In the elaborate fictional cosmos Michael Moorcock has created, Elric and the various vonBeks are all aspects of the Eternal Champion who fights for the Balance, preventing both Law and Chaos from dominating the universe and trapping it in either barren sterility or pointless fecundity. Elric, the albino sorcerer and last prince of the inhuman empire of Melnibone, was the creation of Moorcock's adventurous pot-boiling inventive youth, just as the vonBek family featured in the heroic fantasies of his more thoughtful middle-life.

In The Dreamthief's Daughter, he brings together Elric and Ulric vonBek, last scion of the family, and we finally learn the sin for which the perpetual villain Gaynor the Damned was doomed: Nazi occultists are searching for the Grail and the Black Sword and must be prevented from attaining them. Ulric seeks allies wherever he can find them, including Oona, who wanders through dream realities and with whom he falls in love. This is fast-moving phantasmagorical stuff with ambiguously virtuous heroes and baddies whose villainy and charm is total. Moorcock's immensely powerful visual imagination and sense of the innate drama of crucial scenes make this a breathtaking read. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk


From Publishers Weekly
In this latest installment in his multivolume saga of the Eternal Champion, Moorcock (War Amongst the Angels) teams his favorite hero, the melancholy albino swordsman Elric of Melnibon?, with Count Ulric von Bek, the last in a line of German noblemen who have made several previous appearances in the series. War is in the offing, and Hitler, having learned that the von Bek family may own both an enchanted sword and the Holy Grail itself, sends SS Major Gaynor von Minct to take possession of these mystical relics so they may be used to further the cause of the Third Reich. Von Bek and Gaynor, however, are merely the current earthly avatars of the Eternal Champion and one of his greatest foes; they are knights fighting in the causes, respectively, of Chaos and Law, in innumerable, gorgeously described, alternate realities. Von Bek and Elric, aided by the book's title character, a female archer who can take the shape of a white hare, must confront a variety of gods and monsters in an effort to preserve the balance of the Multiverse, which stands in dire danger of falling under Gaynor's control. Over the years Moorcock has produced a number of highly original genre and mainstream novels. In the Eternal Champion series, however, he has essentially been writing well-done variations on the same story for decades, gradually polishing his stylistic skill and occasionally making veiled allusions to contemporary political events. There's nothing particularly new here, but fans of the series should enjoy this addition. (Apr. 11) Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
When the Nazis attempt to acquire Count Ulric von Bek's legendary sword, Ravenbrand, he finds himself engaged in a battle against occult forces to prevent the heirloom weapon from falling into the wrong hands. At the same time, in another dimension, Elric of Melnibone attempts to keep his own sword, Stormbringer, from falling into the hands of a mad tyrant. Returning to his popular "Eternal Champion" cycle of novels, Moorcock tells a tale of two worlds and two heroes whose deeds have the power to save or destroy the multiverse. The author's flair for combining fast-paced action with metaphysical adventure results in a topnotch fantasy adventure that belongs in most libraries. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Moorcock stalwarts, rejoice! The Eternal Champion is back, and the series in which different incarnations of him figure--the von Bek books and the chronicles of Elric of Melnibone--merge. Moorcock lays the foundations of this book's particular alternate world by reviewing the prehistory of Nazi Germany, after which Count Ulric von Bek relates Hitler's assumption of power and how otherworldly powers aided and resisted him. Ulric allies with the beautiful and magical dreamthief's daughter, Oona, and Emperor Elric of Melnibone, who is Ulric himself in another time period of the "multiverse" of Moorcock's fiction. They aim to destroy Gaynor the Damned, the human agent of pure evil, in all his many incarnations. Aided by the enchanted swords Ravenbrand and Stormbringer, the trio manipulate time and events and come toe-to-toe with the gods in their attempt to rebalance the multiverse. Although slow and uneven at times, the book is so full of magic and mystery, and its bad guys meet such satisfyingly gory ends, that it is still quite a romp. Paula Luedtke
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FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
I vaguely remember high school, but I do vividly recall the Brooklyn Tech Science Fiction Club and the discoveries I made within the walls of the library. Dune, The Hobbit, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Martian Chronicles, Asimov's Foundation trilogy -- these were moments of wonder for me. I also remember hearing about a series of books by Michael Moorcock about an angst-ridden albino prince and his vampiric, soul-stealing black blade -- a series I just had to read. The first book in the series, Stormbringer, was a thrilling adventure set at the end of an era in a huge multileveled universe. I devoured it like a starving man, that novel and every other book in Moorcock's Champion Eternal cycle (but the Elric novels were always the best). I am happy to say The Dreamthief's Daughter delivers the very same thrills I remember so well.

Count Ulric von Bek is the last of his line. An Austrian noble, he rules his small province quietly and justly. It is the late '30s, and Germany is slowly recovering from the first World War. But a civil war is on the horizon, and the rumblings of the Nazi party are starting to sound like thunder. As the Nazis increase in power and spread their rhetoric and influence, the systems of law and democracy are slowly being overturned. Ulric, however, is determined to join the White Rose Society, a group sworn to defeat Hitler and the Nazis. All the while that Ulric is fighting the Nazi movement, he is experiencing strange dreams of dragons and faraway lands. As the White Rose Society struggles against the Nazis, the fascist scientists and philosophers begin collecting objects of myth and power, hoping to add sorcery to their arsenal of war. The two story lines converge on Ulric.

It seems the von Bek family has incredibly old family heirlooms -- a cup that could be the Holy Grail and a rune-covered sword rumored to have belonged to Charlemagne. The black blade is named Ravenbrand and is said to possess a life and power of its own.

Ulric's cousin, Paul Gaynor von Minct, is fully given over to the Nazis. He is obsessed with taking possession of Ulric's sword -- for the sake of the party, he says -- but the truth is far more fantastic. Gaynor seeks to bring war to the multiverse, an infinite chain of alternate realities. With control of the artifacts, the multiverse could be his...

Consigned to a concentration camp, Count Ulric's only hope for survival seems to be releasing the artifacts into his cousin's hands. His continued refusal sees his castle razed, his home destroyed, and his servants murdered. His only escapes are his dreams of dragons and his visitations by an albino warrior in black armor and a dragon helm with blazing red eyes.

Before this story is over, Ulric will travel through the faery lands of the Middlemarch to stand side by side with the haunted Elric of Melnibone -- another aspect of himself, both being incarnations of the Champion Eternal. They both do battle with Prince Gaynor the Damned for the two swords, Ravenbrand and Stormbringer, the Stealer of Souls.

Insane gods, demons from Hell, and an army of half-men and supernatural knights will lay siege to the multiverse and the fabled city of Tanelorn -- the eternal sanctuary. Defeat in this conflict, fought over so many realms, would mean nothing less than oblivion. With The Dreamthief's Daughter, Moorcock ties together many aspects of the Champion Eternal myth and shows himself a gifted storyteller writing at the top of his game. (Jim Killen)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With Hitler on the march, Count Ulric von Bek has been imprisoned by the Nazis until he agrees to relinquish the black sword he inherited from his family. Half dead, he is rescued from Sachsen-hausen concentration camp by a mysterious Englishman and a lovely young woman named Oona. Journeying with them to a strange underground world, he meets a figure known to him only in dreams-Elric of Melniboné, the wandering Prince of Ruins. Somehow the same person, yet separate, their very beings fuse spectacularly. Now the never-ending struggle between Law and Chaos must be fought in both their universes.

Author Biography: Michael Moorcock has written over 80 books and has won the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. He lives in Bastrop, Texas.

SYNOPSIS

Michael Moorcock returns triumphantly to his best-known character, the albino prince, Elric of Melnibon￯﾿ﾽ. In the first of three new tales of the doomed swordsman, Moorcock plaits differing realities effortlessly, mixing the eternal city of Tanelorn with the rise of Hitler's Germany. In the 1930s, Count Ulric von Bek has been harried and imprisoned by the Nazis for a black sword that is part of his family's history. Almost dead, he is rescued from Sachsenhausen concentration camp by two unknown figures--an Englishman called Bastable and an albino girl, Oona. With them, he journeys to a strange, underground world. And there he meets a figure known to him only from dreams, in which they are somehow the same person, yet separate: Elric of Melnibon￯﾿ﾽ. As their stories intertwine, von Bek comes to know of Elric's past, and their very beings become one. Sometimes Elric is in control, sometimes Ulric, and the neverending struggle between Law and Chaos must be fought in both their universes.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this latest installment in his multivolume saga of the Eternal Champion, Moorcock (War Amongst the Angels) teams his favorite hero, the melancholy albino swordsman Elric of Melnibon , with Count Ulric von Bek, the last in a line of German noblemen who have made several previous appearances in the series. War is in the offing, and Hitler, having learned that the von Bek family may own both an enchanted sword and the Holy Grail itself, sends SS Major Gaynor von Minct to take possession of these mystical relics so they may be used to further the cause of the Third Reich. Von Bek and Gaynor, however, are merely the current earthly avatars of the Eternal Champion and one of his greatest foes; they are knights fighting in the causes, respectively, of Chaos and Law, in innumerable, gorgeously described, alternate realities. Von Bek and Elric, aided by the book's title character, a female archer who can take the shape of a white hare, must confront a variety of gods and monsters in an effort to preserve the balance of the Multiverse, which stands in dire danger of falling under Gaynor's control. Over the years Moorcock has produced a number of highly original genre and mainstream novels. In the Eternal Champion series, however, he has essentially been writing well-done variations on the same story for decades, gradually polishing his stylistic skill and occasionally making veiled allusions to contemporary political events. There's nothing particularly new here, but fans of the series should enjoy this addition. (Apr. 11) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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