I recently reread The Vanishing Tower and based on Corum’s cameo I decided to get a Corum omnibus from half.com. The problem is that the book arrived today, and it turns out that The Chronicles of Corum starts at book 4, which is entitled The Staff and the Spear or somesuch. (I don’t have the book handy at the moment.)
What’s up with this? I’d like to start reading the series from the first book which Moorcock wrote in it, which I had always assumed was the first book in The Chronicles of Corum. Is this like Star Wars: A New Hope? Did some sort of funky renumbering take place? (The reason I ask is because I seem to remember that happening with one of the more recent editions of the Elric books. Plus, Moorcock had a tendency to write several different trilogies using the same character, and I’m wondering if the different Corum trilogies are a bit like The Runestaff/Count Brass trilogies.)
Quite similar to the Hawkmoon books, yes. The first three Corum books are The Knight of Swords, The Queen of Swords, and The King of Swords.
The problem is that I think Moorcock’s publisher has changed more than once, resulting in different omnibus volumes. I THINK White Wolf ( the gaming company ) has the rights to Moorcock’s stuff right now. At any rate they omnibus the first three books as Corum: The Coming of Chaos ( The Eternal Champion Series, Volume 7 ) as of 1999.
I read them as the original separates and enjoyed them. Though they’re flawed, I consider them worth the effort :). ( I find Moorcock’s work has a tendency towards the overly…“baroque”, I guess, for want of a better word, as well as an inclination towards apparent self-parody - Also these aren’t the best of the Eternal Champion books IMHO. Still, I like them . )
. )