Order of Eternal Champion Books
The Eternal Champion is a series of fantasy novels by English author Michael Moorcock. The Eternal Champion is a hero who exists in all dimensions of Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse, and the one who is chosen by fate to fight the Cosmic Balance. However, the Champion does not always know of his role or does not necessarily always accept it.
The Eternal Champion series began in 1962 with the title novel. The series is currently ongoing. Below is a list of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champions books in order of when they were first published as well as in chronological order:
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Publication Order of Eternal Champion Books
(By: Michael Moorcock, Howard Chaykin)
| The Eternal Champion | (1970) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Phoenix in Obsidian / The Silver Warriors | (1970) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Corum: The Coming of Chaos | (1972) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Earl Aubec and Other Stories | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Dragon in the Sword | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Roads Between The Worlds | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Hawkmoon | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| A Nomad of the Time Streams | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Kane of Old Mars | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Skrayling Tree: The Albino in America | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| When reading this series in chronological order, The Skrayling Tree comes after The Dragon in the Sword. | ||
Notes: Phoenix in Obsidian was also published under the title The Silver Warriors. The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell was co-authored with Howard Chaykin.
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The above makes for an odd view — having read the bulk of Moorcock’s work, he certainly doesn’t avoid the subject of either the god of the Christian religion, nor Christ, nor, for that matter, any other deity where such is germane to what he is addressing either dramatically or thematically. Far from it! There are multiple references to the former throughout, particularly such books as “The War Hound and the World’s Pain”, “The City in the Autumn Stars”, “Behold the Man”, “Breakfast in the Ruins”, “The Eternal Champion” itself, “The Blood Red Game” (aka “The Sundered Worlds”)… not to mention the Cornelius books, where Jeremiah Cornelius himself was (at least in one version out of many he has had) apparently attached to the Catholic Church in an official capacity… which may explain his complex ally/enemy relationship with Bishop Beesley and the like; as well as having the tell-tale initials, J.C., occasionally called “the Messiah of the Age of Science”, who often sees himself as Harlequin the Trickster, but is honestly closer to Pierrot the Fool).
In addition, Moorcock has long made it clear that such concepts as “good” and “evil” are more than a little childishly simplistic, even when it comes to heroic fantasy; he is more interested in complexity of character and philosophical shadings, hence “Law” and “Chaos”, neither of which is truly “evil” OR “good”, but CAN be both, depending; it is important to strike a balance between Law (which, unshackled, tends to be too rigid and thus stultifying) and Chaos (which represents the act of spontaneous creation, imagination, etc.; but, again, can devolve into a mere quest for sensation, novelty, and rebellion for its own sake, unless balanced by Law; see his Elric story “The Last Enchantment”/”Jesting with Chaos”). It is the ever-present tilting of that balance which provides the impetus for the conflict of each narrative, whether outwardly fantastic or not (see, e.g. “The Brothel in Rosenstrasse”).
This underlying conflict is often called “the Eternal War”, and is one of the chief metaphors of all his work; that struggle between the individual and society to find a balance which allows for dynamic growth in each without overriding the proper liberties and expectations of either. Often he exhibits, through differing stories, a multitude of versions of worlds/universes (hence the use of the term “multiverse”) where one or the other attempts to permanently tilt the balance in its favor, and the dehumanizing and even fatal effects which inevitably follow. As he puts it, in his introduction to the “first” (I use the quotation marks advisedly, as there is, strictly speaking, NO “approved” reading order, by the author’s specific intent, as that would undermine the entire concept he is exploring) book of the “series”, “The Eternal Champion”: “By using these devies to connect one book with another, I hope to look at a number of different aspects of the same theme while firmly linking the most outrageous fables with experience of the world we all share.” Thus, the fantasies and satires (as opposed to his more “realistic” work), he finds such metaphors “enables me to deal in non-linear terms with varieties of perception, to make, in the few didactic books I’ve written, simplified models of ideal worlds to show, I hope, by what particular injustices and hypocrisies these worlds might be maintained”.
As a result, trying to place some strict religious view on what is, for all intents and purposes, an exploration of a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of interconnected narratives, seems an ironically apt exemplar of precisely what Moorcock is NOT doing in these books. Granted, he has “gone after” religious and political dogma on numerous occasions (the result, in part, of his having worked for a lengthy stint on the illustrated “Bible Story Weekly”, and having read the bible a great deal more thoroughly than most who claim to know it), it is the harmful effects of a DOGMATIC approach which draws his ire, less than what ANY religious mythos can, at its best, encourage us to be.
As for the Champion, he has frankly stated that he is “a Romantic Everyman”, a synecdochical figure to represent humanity as a whole, which allows for an exploration of all the faults and foibles (as well as the courage and strengths) to which we are all prone.
There is no god, just Michael Moorcock.
Maybe Michael Moorcock does not believe in God because it seems like in his book he does not want to make any references to God or Jesus Christ. Or that is to say that if one is to be a champion who is eternal that champion has to overcome eternal darkness of eternal demons who live forever in order to get an eternal reward rather than an earthly reward that perishes that can be destroyed.
Between this book and the Sega Genesis game, why do they both beat around the bush and just come right out with it, and say they are eternal champions because they have eternal rewards in heaven because of Gods goodness and mercy? Why don’t preachers in churches talk about that, how when we are all dead we will be champions in heaven, Jesus eternal champions with our heavenly rewards? Why is Eternal Champions a secular humanist and atheistic game that makes no mention of God?