Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff Paperback – International Edition, 11 April 2013

I first read the Hawkmoon books way back in the 1970's,along with the other Eternal Champion books.I was NOT disappointed with this much larger edition/collection of Hawkmoons fight against the dark empirealong with friends he makes on his travels.Afine read that will never pass away,

This is my favourite book. Michael Moorecock is a must for any fantasy reader

Bought for my Husband to replace his Moorcock collection that is falling to bits so it must be good.

Exactly what I wanted for my trade paperback collection and in good, well read, condition. It was also at a great price.

More tales of the Eternal Champion, beat Michael Moorcock series ever

Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff (Moorcocks Multiverse) PaperbackBack in the 1960s and 1970s there was an upsurge in interest in this type of fantasy books.Michael Moorcock was considered by many, myself included, as a master of the genre.I must admit the books have not aged as well as others but they are still quite brilliant and inventive.The Hawkmoon series was one of my favourites simply because the background, Albion, as a malevolent Empire expanding and cruel force.Armies of Animal based legions were led by Barons and Lords of the realm.The armies were like ants and annihilated the opposition with malice. Great stuff.Moorcock really let his fertile imagination run wild with tens of fantastic ideas- The wonderful Channel Spanning Bridge from England to France but when you look closely you see the heaps of fetid dung from the endless baggage trains of armies of conquest.Great writing that entertained and royally at that.You cold pick up a paperback for about 50 pence or get one from the many second hand book stores at the time. All now a thing of the past.Moorcock deserves rediscovering.His work would now make wonderful pay per view television series to better the Game of Thrones and smash the inferior Wheel of Time.But the books are brilliant.Recommended.

This book continued my summer's Michael Moorcock reading and is arguably his most influential. I first heard of Hawkmoon in the 80's while reading the 'recommended reading' section in the hallowed AD&D Dungeon Masters guide. Warhammer is said to owe it's exsistence thanks to this book with Michael Moorcock having the second edition of the game dedicated to him.The four books in this volume are full of mad ideas that fire the imagination and make you wonder where Michael Moorcock managed to conjure these ideas from (although the dedication of one book in this volume to Nik Turner of Hawkwind does give you an idea).You are presented with a post apocalypse mediaeval world with some sci-fi technology eternally at war due to an all conquering Dark Empire, which originated in Britain. The Dark Empire is run by hedonistic psychopaths who where animal mask at all times, use science like sorcery and want to conquer the world because violence and domination relieves the boredom of their lives.This sounds great and should be enough to get anyone buying this collection. The problem is, the book is not very good. Apparently each of the four books in this collection were written in just three days an it shows. At first it is amusing enough and reads like a fighting fantasy book, moving from action scene to action scene without any attempt at depth, character exploration or development. It provides a nice quick read to start with, before you realise this is how it will go on and on and on. Moving from inconsequential encounter to inconsequential encounter which ends in victory for the hero and no real change in his situation. A seeming psychopath changes sides and suddenl his personality is changed from him betraying and killing his comrades to becoming a good and loyal friend of Hawkmoon.By the second book in the collection the fantasy trope of weapons that make the hero invulnerable instead of having to think of ways for him to overcome seemingly unbeatable odds. By the end of the fourth book Hawkmoon has four special items and an unbeatable army of spirit warriors on his side and is happily taking on armies of millions with only 5000 on his side!If you are looking for something to fire your imagination I would recommend this, but I warn you that once it is fired, you will then have to d all the work since the rest is presented in two dimensional writing which appears goes no where. By the the third book (The Sword of Dawn) I wondered if Michael Moorcock had realized this and was tempted to turn the book into a comic novel, since some of the interactions between the charactersz read almost as if they were meant to be setting up jokes with the punchlines pulled at the last moment. If you doubt this, read the bit in 'The Sword Of Dawn' where D'Averc and Hawkmoon pose as visiting ambassadors from Asiacommunista and tell me that at this point Michael Moorcock wasn't bored and making fun of readers taking the book seriously.

Nothing wrong with product but delivery was left in the street in the open