Is Michael Moorcock still doing his Doctor Who novel?
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I haven't finished the book yet, and I'm not entirely sure how much I can say about the book as the BBC is persnickety about information and stuff.
To the point I've reached in the book, I've noticed references to the Kane of Old Mars books, to The Metatemporal Detective, and to Sexton Blake (which Moorcock didn't create, but which he likes a lot). I also think there was a reference to Una Persson, but I don't recall precisely where. And there's Jerry Cornelius, obviously, though it's not a form of Cornelius that I'm aware of previously. It's all pretty logical, it doesn't feel gratuitous.
Your theory about the relationship of Law and Chaos to the Guardians makes sense in terms of the book. (Last night I read a long discussion between the Doctor and Amy on Law and Chaos and how they are balanced.)
The existence of the Multiverse drives part of the plot, though I won't say in quite what way.
I read it a long time ago. I'm getting the Dark Horse Comics collection (Chronicles of Conan Volume 3) that reprints it sometime next week.
Well, considering I'd never heard of Moorcock until it was announced he was writing for DW, I imagine there are people out there who have not gotten used to his name. The first time you hear it, it's pretty funny.
Michael Moorcock: cult SF writer for more than 40 years, occasional member of the goth rock group Hawkwind (who were at one point rumoured to be doing the music for the Who story Battlefield), and (according to Harlan Ellison's introductions to the first US publication of the Doctor Who novelisations), the guy who (circa 1975) forced Harlan Ellison to watch Doctor Who despite Ellison's hatred of TVSF, and won him over within an episode...
Moorcock. Very good writer. Love his Eternal Champion stuff, and Elric. Really liked it when he took other heroes he'd created, and put them in the same space/time. And you'd get the same adventure from the other guy's perspective in that guy's own series. That was cool.
Jerry Cornelius. By coincidence, see my av. They are different again, fantasy stories that also very much comment on the times in which they were written, 60s - 80s. And stand some conventions n their heads. BTW, if anyone knows where I can get a soft copy of 'Firing The Cathedral' (his take on 9/11), I would be eternally grateful.
The Conan/Elric crossover is one of my favourite stories in any medium.
Point of order: Hawkwind is not a 'goth rock' band, it's space rock. Highly recommend 'Warrior At The Edge of Time', 'Choose Your Masques' and 'The Xenon Codex', especially if you like your rock to actually rock out. They have a new album out, 'Blood of the Earth', and despite the title, isn't too shabby for a band that played outside the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 because they couldn't get on the bill.
In conclusion: I'm guilty of this too, but we should try and resist the "Moorcock hur hur hur" stuff and leave it for the schoolboys.
Jerry Cornelius. By coincidence, see my av. They are different again, fantasy stories that also very much comment on the times in which they were written, 60s - 80s. And stand some conventions n their heads. BTW, if anyone knows where I can get a soft copy of 'Firing The Cathedral' (his take on 9/11), I would be eternally grateful.
The Conan/Elric crossover is one of my favourite stories in any medium.
Point of order: Hawkwind is not a 'goth rock' band, it's space rock. Highly recommend 'Warrior At The Edge of Time', 'Choose Your Masques' and 'The Xenon Codex', especially if you like your rock to actually rock out. They have a new album out, 'Blood of the Earth', and despite the title, isn't too shabby for a band that played outside the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 because they couldn't get on the bill.
In conclusion: I'm guilty of this too, but we should try and resist the "Moorcock hur hur hur" stuff and leave it for the schoolboys.
How do you really pronounce his name? 
Michael Moorcock's name is pronounced [mʊəˌkɒk]. Incidentally, it's another name for the male red grouse.How do you really pronounce his name?
I can't read this (boxes instead of letters). So is it "moor" as in "door" or in "poor"?
It's "moor" as in "door". It is indeed "more cock", my dear 'rod.
Interesting. Wonder how the Kane of Mars stuff relates to what we know of Mars' distant past in the Whoniverse. And by Sexton Blake, don't you mean Seaton Begg, a character Moorcock created based on Blake to some extent? (I don't actually know much about Begg, just what I've heard here and there)
You'll have to read the book.
It doesn't. Which I think is Moorcock's point; the main characters, the Terraphiles, have built their society on what they think they know about (for them) ancient history. Kane's Mars (which is basically Burroughs' Barsoom) may not be a literal truth, but as far as they're concerned it is true.
It's an interesting idea, and one I'd like to see more licensed fiction explore. What if centuries from now our descendants believe that there was a Gotham City? What if they think that Star Trek and Dan Dare are the records of a lost age of heroic space exploration? What if our modern mythologies become, like King Arthur, a kind of of pseudohistory? Batman and Captain Kirk will be more attested in the literature and records than, say, Wamdue (to pull a random name of a poster here from the hat). Centuries, millennia from how, how will anyone be able to tell the difference?
That's where the references to Kane of Old Mars fit.
Or, at least, that how I read it.
No, I meant Sexton Blake. Begg is the star of The Metatemporal Detective, and he's explicitly referenced in Terraphiles as well. So, we have the "mundane" version of the character -- Blake -- and the "multiversal" version of the character -- Begg -- mentioned within the same manuscript.
I think this gets to Moorcock's point in the book (and with the Eternal Champion concept in general) -- there are certain "niches" that must be filled in the Multiverse, and they are filled by similar, if not necessarily identical, persons.
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Anyone noticed how the description of Miggea sounds a lot like Zeta Minor from Planet of Evil?
Now that I think about it, I'm not too sure it's such a good idea to include a reference to Seaton Begg in this book. Begg has connections to the von Bek saga, which involves a whole lot of craziness about God and the Devil and the Holy Grail and whatnot, which I don't feel really gels with the Whoniverse and just overcomplicates things IMO. I mean, the Doctor met the archetypical Devil in The Satan Pit, and we saw its son Abaddon in TW End of Days. Once you add the von Bek/Second Ether books to the equation....you just end up with sheer madness.
Now that I think about it, I'm not too sure it's such a good idea to include a reference to Seaton Begg in this book. Begg has connections to the von Bek saga, which involves a whole lot of craziness about God and the Devil and the Holy Grail and whatnot, which I don't feel really gels with the Whoniverse and just overcomplicates things IMO. I mean, the Doctor met the archetypical Devil in The Satan Pit, and we saw its son Abaddon in TW End of Days. Once you add the von Bek/Second Ether books to the equation....you just end up with sheer madness.
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Moorcock was asked about that -- the vok Bek devil versus "The Satan Pit" and "End of Days" -- on his forum:
I'm not sure that I agree with Moorcock, partly because I'm not sure that there's any need to try and reconcile the Multiverse's cosmology with the Whoniverse's cosmology (which, insofar as Terraphiles is concerned, are one and the same).
Except, what is the cosmology of the Whoniverse? The Time Lords are fallen gods (Death Comes to Time), can aspire to be gods (Last of the Time Lords, Dead Romance), are agents of the gods (the New Adventures), are themselves subject to the whims of gods (The Tides of Time, Voyager), and are nothing to the gods (The Life-Bringer). It just depends on which gods the Doctor is dealing with on a particular day. One of the strengths of Doctor Who, as many who have written for it would say (such as Paul Cornell or Lance Parkin), is its inconsistency. Despite being inconsistent with itself, Doctor Who holds together, and the Doctor's role in the pantheon of the numinous is something that will always generate new and interesting answers.
Of course, Terraphiles deals with none of that.
There are references to Moorcock's past work, true. But there's also a very easy, very "traditional" Whovian read to the book -- the Arrow of Law is not unlike the Key to Time, the struggle between Law and Chaos is simply the struggle between the White and Black Guardians by a different name. And as I mentioned earlier, the characters making the references to, say, Seaton Begg or Renark von Bek don't actually know them; the Terraphiles are separated by thousands of years from those characters, and they needn't have even existed at all. All that matters is that the Terraphiles think they existed, and they modeled their historical fetishism on them. There are "outs," shall we say, to reconciling Terraphiles' references to the Multiverse and its characters with what we know of the Whoniverse.
Oh, and Moorcock reveals who Captain Cornelius in Terraphiles was intended to be here. Which works quite well, actually.
