Hub 125 by Various

Author:Various
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: Right Hand Publishing

Hawkmoon: The Mad God’s Amulet

by Michael Moorcock

Tor Books

rrp £9.28

reviewed by keith harvey

Tor is re-releasing Michael Moorcock’s Hawkmoon tetralogy with exquisite illustrations by Vance Kovacs. The first volume, The Jewel in the Skull, is out and the second, The Mad God’s Amulet, appears soon. Not only are these editions a thing of beauty, they also have the power (sorcerous power) to carry the reader back to the heady days of pulp fiction, which means, to me, a return to the feelings of my youth and the joy of discovering the multiverse.

Implicit in Moorcock’s multiverse is a metaphysical underpinning that raises these books above the level of pulp fiction and marks them as classics of the fantasy genre. Irrespective of their serious undertone and philosophical themes, however, the genius of these books is that on one level they can be read (perhaps a better word would be experienced) as picaresque pulp fiction, similar to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Raphael Sabatini, or Robert E. Howard, while on the other they offer up a meditation or theodicy on the workings of fate and the machinations of modern man. The parallel between the history of twentiethcentury Europe and the action evolving within the plot of these novels is thinly veiled, if not explicit. Additionally, the appearance of the Warrior in Jet and Gold, at pivotal moments within the plot, expresses the workings of a power much more potent that any army of Granbretan. In the first volume we meet Count Brass, ruler of the Kamarg, Dorian Hawkmoon von Köln, a German nobleman, his boon companion, Oladahn, and his love, Yisselda. These characters are the last hold-outs against the forces of the Dark Empire and its vast armies and infernal machines. The plot of the first novel involves the ingenious plan of Baron Meliadus, commander of the Clan of the Wolf, and general of the armies of the Dark Empire, to employ Hawkmoon to assassinate Count Brass. To facilitate this plan and to control Hawkmoon, he embeds a Black Jewel in Hawkmoon’s skull that has the power to destroy him if he does not do the Baron’s bidding. Eventually, Hawkmoon overcomes the jewel in his skull and defeats Meliadus.

In the first novel we have intimations of the workings of the Runstaff but in the second these themes surface and pre-dominate. Fate (or the Runestaff) reveals itself, although Hawkmoon refuses to acknowledge its power or his role within the multiverse.

Although the second novel, The Mad God’s Amulet, develops the serious themes of the Runestaff, it also reflects a move to pure adventure reminiscent of the novels of Raphael Sabatini with a bit of horror thrown in to season the pot. Where the first novel dealt with great armies moving across large battle fields, the second novel seems more intimate, closer to the Saturday morning adventure serials. Two early episodes in the second novel demonstrate the workings of the Runestaff and the plight of those who serve it. Hawkmoon and Oladahn on their way home to the Kamarg are ambushed by Huillam D’Averc, the new general sent to find and capture them.

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