Books like The Champion of Garathorm

The champion of Garathorm follows on immediately from Count Brass (reviewed by me here) in a way that suggests that the Chronicles of Castle Brass were initally envisaged as a single volume rather than as a trilogy. However, a trilogy made it possible to interconnect it with the Erekosë/The Eternal Champion series. At the time my copy of The champion of Garathorm was printed (in 1981), the list of books 'By the same author' (which is opposite the title page) indicates that this book formed not only volume two of the Chronicles of Castle Brass but also the third volume of the Erekosë series (cf. the Internet Speculative Fiction Database's entry on The champion of Garathorm). Similarly, the third volume of the Castle Brass series, The quest for Tanelorn, formed the fourth volume of the Erekosë series. However, when my 1982 copy of The quest for Tanelorn was printed, the interconnectedness of the two series was no longer indicated in the author's list of publications and, today, The champion of Garathorm seems to be no longer counted as part of the Erekosë series, as indicated on Goodreads. To confuse matters more, the Encyclopaedia of Fantasy (1997) entry on Michael Moorcock states that the 1992 omnibus volume, The Eternal Champion, leaves out The Quest for Tanelorn and the graphic novel, The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell (1979) (cf. the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction entry on Moorcock). Also, the encyclopaedia's entry makes no mention of The champion of Garathorm as being part of the Erekosë series. One must conclude that there was some rethinking about the inter-relationship of these different series before the Erekosë one was concluded in the 1980s.Anyway, reading this book is a personal triumph because I'd purchased it in April 1987, together with The Quest for Tanelorn, but was unable to read them until I could get my hands on the trilogy's first volume, which did not happen until last year (2011)! Moorcock seemed to be very popular in the mid-1980s and then, in a short space of time, his books disappeared from the shelves of bookstores (at least in Ireland). I'd already noticed that my local bookshop was being slow to restock those Moorcock volumes that had sold out so I'd bought the Garathorm and Tanelorn books together in the hope that Count Brass would become available again soon. (As I was only 18 at the time, I might not have realised that I could've ordered the missing volume (and indeed other books I wanted) through the bookshop, unless the books had fallen out of print.) Unable to read my incomplete series of Moorcock books, I found the work of other authors to distract me (such as the \ Dragonlance Chronicles\ by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman) and soon forgot about my Moorcock tomes. It was only when a friend of mine offered to find some secondhand books for me while on her annual holiday in the US in 2011 that the opportunity to locate some missing Moorock volumes arose (thanks Kathy!).Regarding the story itself, it can be described as falling into two halves. In the first half, we find that Hawkmoon has fallen into a deep depression due to the shift of time and space he experienced in Count Brass, that resulted in his wife, Yisselda, dying in the battle of Londra before they were married and so the children they had together no longer existed. Hawkmoon spends his time considering how the past could be altered to ensure not only Yisselda's survival but also the defeat of the Dark Empire. An opportunity for him to pursue this line of reasoning takes him on a quest from the Kamarg (in the south of Moorcock's alternate France) through central Europe and into the Balkans. It was fun to read Moorcock's alternatives for familiar place-names (e.g. Bazhel for Basel/Basle, Munchenia for Munich, Pesht for Budapest and Wien for Vienna [pp. 43, 45, 50]). I also liked coming across unfamiliar (archaic) words like poignard (p. 105) and breeks (p. 118) from time to time.At the conclusion of Hawkmoon's journey across Europe, the book enters a more action-packed narrative of war (as would indeed befit the Eternal Champion – Hawkmoon's pan-dimensional self). This involves the curious mix of medieval and futuristic armoury that typifies Moorcock's stories centreing on the Eternal Champion. Overall, it was an enjoyable read with an interesting transgender element to the story as well as the involvement of strong female characters. I did think the chance finding of a suitable length of rope and the ease with which its 'noose settled over a branch' of a tree and held fast with just one throw somewhat fortuituous (p. 97). I also felt that, notwithstanding the involvement of Hawkmoon, the element of surprise and the exploitation of an opportunity, the successes of a tiny resistance force against an overwhelmingly large army seemed to stretch credulity towards the end. But does Hawkmoon find Yisselda in the process? You'll just have to read the book to find out!