Rather than immediately leaping to the woman’s rescue, our protagonist tells the intruder to find a safe haven of his own. It is only when the barbarian refuses to leave that our hero draws his sword, attacking with such swiftness and ferocity that the would-be rapist is cleaved in two. Who said chivalry is dead?
Some readers — those with a complete collection of Hawkwind albums and possibly an old Phototron growing dust in the closet — will recognize this moment from one of the earliest tales of Elric, the brooding, amoral adventurer first set down on paper by Michael Moorcock more than 45 years ago. And to them I won’t need to explain why a long-overdue reissue, titled Elric: The Stealer of Souls. Chronicles of the Last Emperor of Melniboné, Volume I (Del Rey/Ballantine, paper, $15), about the exploits of an aging swashbuckler whose heyday predates the Pentagon Papers, could not have arrived at a more opportune moment.
Check it out here.