnected dimensions to prevent a major cataclysm. *
Elric of Melniboné 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 VI ...
: Moorcock's breakthrough character, Elric lives in a prehistorical age of Earth and is the sorcerer-emperor of the Melnibonéans, a pre-human species of Chaos-aligned feys (later
retconned Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in fictional story telling whereby facts and events established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work ...
into being a branch of the Eldren); he wields the soul-eating sword Stormbringer, on which he is co-dependent due to his frail health, and spends his life trying to thwart the Chaos God Arioch, who is also his undesired personal patron due to an ancestral Melnibonéan tradition; the first and last novels in this series also feature Mournblade, Stormbringer's twin sword, which is wielded by Elric's kinsmen. In the early stages of his saga, Elric is enamored of his cousin Princess Cymoril and gets one-time help from Oone the Dreamthief, an enchantress, and Count Smiorgan, a well-known reaver; later on, he falls in love with the human aristocrat Zarozinia and casts his lot with Moonglum of Elwher, a sybaritic sellsword, and Rackhir the Red Archer, a powerful paladin of Balance. Elric's series represents a major milestone in sword & sorcery fiction and, unlike Moorcock's later works, was composed anachronically: it originally consisted of seven short stories and a serialized conclusive novel written from 1961 to 1967, but it was later expanded with three additional novels in the 1970s, two in the 1990s, and some more peripheral contents during the early 21st century. * Franik * Professor Faustaff: the leading character in ''The Wrecks of Time'' (1965), he is a physicist fighting the space-faring marauders known as the D-Squads in order to protect a cluster of fifteen different Earths that exist in parallel to Faustaff's own planet. The 1996 revision of ''The Wrecks of Time'' renamed Faustaff's ally Gordon Ogg into "Gordon Begg", in order to retcon him into a Von Bek and underline those character's respective status as an Eternal Champion and Companion, but this change was eventually dropped in the 2014 reprint. * Goldberg * Duke Dorian Hawkmoon von Köln: a German soldier in a post-nuclear Europe where magic and ancient technology coexist, Duke Hawkmoon embarks on a quest together with his retainer Oladahn to recover the fabled Runestaff (a magical talisman akin to the Holy Grail) and protect the world from the warmongering Dark Empire of Granbretan, which is ruled by the ruthless half-human half-machine King Huon; as this enterprise progresses, Hawkmoon is forced to bear the enchanted Black Jewel, a manifestation of the Black Sword, and falls in love with Yisselda of Brass, heiress of a fiefdom in the land of Kamarg. Dorian's war against Granbretan is central in the ''Runestaff'' tetralogy (1967–1969) while his family life with Yisselda serves as a backdrop to the ''Chronicles of Castle Brass''/''Count Brass'' trilogy (1973–1975), which culminates into a crossover with Elric's, Daker's, and Corum's respective series. * Ilanth * Queen Ilian of Garathorm: one of the very few female Championesses, she teams up with Duke Hawkmoon once he travels to her own world during his sixth novel, ''The Champion of Garathorm''. * Karl Glogauer: a hedonist and a hippie with a countercultural background, Glogauer debuts in the novella "Behold the Man" (1966; expanded into a novel of the same title in 1969), in which he time-travels to
Roman Palestine Roman Palestine was a period in the history of Palestine characterised by Roman rule in the Palestine region. Historians typically trace the period from the Hasmonean civil war in 63 BCE up until the end of the Byzantine rule with the Musli ...
so that he can meet
Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
; the later novel ''Breakfast in the Ruins'' (1972) details the character's gay romances and hallucinatory experiences in contemporary London. He also cameos in Jerry Cornelius's adventures. *
Corum Jhaelen Irsei Corum Jhaelen Irsei (known also as "the Prince in the Scarlet Robe" and "Corum of the Silver Hand") is a fictional fantasy hero in a series of novels written by Michael Moorcock. The character was introduced in the novel ''The Knight of Swords'', ...
: a prince of the Vadhagh, a Law-aligned branch of the Eldren people, Corum effectively becomes the last of his kin after a disastrous war against the Mabden, a species created by Chaos of which
Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
is the Terran variant. After a period of thralldom, the mutilation of his left hand and right eye, and their replacement with magical prosthetics (hence his alias as Corum Llaw Ereint, "Corum of the Silver Hand"), the former prince rises in rebellion against his captors and wages a veritable crusade against Chaos, which takes place both in Corum's own age during the ''Swords'' trilogy (1971) and in a distant future during the ''Silver Hand'' trilogy (1973–1974). As his vendetta unfolds, Corum pursues troubled romances with two human women, Rhalina and Medhbh, and is reliably backed by Jhary-a-Conel, a well-versed dimensional traveler who occasionally supports Hawkmoon as well. Notice that Corum's name is an
anagram An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram"; which ...
of "Jeremiah Cornelius". * Jack Karaquazian: a leading character in the ''Second Ether'' trilogy (1995–1996), which depicts the power struggles between god-like beings (such as Karaquazian himself) of Lawful, Chaotic and neutral affiliation to take control of Balance and swing it their own respective way. Jack is involved in an entangled love affair with his Consort Colinda Dovero, his Companion Sam Oakenhurst and Sam's other love interest Rose von Bek. * Michael Kane of Old Mars: the hero of a 1965 trilogy of novels, Michael Kane is a human scientist from Earth transported to a fictional version of
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
, where he gets embroiled in swashbuckling adventures and court intrigues, including a romance with Martian queen Shizala. Kane is constructed as an explicit homage and throwback to the
planetary romance Planetary romanceAllen Steele, ''Captain Future - the Horror at Jupiter''p .195/ref> (other synonyms are sword and planet, and planetary adventure) is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy in which the bulk of the action consists of a ...
subgenre and, more specifically, to
John Carter of Mars John Carter of Mars is a fictional Virginian soldier who acts as the initial protagonist of the Barsoom stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A veteran of the American Civil War, he is transported to the planet Mars, called Barsoom by its inhabit ...
by
Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American writer, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best known for creating the characters Tarzan (who appeared in ...
; in turn, the biographical style of the trilogy represents a direct antecedent to Oswald Bastable's saga. * Clovis Marca: the leading character in ''The Shores of Death'' (1966), Marca is one of the last human denizens of a future Earth which stopped rotating and is now split between a daily and a nightly hemisphere; he embarks on a quest to cure humankind's severe sterility and grant his species a future. The 1996 revision of ''The Shores of Death'' renamed Marca into "Clovis Becker" in order to retcon him into a distant Von Bek, but this change was eventually dropped in the 2014 reprint. * Mejink-La-Kos * M'v Okom Sebpt O'Riley, Gunholder of the Qui Lors Ventures: another female Championess, she wields the Black Sword under the guise of a soul-eating pistol, the Banning Gun. She acts as a mentor to Eric Beck in ''Elric: The Balance Lost''. * Oshbek-Uy * Pournachas * Alan Powys: the leading character in '' The Winds of Limbo'' (1965), Powys is a state functionary in a distant future where humankind has retreated underground under the stewardship of a despotic government; he strives to protect his home country from a space terrorist known as "The Fireclown". The 1996 revision of ''The Winds of Limbo'' renamed Powys into "Alain von Bek" in order to retcon him into a distant Von Bek, but this change was eventually dropped in the 2014 reprint. * Colonel Maxim Arturovitch "Pyat" Pyatnitski: possibly the only Champion whose adventures are fully mimetic rather than fantastical, Colonel Pyat is a long-lived Russian aristocrat and military man born on 1 January 1900. He spends his life traveling across the globe and getting entangled into all sorts of high-level political intrigues, effectively shaping the fates of Earth before, during, and after the World Wars, his only stable human connection being his lover Honoria Cornelius, Jerry's mother. Moorcock originally created Pyat as a supporting character in Jerry Cornelius's series and eventually fleshed him out in the ''Pyat Quartet'' (1981–2006); this series is structured it as a self-celebratory four-volume autobiography by the Colonel himself, with Moorcock acting as an editor. * Ryan: the lead character of ''The Black Corridor'' (1969), Ryan lives in a dystopian future of rampaging xenophobia, nuclear warfare and societal collapse; he commandeers the interstellar spaceship ''Hope Dempsy'' and tries to bring a rag-tag group of refugees to safety. * The "Scar-Faced Brooder" or "Cronarch": a character from Moorcock's juvenile novelettes ''The Time Dweller'' (1964) and ''Escape from Evening'' (1965), dealing with the state of human society in a dying Earth scenario. * Shaleen * Sojan the Swordsman: Moorcock's first original character and a prototype to the Eternal Champion concept, Sojan is a deceased Terran who reincarnates on the planet Zylor and embarks on a series of picaresque adventures; interestingly, while he does wield a sword and a pneumatic gun, his actual signature weapon is a shield (hence the moniker of "Sojan Shieldbearer"). Sojan's adventures first appeared around 1955 as a twenty-three parts serial on the ''Burroughsania'' fanzine, which Moorcock had been contributing to, were reprinted for profit in ''Tarzan Adventures'' between 1957 and 1958, and they were eventually fixed-up in book form in 1977; finally, the 2013 edition combined this serial together with other sword-and-planet short fiction focusing on Dek of Noothar, Klan the Spoiler, and Rens Karto of Bersnol. * Umpata * Ghardas Valabasian, Conqueror of the Distant Suns * Graf Ulrich von Bek: a German soldier fighting in the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...
, Graf Ulrich is the leading character of the
historical fantasy Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic (fantasy), magic) into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those c ...
novel '' The War Hound and the World's Pain'' (1981), in which he strikes a
deal with the Devil A deal with the Devil is a cultural motif exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being elemental to many Christian traditions. According to traditional Christian belief about witchcraft, the pact is ...
and takes upon his family the duty of locating and guarding the
Holy Grail The Holy Grail (, , , ) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenanc ...
; his Companion and Consort in this adventure are Gurni Gurnisson and Sabrina. Graf Ulrich's actions reverberate through space and time by making the von Beks aware of the Multiverse, the designated owners of the sword Ravenbrand (which is, in fact, Mournblade from Elric's series) and uniquely attuned to magic and dimensional travel, so that different members of the bloodline are involved in many other sagas and stand-alone episodes of the Eternal Champion mythos.
Ulrich von Bek and his descendants are a somewhat unusual family in Moorcock's works, as they function both as an aspect of the Eternal Champion and as a companion to him. The family is considered to be the current Keeper of the Holy Grail. The von Bek family motto is "Do you the Devil's work", a nod to the relationship that the family developed with Lucifer in '' The War Hound and the World's Pain''. ** Manfred von Bek: the main character of '' The City in the Autumn Stars'' (1986), a direct sequel to ''The War Hound and the World's Pain,'' Manfred carries on Graf Ulrich's quest for the Grail as Europe is engulfed by the French Revolution; he is aided by the Duchess of Crete, Libussa Cartagena y Mendoza-Chilperic. Due to their shared main plotline, ''The War Hound and the World's Pain'' and ''The City in the Autumn Stars'' are usually collected together as the core of the "Von Bek saga". ** Renark von Bek: a citizen of humankind's stellar empire established in the aftermath of World War Three, Renark is tasked with traveling to a secluded dimension known as the Sundered Worlds so that he can stabilize the Multiverse and prevent its untimely collapse. He is the lead character in the novella "The Sundered Worlds" (1962), which was eventually combined with "The Blood Red Game" (1963) into the full-length novel ''The Sundered Worlds'' (1965). ** Rose von Bek: the last survivor of a militant order devoted to Balance, she was originally known as "The Rose", but married into the von Bek family and kept the surname after her divorce. She is the titular coprotagonist in Elric's novel ''The Revenge of the Rose'' (1991) and a leading character in the ''Second Ether'' trilogy. While no Championess herself, her cosmic power is comparable to that of the various Champions. Her signature weapons are the sword Swift Thorn and the dagger Little Thorn. ** Ulrich von Bek: a direct descendant of Graf Ulrich, he rebels against
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
and escapes death by serving as an Eternal Companion to John Daker once the latter incarnates into Prince Flamadin during ''
The Dragon in the Sword ''The Dragon in the Sword'' is a novel by Michael Moorcock published in 1986, the last of his '' Erekosë'' series following '' The Eternal Champion'' and '' Phoenix in Obsidian'' (both 1970). The first published text is slightly abridged; the ful ...
''. ** Ulric von Bek: a distinct character from the former (notice the h-less spelling of his name), he too opposes the
Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
together with his wife Oona von Bek, a half-human half-Melnibonéan hybrid who has relocated to 20th-century Germany. Ulric and Oona are the leading characters of the ''Moonbeam Roads Trilogy'' (2001–2005), an explicit crossover between Elric's saga and the Von Beks'. ** Count Ulrich Rudric Renark Otto von Bek-Krasny, also known as "Zenith the Albino": an Eternal Champion existing on 20th-century Earth and most likely a reincarnated Elric of Melniboné, since his Black Sword is Stormbringer itself; he is a criminal mastermind and is perpetually engaged into a cat-and-mouse game against his distant cousin Sir Seaton Begg, a British "metatemporal detective" belonging to the English branch of the dynasty. Zenith and Begg's shared adventure were composed anachronically and collected for the first time in ''
The Metatemporal Detective ''The Metatemporal Detective'' is a collection of short fiction by British fantasy and literary writer Michael Moorcockbr> The stories chart the adventures of the Holmesian detective Sir Seaton Begg, his trusty sidekick Dr. Taffy Sinclair and his ...
'' (2007), while some of them had already appeared in the second volume of the ''Second Ether'' series, ''Fabulous Harbours'' (1995). ** Eric Beck: the main character of the graphic novel ''Elric: The Balance Lost'' (2011–2012), he is an Eternal Champion living on 21st Century Earth and gets dragged into an ensemble adventure together with Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, Oswald Bastable, and the cast of the ''Second Ether'' series. His Black Sword is a Japanese
katana A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge fa ...
named ''Murakamo-No-Tsurugi'' ("Sword of the Gathering Clouds"). He is a collateral member of the Von Bek dynasty through the Begg lineage (originally, van Beek). ** Karol von Bek: the melancholy Duke of Waldenstein (mentioned in "The Citadel of Forgotten Myths") In addition to Moorcock's own creations, a number of references through his works have stated that Ulysses and
Roland Roland (; ; or ''Rotholandus''; or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was mil ...
have been Earth's Eternal Champions as well.


Publishing history


The Tale of the Eternal Champion

Between 1992 and 1993 Moorcock partnered with British publisher Millenium (later absorbed into the
Orion Publishing Group Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It was founded in 1991 and acquired Weidenfeld & Nicolson the following year. The group has published numerous bestselling books by notable authors including Ian Rankin, Michael Connell ...
) to print a multi-volume collection of all novels and short stories belonging to the Eternal Champion sequence, under the moniker of "The Tale of the Eternal Champion"; starting from 1994 and up to 2000, a parallel project simply called "The Eternal Champion" was undertaken by
White Wolf Publishing White Wolf Entertainment AB, formerly White Wolf Publishing, was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant (game publisher), Lion Rampant

The Michael Moorcock Collection

Moorcock's second attempt to systematize the Eternal Champion corpus took place between 2013 and 2015, once
Victor Gollancz Ltd Victor Gollancz Ltd () was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz, an ...
(another imprint of the Orion conglomerate) secured the rights for all of his fantasy and science-fiction works and consequently reprinted them in a cohesive series, labeled as "The Michael Moorcock Collection"; as of 2021, these Gollancz editions represent the most updated versions of Moorcock's opus, due to their contents having been jointly revised by the author and his bibliographer John Davey into a definitive textual rendition. This publication included both all of the author's full-length novels and a selection of short fiction and was eventually complemented by two stand-alone series collecting the author's non-Champion sagas, the ''London Sequence'' and ''The Sanctuary of the White Friars''. The following table and paragraph list the full contents of the collection. The Collection was further complemented by five
digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
-only releases: * Jerry Cornell's series: *# '' The Chinese Agent'' (1970) *# '' The Russian Intelligence'' (1980) * ''The Golden Barge'' (1979, but originally composed in 1958) * ''Sojan the Swordsman'' (1977, but originally composed in 1954–1958) * ''The Distant Suns'' (1975, but originally composed in 1969) As of 2021, Gollancz has not yet acquired the rights for the ''Pyat Quartet'', consisting of: #''
Byzantium Endures ''Byzantium Endures'' is a historical fiction novel by English author Michael Moorcock published by Secker & Warburg in 1981. It is the first in the '' Pyat Quartet'' tetralogy, and is followed by '' The Laughter of Carthage''. Plot summary The ...
'' (1981) #''
The Laughter of Carthage ''The Laughter of Carthage'' is a historical fiction novel by English author Michael Moorcock published by Secker & Warburg in 1984. It is the second in the '' Pyat Quartet'' tetralogy, preceded by '' Byzantium Endures'' and followed by '' Jerusa ...
'' (1984) #'' Jerusalem Commands'' (1992) #'' The Vengeance of Rome'' (2006)


See also

* ''
The Hero with a Thousand Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'' (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell, in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world my ...
'': an anthropological essay on the narrative structures of myths by influential scholar Joseph Campbell and a prominent source of literary inspiration for Moorcock's generation.


References


Further reading

* Darren Harris-Fain, "British fantasy and science-fiction writers since 1960", Gale Group, 2002, , p. 293 * Carter Kaplan, "Fractal fantasies of transformation: William Blake, Michael Moorcock and the utilities of mythographic shamanism" ''in'' "New boundaries in political science fiction", (edd Donald M. Hassler, Clyde Wilcox) Univ of South Carolina Press, 2008, , pp. 35–52 * Kaplan, Carter. ''Critical Synoptics: Menippean Satire and the Analysis of Intellectual Mythology''. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson U P, 2000. * Frank Northern Magill, "Survey of modern fantasy literature, Volume 1", Salem Press, 1983, , p. 489 {{Michael Moorcock Michael Moorcock's Multiverse *