The Dancers At The End Of Time by Michael Moorcock

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The Dancers At The End Of Time by Michael Moorcock (SF Masterworks # 53)
pub: Gollancz. 664 page enlarged paperback. Price: Ł 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07476-0

check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk

Jherek Carnelian is a dandy (in the Victorian sense of the word), living at the end of the decaying universe with infinite possibilities. His ancestors have left huge self-replicating cities that provide almost an infinite source of power to power rings that all the few inhabitants of Earth now possess.

Dancers at the end of Time With the rings, people are left to build and destroy whatever they wish. Disease hunger and even death are no longer an issue as people can just be resurrected from a few of their atoms.

The Earth is just one big playground. Leisure and art have become all. Visitors from other planets and even time travellers are kept in menageries for people's pleasure and amusement. At one particularly decadent party, a time traveller appears, a young Victorian woman called Amelia Underwood along with a small alien who had just arrived from his travels around the universe warning people of the imminent collapse and end of the known universe.

Jherek falls immediately (or so he thinks) in love with Mrs Underwood. Before Jherek has time to get to know Amelia, the two of them are snatched up. The alien by Mongrove who wallows in misery and Amelia by Lady Charlotina. Jherek desperate to get Amelia back, starts concocting a plan. He sets off to Mongrove's 'castle' to discuss how he can get Amelia back.

Mongrove says he will trade Amelia for the alien so Jherek sets off and steals the alien from right under Lady Charlotina's nose. He returns to Mongrove's and swaps the alien for Amelia. He worships Amelia and sets up home replicating Victorian home back at his ranch for Amelia to live in. She tries to teach him Victorian standards and morals but Jherek has little concept of emotions or morals.

The relationship is strained, but Amelia tries her hardest to explain these concepts and ways of living. Just as the two of them seem to becoming more aquatinted, Amelia disappears into thin air. Realising that Lady Charlotina has had her revenge and sent Amelia back to her own time in the 1800s, Jherek persuades Brannart Morphail (the Earth's last scientist) to lend him a time machine and he, too, travels back to Bromley and the 1800s only to find himself rapt up in a scam with a Snoozer.

This volume is a reprint of the books, 'An Alien Heat' (1972), 'The Hollow Lands' (1974) and 'The End Of All Songs' (1976). This is the first Moorcock book I've read. I've been eager to read one of his books for a long time and always thought of him as a heavyweight Science Fiction author. I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. It's a homage to all those Victorian authors such as Verne and Wells but also to authors such as Wilde and Beardsley. It's totally different to what I was expecting. The humour is witty rather than making you laugh out loud but what really appealed was the breadth of Moorcock's imagination.

This book is verging on almost surrealist viewpoint but not quite. The first question I asked myself when I started reading this was where do you take characters and a society who can do nearly everything and can have anything they want (almost). The answer is through time both forward and back. Throw in some clever subplots, twists and a character (Lord Jagged) who keeps popping up in different times as different characters and you've got a really interesting mix.

Throughout the book, you get the feeling that Jherek and Amelia are being controlled and manipulated, but you're not sure how. You start to suspect 'who' quite early on. There are some truly hilarious points such as the climax in London's Café Royal. Also, the book reflects some clever philosophical arguments and demonstrates how people can truly get history totally wrong.

This is a thought-provoking read but also an enjoyable one. It's probably not quite par with the likes of 'Hitchhiker's Guide' but what is does do is bring a flavour of those wonderful Victorian writers that tend to get overlooked nowadays. At one point, Jherek has a train trip to Bromley with HG Wells and talks about time machines.

It's an easy read and will appeal to a wide range of people and if nothing else makes you think a bit.

Phil Jones

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