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London Bone
The story of Raymond Gold and the trade in the mysterious London Bone. Where does it come from? What is it exactly? What gives it its curious properties?
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,160Ìýbooks3,611ÌýfollowersMichael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 12, 2022
This is a very literate collection of fourteen stories that date from 1990 through 2011. They're interspersed with brief sections detailing odd and obscure bits of history of places in London, and there's an autobiographical foreword remembering Christmas during the blitz, and an afterword discussing lost London writers. At times I was unable to tell the fact from the fiction; for example, Moorcock occasionally appears as a character but then some of his fictional characters are mentioned. Most of the stories are set in London, but there's one good Elric story, A Portrait in Ivory, and the longest story in the book, The Cairene Purse, is set in Egypt. There's no obvious speculative element in many of the stories; the best is certainly the title story. Una Persson and Begg and Von Bek and the Cornelius family all appear, or at least are mentioned from time to time, so there's a clear connection with the Eternal Champion/multiverse tapestry, though the main thrust is to portray the city and its inhabitants in a series of vignettes and character studies that range from the 19th century up to the time of Thatcher. It's mostly slow paced and nostalgic, but quite interesting.
May 13, 2020
A so-so collection. Best of the bunch was The Cairene Purse, the only truly SF story and also by far (at around 90 pages) the longest
I was intrigued by Through The Shaving Mirror and it's dedication to and hence to
I was intrigued by Through The Shaving Mirror and it's dedication to and hence to
September 26, 2024
The phenomenal narration on StarShipSofa really made this one.
January 7, 2013
Originally published on my blog in November 2001.
In Moorcock's earlier short story collection, , the title story was by no means the lengthiest item. The same is true here, but London Bone dominates the collection (in terms of quality and memorability) and deserves to provide the title. (There is also a marketing reason for using it as the title, which is the connection it establishes with , one of Moorcock's best and most successful novels.)
The story London Bone is set in a near future, and is narrated by a speculator who finances West End shows, temporarily suffering a setback because of a collapse in the popularity of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He becomes involved in a new venture, the supply of an incredibly beautiful material initially thought to be mammoth bone from a London building site. It is eventually shown to be human bone, transformed by lime, London clay, and seepages of raw sewage. The story is about the effect that the nostalgia trade has on London, as it cannibalises its past, selling the bones of its ancestors and destroying the soul of the city. It is a powerful and memorable story.
The long story in the collection, The Cairene Purse, is set in Egypt, again in the fairly near future. A western engineer is searching for his sister in Aswan, on a Nile virtually abandoned by tourists because of pollution, the destruction of most of the monuments and their replacement by Disney-built replicas at desert resorts far from the impoverished mass of the Egyptian population. Atmospheric and thought provoking, it is nonetheless not as significant a story as London Bone, perhaps partly because of the length, which feels a touch over extended for the story's ideas.
The Cairene Purse is an odd one out in the collection, for even though not all the other stories are set in London (Doves in the Circle is in New York), they share a metropolitan background which is as well realised as the fantasy backgrounds which were the staple of Moorcock's earlier career. The stories also share a nostalgia for an earlier age, particularly London before or just after the war and certainly before Thatcher, a politician viewed by Moorcock as the destroyer of the essence of her country. Typically for Moorcock, cross references to his other stories abound, characters such as the Cornelius brothers frequently being mentioned in passing.
The best of the stories not yet mentioned is the second, whose title, London Blood, makes it a companion to London Bone. This story, an anecdote of pre war South London, is the most like the novel Mother London. There is really, though, no great connection between these stories and the novel, and London Bone.
In Moorcock's earlier short story collection, , the title story was by no means the lengthiest item. The same is true here, but London Bone dominates the collection (in terms of quality and memorability) and deserves to provide the title. (There is also a marketing reason for using it as the title, which is the connection it establishes with , one of Moorcock's best and most successful novels.)
The story London Bone is set in a near future, and is narrated by a speculator who finances West End shows, temporarily suffering a setback because of a collapse in the popularity of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He becomes involved in a new venture, the supply of an incredibly beautiful material initially thought to be mammoth bone from a London building site. It is eventually shown to be human bone, transformed by lime, London clay, and seepages of raw sewage. The story is about the effect that the nostalgia trade has on London, as it cannibalises its past, selling the bones of its ancestors and destroying the soul of the city. It is a powerful and memorable story.
The long story in the collection, The Cairene Purse, is set in Egypt, again in the fairly near future. A western engineer is searching for his sister in Aswan, on a Nile virtually abandoned by tourists because of pollution, the destruction of most of the monuments and their replacement by Disney-built replicas at desert resorts far from the impoverished mass of the Egyptian population. Atmospheric and thought provoking, it is nonetheless not as significant a story as London Bone, perhaps partly because of the length, which feels a touch over extended for the story's ideas.
The Cairene Purse is an odd one out in the collection, for even though not all the other stories are set in London (Doves in the Circle is in New York), they share a metropolitan background which is as well realised as the fantasy backgrounds which were the staple of Moorcock's earlier career. The stories also share a nostalgia for an earlier age, particularly London before or just after the war and certainly before Thatcher, a politician viewed by Moorcock as the destroyer of the essence of her country. Typically for Moorcock, cross references to his other stories abound, characters such as the Cornelius brothers frequently being mentioned in passing.
The best of the stories not yet mentioned is the second, whose title, London Blood, makes it a companion to London Bone. This story, an anecdote of pre war South London, is the most like the novel Mother London. There is really, though, no great connection between these stories and the novel, and London Bone.
April 24, 2016
I've been a fan of Moorcock's writing for a long time. Starting my youth with the Elric stories (then read in Swedish translation) and later on more of his Eternal Champion/Multiverse related material (though I've tons yet to read). So far, I've always found him a writer who at his worst moments tend to be at the very least very interesting conceptually.
And London Bone has not shaken that principle, nor does it place itself among the "merely" very interesting conceptually.
On the surface and to the larger degree, this is a short story collection which deals more with the city of London and of English mentality than anything even remotely fantastic in nature... yet that isn't entirely true either. There are clearly fantastic elements in the lengthy piece "The Cairene Purse" (perhaps more correctly labelled a novella than a short story, to be frank), where underlying implications (supported by stated rumours and mythologies, as it were) indeed suggests the fantastic. As does the linking of the eponymous character in "The Clapham Antichrist" to the Von Bek family (who play an important part in Moorcock's Eternal Champion mythos).
Yet, it never yields fully and primarily to these impulses either. As such, this is a rather different Moorcock book (at least from what I've read so far), which should not be taken to mean bad by any means. It is different, but in the manner of showing Moorcock to have a breadth to his oeuvre that only enriches it.
Certainly well worth reading.
And London Bone has not shaken that principle, nor does it place itself among the "merely" very interesting conceptually.
On the surface and to the larger degree, this is a short story collection which deals more with the city of London and of English mentality than anything even remotely fantastic in nature... yet that isn't entirely true either. There are clearly fantastic elements in the lengthy piece "The Cairene Purse" (perhaps more correctly labelled a novella than a short story, to be frank), where underlying implications (supported by stated rumours and mythologies, as it were) indeed suggests the fantastic. As does the linking of the eponymous character in "The Clapham Antichrist" to the Von Bek family (who play an important part in Moorcock's Eternal Champion mythos).
Yet, it never yields fully and primarily to these impulses either. As such, this is a rather different Moorcock book (at least from what I've read so far), which should not be taken to mean bad by any means. It is different, but in the manner of showing Moorcock to have a breadth to his oeuvre that only enriches it.
Certainly well worth reading.
December 6, 2020
There was a time when I used to devour everything Michael Moorcock wrote. But this collection of short stories does not show the great man at his best, at least IMHO. Don't let this review put you off reading his Eternal Champion epic tales, however: brilliant works of imagination!
March 21, 2019
J’ai trouvé ces nouvelles inachevées. Parfois, de belles idées, mais dont on gratte à peine la surface. Quant aux idées ennuyeuses, on reste dessus une plombe. L’écriture n’est pas très belle.
July 16, 2021
A readable collection of short stories.
March 24, 2024
I couldn't get into this collection and didn't enjoy it and wondered why I was wasting time on something I cared so little for. The answer is of course because I loved stuff of his - older books, about Elric, Count Brass, Jerry Cornelius - but for me this was a big nothing, like a lot of his other books I recently dipped into and couldn't finish. If you are Moorcock fan then my opinion won't stop you reading it. If you are not, and you opinion matches mine then I beg you please not to let it stop you reading earlier (back in 1960s 70s and 80s) books.
September 2, 2010
I was really surprised by this book, having only read the author's science fiction/fantasy previously, I had thought him more concerned with ideas than prose, but in a more down to earth setting I found his stories extremely appealing, intelligent and well written. I'd recommend this to everyone, very enjoyable.
February 8, 2016
Great piece of speculative horror fiction!
For a few pages, while the narrator is giving his whole I Am London speech (which is lovely&rich), I expected him to end up a serial killer like the Ripper... he's so sure of himself, but also kinda larger than life and so easy to hate.
But it's worse! The English go mad!
For a few pages, while the narrator is giving his whole I Am London speech (which is lovely&rich), I expected him to end up a serial killer like the Ripper... he's so sure of himself, but also kinda larger than life and so easy to hate.
But it's worse! The English go mad!
July 15, 2008
This is really easy to find online and in pdf formats and even if you don't normally like Moorcock this may just be the thing for you -- it has such an easy charm and a great flowing style; it is a really easy and pleasurable read.
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December 1, 2024London bone
city soul
open the door
anstologia its poor
its city soul
west end show
its me
dealer searching the life
far from war art
selling the ear
but london bone
crazy to share
itsnt mamoth one
itsnt egypt done
its london soul
float on war bone
city soul
open the door
anstologia its poor
its city soul
west end show
its me
dealer searching the life
far from war art
selling the ear
but london bone
crazy to share
itsnt mamoth one
itsnt egypt done
its london soul
float on war bone
April 23, 2016
Like listening to a beguiling rogue in a midnight bar - glimpses of alternative futures - evocations of London as an ageless, mysterious, creature -
April 11, 2014
Great stuff.
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