This is his tragic flaw: Elric wants to be merciful and just, but his life would be easier if he embraced the ruthless ways of his Melnibonéan ancestry. Born an albino, sickly and weak, he grew up reading all the books in his father’s library, and now he wonders if Melnibonéan society can become better than it is. But Elric has no desire to follow the immoral traditions of his people. The Melnibonéans are a cruel and decadent race whose sorcerer-kings used to serve the Lord of Chaos, evil gods who are sometimes referred to as the Dukes of Hell.

The Melnibonéans remind me a lot of the Targaryens, and I wonder how much the Ruby Throne influenced what would become the Iron Throne of Westeros. Elric is a young emperor, the 428th sorcerer-king to sit on the Ruby Throne. When the book begins, the empire of Melniboné, which once ruled the world for thousands of years, is in decline.

Elric of Melniboné, however, was published in 1972, with a gripping plot that reads like an epic fantasy. They are not novels with overarching plots like the kind we’ve grown accustomed to. The books about Conan the Barbarian and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are mostly compilations of short stories published in magazines between the 1930s and 1960s. Howard and Fritz Leiber that I’ve previously explored. This book is different than the vintage fantasy of Robert E. It’s a short novel (just 158 pages), and I finished it in a single sitting. Re-reading Elric of Melniboné was tremendous fun. During some of my teenage years, I could relate to him far more than any hobbits or rangers, despite my love of J.R.R. Elric is a loner and a thinker, largely misunderstood by the people surrounding him. There was no hero more complex, more tragic, or more dangerous than he was. So, this weekend I dove into Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné. My recent foray into the works of Fritz Leiber inspired me to re-read one of my favorite fantasy series of all time.

Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock