Fabulous Harbours

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Fabulous Harbours [Amazon, Abebooks, Local Library] by Michael Moorcock

The second volume of the Second Ether trilogy turns out not to be a novel, but rather a raft of previously published short fiction tied together with Moorcock’s various hyperwork conceits. These mostly operate through the Begg family, chiefly Edwin Begg the Clapham Antichrist, who is supposed to be Moorcock’s informant for the various tales. It turns out that Begg is an Anglicization of the Dutch Beek and German Bek. There is also an American Beck–the journalist who is the protagonist of the 1980s noir piece “The Girl Who Killed Sylvia Blade,” which is set somewhat unconvincingly in Chicago.

“Some Fragments Found in the Effects of Mr. Sam Oakenhurst” is the most direct sequel to the material in Blood, the previous Second Ether book. But the stories also include a straightforward Elric of Melinbone yarn “The White Wolf’s Song,” and “The Enigma Windows” offers Jerry Cornelius in the 1990s. I especially liked the tale of Poppy Begg and the Orientalist adventurer Ulrich von Bek in “No Ordinary Christian.”

The stories are mostly novella length, although the ones later in the book tend to be a bit shorter. They each have numbered component chapters. They gave me a shifting sensation of sideways near-familiarity, as the book’s continuity was neither that of plot nor character but largely trope–despite their exploration of divergent genres. The effect was similar to what I experienced reading the Viriconium collection of M. John Harrison.