03-21-2020, 03:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-21-2020, 04:11 PM by Drunk Monk.)
When I was a teen, I read everything by Moorcock that I could get my hands on. I remember I got this book from that tiny specialty bookstore in the old Vallco center. It's priced at $1.50 and has a color ad for Kents & Newports in the center. I must've read it 40 years ago and only had a faint memory. It's a post-apocalyptic fantasy based on the UK prog rock band Hawkwind. Music is a weapon - Hawkwind music empowers the Children of the Sun, the remnants of the hippies. Other more muzak-like tunes (as deemed by the authors) like Dylan's Blowin in the Wind, Elton's Daniel, Denver's Country Roads, empower the Straights and crippled the Children and Hawklords. That's Amore is particularly lethal.
It's conceptually amusing, particularly now because I really know what hippies are, but it's horribly dated. Tech is hard wired, and can be fixed with soldering irons and spanners. Music is all vinyl or cassette tape. Moorcock is a character, Moorlock, the Acid Sorceror, but the stories are disappointingly unpsychedelic. Those of us who are experienced can tell who's been there and who hasn't, just like you can tell when a virgin is trying to describe sex.
And it turns out that Moorcock is a horrible writer. Too many weak adverbs and middling analogies. Lots of typos (pre-spellcheck). He can't really set a mood or atmosphere, and tends to repeat his general descriptions of the wreckage-strewn world. I was rather disappointed to find out how poor his writing was, although this was co-written and there are a lot of in-jokes about the band that went by me. I did check out some old Hawkwind vids on YouTube and they reminded me of exactly what Spinal Tap looked to satire. Hawkwind is still going with one original member. Maybe they'll play the Beach Boardwalk someday...
That being said, the concepts are cool. There's a pre-TRON minds going into a computer landscape arc and a hydra when two consciousnesses must inhabit one body. There's some funny notions about how hippies would survive in a burnt landscape.
The main idea is that Hawkwind is playing the last concert on earth, and that there new amp device, the Delatron, channels a power that counteracts a death ray projected by villains. It reminded me of a novel I conceived of while watching the Mad Professor mix at a Reggae on the River. Maybe that was just a flashback of this book.
There's echos of Moorcock's Eternal Champion like a guitar named Stormbringer 2 and allusions to Arturian legend.
There were a few passages that triggered flashbacks to reading at my parent's house in my teen years. Kinda trippy, kinda nostalgic.
Not DOOM recommended.
It's conceptually amusing, particularly now because I really know what hippies are, but it's horribly dated. Tech is hard wired, and can be fixed with soldering irons and spanners. Music is all vinyl or cassette tape. Moorcock is a character, Moorlock, the Acid Sorceror, but the stories are disappointingly unpsychedelic. Those of us who are experienced can tell who's been there and who hasn't, just like you can tell when a virgin is trying to describe sex.
And it turns out that Moorcock is a horrible writer. Too many weak adverbs and middling analogies. Lots of typos (pre-spellcheck). He can't really set a mood or atmosphere, and tends to repeat his general descriptions of the wreckage-strewn world. I was rather disappointed to find out how poor his writing was, although this was co-written and there are a lot of in-jokes about the band that went by me. I did check out some old Hawkwind vids on YouTube and they reminded me of exactly what Spinal Tap looked to satire. Hawkwind is still going with one original member. Maybe they'll play the Beach Boardwalk someday...
That being said, the concepts are cool. There's a pre-TRON minds going into a computer landscape arc and a hydra when two consciousnesses must inhabit one body. There's some funny notions about how hippies would survive in a burnt landscape.
The main idea is that Hawkwind is playing the last concert on earth, and that there new amp device, the Delatron, channels a power that counteracts a death ray projected by villains. It reminded me of a novel I conceived of while watching the Mad Professor mix at a Reggae on the River. Maybe that was just a flashback of this book.
There's echos of Moorcock's Eternal Champion like a guitar named Stormbringer 2 and allusions to Arturian legend.
There were a few passages that triggered flashbacks to reading at my parent's house in my teen years. Kinda trippy, kinda nostalgic.
Not DOOM recommended.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse