Michael Moorcock

Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock, and the antihero of a series of sword and sorcery stories centering in an alternate Earth. The proper name and title of the character is Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné. Later novels by Moorcock mark Elric as... a facet of the Eternal Champion. Elric first appeared in print in Moorcock’s novella, "The Dreaming City" ; subsequent novellas were reformatted as the novel Stormbringer , but his first appearance in an original novel wasn't until 1973 in Elric of Melniboné. Moorcock's albinistic character is one of the better known in fantasy literature, having crossed over into multimedia, such as comics and film, though efforts towards the latter stalled over the years. The novels have been continuously in print since the 1970s. Elric is described by his creator, in the first book, Elric of Melniboné, as follows: It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white.
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Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln is one of the fictional characters created by Michael Moorcock in his series of the Eternal Champion books. Dorian Hawkmoon is one of the less "problematic" characters Moorcock ever created a series around. Unlike the anti-hero Elric of Melniboné, or the... alienated and tragic Corum, or the sometimes savage Erekosë, Hawkmoon is described as being very much close to an all-around "good guy", despite lacking some subtlety . Hawkmoon is captured by the evil forces of Granbretan who implant, by means of arcane, baroque technology , a sinister black jewel in his skull. He is sent to The Kamarg to perform reconnaissance prior to invasion. The black jewel transmits all that Hawkmoon sees to Granbretan's capital, Londra. Temporarily freed from the curse of the jewel by The Kamarg's Protector, a grizzled warlord called Count Brass, he falls in love with the Count's daughter, Yisselda, and embarks on a quest to find and implement the will of the Runestaff, a magical item which preserves the Cosmic Balance.
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Corum Jhaelen Irsei is the name of a fictional fantasy hero in a series of two trilogies written by author Michael Moorcock. Corum is the last survivor of the Vadhagh race and an incarnation aspect of the Eternal Champion, a being that exists in all worlds to ensure there is "Cosmic Balance".... Corum is a Vadhagh, one of a race of long-lived beings with limited magical abilities dedicated to peaceful pursuits such as art and poetry. A group of "Mabden" led by the savage Earl Glandyth-a-Krae raid the family castle and slaughter everyone with the exception of Corum, who escapes. Arming himself, Corum attacks and kills several of the Mabden before being captured and tortured. After having his right hand cut off and left eye put out, Corum escapes by moving into another plane of existence, becoming invisible to the Mabden. They depart and Corum is found by a member of the Nhadragh, an old enemy of the Vadhagh. The Nhadragh takes Corum to a being called Arkyn, who treats his wounds and explains he has a higher purpose. Travelling to Moidel's Castle, Corum encounters his future lover, the Margravine Rhalina.
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Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany was an Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well... as successful plays, novels and essays. Born to one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage, Dunsany lived much of his life at perhaps Ireland's longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara, worked with W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, was chess and pistol-shooting champion of Ireland, and travelled and hunted extensively. He died in Dublin after an attack of appendicitis. Edward Plunkett was the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany and his wife, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax, née Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Burton . From an historically wealthy and famous family, Dunsany was related to many other well-known Irish figures. He was a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh.
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Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. The three works were part of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, the completion of which was prevented by his death, and consequently should... not be considered a trilogy. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R. Tolkien, but his surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology. Peake also wrote poetry and literary nonsense in verse form, short stories for adults and children , stage and radio plays, and Mr Pye, a relatively tightly-structured novel in which God implicitly mocks the evangelical pretensions and cosy world-view of the eponymous hero. Peake first made his reputation as a painter and illustrator during the 1930s and 1940s, when he lived in London, and he was commissioned to produce portraits of well-known people. For a short time during World War 2 he was commissioned by various newspapers to depict war scenes.
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Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open. With... writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber can be regarded as one of the fathers of Sword and Sorcery fantasy. But he excelled in all fields of speculative fiction, writing award-winning work in horror, fantasy and science fiction. Leiber was born December 24, 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, to the actors Fritz Leiber, Sr. and Virginia Leiber, and, for a time, he seemed inclined to follow in his parents' footsteps . He spent 1928 touring with his parents' Shakespeare company before studying philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he graduated with honors . In 1932, he studied at General Theological Seminary and worked for a time as a lay preacher.
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Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is probably best known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre. Howard was born and raised in the state of Texas. He spent most of his... life in the town of Cross Plains with some time spent in nearby Brownwood. A bookish and intellectual child, he was also a fan of boxing and spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding, eventually taking up amateur boxing himself. From the age of nine he dreamed of becoming a writer of adventure fiction but did not have real success until he was twenty-three. Thereafter, until his death at the age of thirty by suicide, Howard's writings were published in a wide selection of magazines, journals, and newspapers, and he had became successful in several genres. Although a Conan novel was nearly published into a book in 1934, his stories never appeared in book form during his lifetime. The main outlet for his stories was in the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
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