Books like The Queen of the Swords

Moorcock’s second Corum book, published in 1971 is reminiscent of Jack Vance’s writing, more so than in the first book. This is high fantasy, something that Edgar Rice Burroughs could have written.The ongoing theme, actually quite ubiquitous in Moorcock’s canon, of Law versus Chaos made me think a lot about how influential he was to Gary Gygax and the other makers of Dungeons and Dragons. Gygax and Dave Arneson first put out the TSR game in 1974 and Moorcock had already published some Elric stories and Corum by then. The anointed few who have sacred knowledge of D&D will be familiar with the alignment of the characters, being a combination of either lawful, chaotic, neutral, good or evil. He must have had some influence as the Deities & Demigods: Cyclopedia of Gods and Heroes from Myth and Legend edition from 1980 has a Melnibonean section that includes Elric and Arioch (though Corum is absent). Check out Wikipedia for some behind the scenes litigation about competing copyright claims.** Reviewers note – in the AD&D alignment, yours truly would be Neutral Good.Finally this very cool 1971 fantasy reminded me of the understated but groovy work of Black Sabbath bass player Geezer Butler on Nativity in Black. The Sabbath mythos is very much akin to Moorcock’s minimalistic but wildly fantastic narrative and is an under current of his edgy writing style. I recommend Black Sabbath to play in the background as you read and enjoy.