About the Author
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About the Author |
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Michael Moorcock |
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Michael Moorcock is a truly prolific artist with a career spanning more than 50 years. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library.He has been editor of the magazine New Worlds on two occasions, first from May 1964 until March 1971 and then from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the New Wave writing style in the U.K. and indirectly in the U.S. His serialisation of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Baron was notorious for causing MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine. |
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| He finished writing his first book (The Golden Barge) in 1958, and has since then written over 120 books in almost every conceivable genre and combination of genre’s - from Sword and Sorcery, Romance, Science Fiction, Espionage, mystery, contempory fiction and much more. | ||
| He has won a number of literary awards: 1967 Hugo Award Best British Professional Magazine New Worlds 1968 Nebula Award for best novella "Behold the Man" 1972 August Derleth Award (British Fantasy) for The Knight of the Swords 1973 August Derleth Award (British Fantasy) for The King of the Swords 1975 August Derleth Award (British Fantasy) for The Sword and the Stallion 1976 August Derleth Award (British Fantasy) for The Hollow Lands 1979 World Fantasy Award for Gloriana 1993 British Fantasy special committee award for Gloriana 2000 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement Guardian Fiction Prize for The Condition of Muzak - the fourth Jerry Cornelius novel. |
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| His non-fiction books are just as diverse as his fiction work, covering topics as diverse as: A World Away - A biography about Mervyn Peake. Fantasy The 100 Best Books - A book chronicling the 100 most important fantasy books and their authors. Wizardry and wild romance - A study on the form of epic fantasy. The Retreat from Liberty - Here you will find the author expressing some of his deepest held personal and political beliefs. Letters from Hollywood - A collection of the letters Moorcock wrote to Ballard when Moorcock was working in Hollywood. Death is no Obstacle - Seven long conversations with Michael Moorcock about his writing methods, which took place in Oxford and London in 1990, and which grew out of informal discussion at social occasions with friends. He has also been the editor on a large number of books - usually collections of short stories which originally appeared in New Worlds magazine. |
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In the summer of 1971 Michael Moorcock first performed with the band Hawkwind, the release of their 1972 album Doremi Farsol Latido was heavily influenced by Moorcock’s book The Black Corridor, including verbatim quotes from his novel, this influence continued until the 1982 album Choose your masques, which was to be the last of their albums he contributed on as either a writer or performer. During the time he was a member of Hawkwind Michael Moorcock also set up his own band - The Deep Fix, they released 3 albums, the first of these was New Worlds Fair - which was released in 1975, this was followed in 1977 by The Entropy Tango, and the final album was released in 1981 and was titled The Brothel in Rosenstrasse.There are rumours that Michael may be recording with Hawkwind, but these have yet to be confirmed or denied. |
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| Michael has also collaborated on a number of graphic novels and since his retirement from the genre of epic fantasy in 2005 this is the only avenue for new stories featuring his many iconic characters. | ||
| In 1973 a version of Moorcock’s The Final Programme was released, unfortunately the film had been majorly rewritten and most of the concepts which had made the book so popular were lost and Moorcock distanced himself from the movie before its release. He is presently helping producers and writers working on a big budget Hollywood movie of Elric, which has been optioned by a movie studio and is under development now. Various studios have been trying to get the rights to this movie for well over 15 years, Mike had always resisted this as he said the budget necessary to depict the events of the books would be prohibitively expensive and he wasn’t happy with spending the vast majority of a movies budget on special effects, luckily breakthroughs in computer generated effects has changed this. |
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| He presently spends half his year in America, living in Texas and spending the other half the year travelling around Europe with his wife. |