Hawkmoon! Hawkmoon!

I tend not to blog about the more pulpy books I read, but I thought I'd drop in a quick post about "Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff". This is a volume that collects four books in Michael Moorcock's mostly-fantasy series about Dorian Hawkmoon. They're pretty breezy quick reads, which ended up being a good background book to have around.

 

 

MINI SPOILERS

I picked up this book as part of my continuing meandering through a list of sci-fi and fantasy works recommended by China Mieville, a contemporary writer I particularly enjoy. Moorcock is a giant of the speculative fiction field, and I was mildly surprised and impressed to learn that he's (1) still with us, and (2) still publishing new work. The Hawkmoon books were written back in the 1960s, and I think they fall into the category of works that were seminal at the time of publication; they're still enjoyable today, probably not as earth-shattering as they would have been at the time, but that's because people like me have previously read, watched and played newer works of fiction that were themselves inspired by it.

The books are very firmly in the sword-and-sorcery side of the fantasy genre, contrasting with the high fantasy style of other writers like Tolkien. I haven't read much Conan the Barbarian but these books read like how I imagine those books go: there is a lot of action, lots of fight scenes, very visceral passages describing how, like, someone stabbed someone else and what it sounded like and looked like. I just now opened the book to a random page, here is a representative excerpt:

The first came flying down on Hawkmoon, naked body gleaming, sword raised. Hawkmoon's own blade rose to skewer the man as he fell; another twist of the sword and the corpse dropped down through the narrow gap between the ships, into the sea. Within moments the air was full of naked warriors swinging on ropes, jumping wildly, clambering hand over hand across the grappling lines. The three men stopped the first wave, hacking about them until everything seemed blood-red, but gradually they were forced away from the rail as the madmen swarmed onto the deck, fighting without skill but with a chilling disregard for their own lives.

Hawkmoon became separated from the comrades, did not know if they lived or had been killed. The prancing warriors flung themselves at him, but he clutched his battle-blade in both hands and swung it about him in a great arc, this way and that, surrounding himself with a blur of bright steel. He was covered in blood from head to foot; only his eyes gleamed, blue and steady, from the visor of his helmet."

It can be a bit cheesy but is enjoyable, and I do really appreciate the very unique monsters and other creatures introduced over the course of the books. There's a lot of fighting, so it's impressive that the fights can all seem so distinct, even though it's always the sole hero or a small group of good guys fighting a huge number of bad guys.

The characters are pretty likeable (or hateable for the villains), but thinly sketched, usually just one or two character traits to define them. Characters, dialogue and plot mostly seem to service the action, which is not the case for most books I read but is exactly what this book wants to do, so that's great!

There isn't usually much worldbuilding in sword-and-sorcery books, and this series doesn't devote a ton of time to it, but it actually is a pretty interesting backstory. While I think of these books as fantasy, they're actually technically science fiction, set on Earth a thousands years or so from now. Like many fantasy books, this one has a map of the world near the front; but the map is a map of Europe, with the names slightly changed. Turkia instead of Turkey, Kyrus for Cyprus, Espanyia for Spain and so on. Further away and unmapped are the distant continents of Amerehk and Asiacommunista.

 

We eventually learn that there was a period of time referred to as the "tragic millennium" that separates our time from Hawkmoon's. The books never describe exactly what happened during this time, but it does seem apocalyptic: perhaps a nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, a bio-engineered plague, or some combination of things. In the resulting world, things seem generally low-tech: people ride on horses and fight with swords. But, unlike in our world, there is also magic, a strong tradition of sorcery. The magic system is never really fully explained and seems to just serve the needs of the plot. There are also many new and unfamiliar creatures, ranging from giant tameable flamingos who serve as aerial mounts to unnamed Lovecraftian tentacled horrors lurking in the water.

Alongside magic, there is also science. Much of this seems to be previously-created artifacts that are uncovered and used; this reminded me of the Numenara from Monte Cook's RPG setting. But there are also modern scientists who research and invent their own new machines; fittingly for this genre, these are invariably Bad People. The most common piece of technology is the "flame lance," which seems to be some kind of phaser or blaster weapon that's wielded alongside swords in combat. The bad guys also use "Ornithopters", which are flying machines; interestingly, they seem to fly by flapping mechanical wings, not via thrust or spinning a rotor.

The socio-political situation is that Europe has been an unruly group of warring states for a long time. However, there is a great rising power in the form of Granbretan, the updated form of Great Britain. Granbretan has the world's leading scientists, and the most ruthless generals, so they have been able to carry on an unprecedented campaign of expansion. Typically they will seek alliances and influence where possible, but when the time is right they will mercilessly attack and annihilate their conquests. The entire nation is portrayed as bloodthirsty and insane.

Hawkmoon is the last Duke of Koln (which I think is Cologne?), who before the start of the first novel was captured by Granbretan after a hopeless battle to resist the invaders. The first character we meet, though, is actually Count Brass, the ruler of Kamarg, in our present-day Provence. Brass is a slightly aging hero who did great things in his day and has decided to settle down to protect a land instead of venturing forth in search of adventure. Brass starts off the novel actually rather sympathetic to Granbretan: while their actions are harsh, he does think that the unification of Europe will be an improvement over the regular warring between small states and will lead to a better future. His resident philosopher Bowgentle, daughter Yisselda and others all disagree with him, having seen evidence of Granbretan's sadism.

I don't want to recap all of the plot in this post, but the narrative shifts over to Hawkmoon fairly early on and mostly stays with him through the rest of the series, though we do get occasional point-of-view chapters from other characters, both allies and enemies, to learn more about what's going on. The action keeps escalating higher and higher, and I can see Moorcock periodically fiddling to keep things manageable: for example, Hawkmoon will find an artifact that gives him superhuman power and able to slaughter an entire army with ease, which is a very satisfying conclusion to a particular arc, but then the author will need a reason for why he doesn't just use that artifact for all of his other fights in the future.

While I think these stories were published as regular novels, they definitely feel like serializations that would have originally appeared in magazines, with regular cliffhangers and recaps. I believe that's an homage to the style of Robert E. Howard and similar writers of the past who actually did serialize, though.

One random note: late in the novel, there's another worldbuilding-ish allusion when Moorcock describes a Granbretan ship:

Gilded figureheads decorated the forward parts of the ship, representing the terrifying ancient gods of Granbretan - Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga, who were said to have ruled the land before the Tragic Millennium

I puzzled over that for a while. Jhone was probably King John, and Jhorg was one of the King Georges, but who were Phowl and Rhunga? It took me a minute to clock that, oh yeah, it must be John, George, Paul and Ringo, the Beatles. That's funny, and especially striking since this book was published back in 1967, when they would have very much been an of-the-moment cultural phenomenon. It would be a little like a sci-fi writer putting, I dunno, Sabrina Carpenter into the backstory of their science-fiction epic.

The passage continues:

Chirshil, the Howling God; Bjrin Adass, the Singing God; Jeajee Blaad, the Groaning God; Jh'Im Slas, the Weeping God and Aral Vilsn, the Roaring God, Supreme God, father of Skvese and Blansacredid the Gods of Doom and Chaos.

"Chirshil" was previously referenced as the subject of the play "Chirshil and Adulf", which must be a WW2 reference to Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. I don't recognize (or can't parse) any of the other names in this list, I'm curious if they are other Prime Ministers or other folks I would recognize if I was more familiar with British politics. Some or all of them may be purely made-up names, bridging the gap between our time and the onset of the Tragic Millennium.

END SPOILERS

This was a pretty light read, but a lot of fun. One of the more visceral things I've read. It definitely makes me think of old-time-y radio serials and pulp magazines. Part of me wonders if those styles have grown less popular partly as a result of the rise of television, cable and streaming movies: we can watch Hollywood action movies any time we want, which might satisfy our urge for raw-knuckled kinetic violence, while previous generations would need to get it from the printed word (or by entering the boxing ring!). In any case, I'm glad to have read it. Moorcock has been a very prolific writer and I'm not about to set on a goal to read everything he's written, but I would definitely be interested to read more from him in the future, particularly knowing that he's been active across several different genres and mediums over the course of his career.