Jhenek Carnalion, following the events of An Alien Heat, finds himself back at the End Times, seperated from his great love Amelia Underwood by some millions of years. its a tragedy of sorts, which is how this series was initially described to me; "The last human love story", the one before the lights go out and the door is pulled closed behind us for the final time, all passion spent. it all sounds terribly sad does it not? And yet this series, for me, has not proven to be so. For me it has proven to be a story which wears its big human heart on its sleeve, although that sleeve is woven from the most exotic spider hair, an intricately constructed affectation not found in nature. It is perhaps a weave of a sleeve only possible when using instruments of spontaneous creation, powered into being by the power of will and an infinite resource of improbable energy to draw on. Imagine a world conjured into being by a race of virtually immortal decadent beings, who live for hedonism. Actually I would bet money, good old fashioned gold-pressed latinum, that any guess you might make would be far wide of the mark, for there are not many with the breadth of imagination of Michael Moorcock. Given all the irrefutable visual proof of widespread moribund mediums as Facebook or Twitter, perhaps no bad thing. At best most would envision a Miltonesque Madonna video, at worst; part Catholic nightmare, part appalling rap music video,ugh, freefall into a tar pit of narcissism. Not so much Desperately seeking sensation as the endless pursuit of joy and all its frivolous rewards.
Given the unbriddled lust of these future sophisticates the End Times are surprisingly beautiful and even complexly wistful. Michael Moorcock vividly conjures into being a world hovering on the brink of a predicted final collapse that long ago shed the restrictions of morality. When you can do anything, anything goes.
There are few introductions here, everything is mostly set up from the first book. It hits the ground in much the same way sand in a timer will rush through to the next part of the timer, in that I knew there was a sequel to An Alien Heat and it had a joyful inevitability about it. Like Michael Moorcock was waiting in the wings going "wait til you see what happens next..." And here it is.
