King of the City

Moorcock's second great London novel - and thematic sequel to MOTHER LONDON - returns to print in a newly revised edition.

The death of Princess Di heralded a spring clean of the soul. And the dirt we wanted off our coffee tables was the kind of salacious exposure tabloid paparazzo photographer Denny Dover had made a fortune out of. Now he's out of work and moving to the godforsaken wastes of Skerring on the South coast to lick his wounds. A former rock star, this East End lad-made-good lived it up with the best of them.

But his childhood friend, hugely wealthy magnate Sir John Barbican-Begg (deceased, allegedly) is resurrecting events from a past littered with dysfunction and greed, sex, rock and roll and a ton of drugs. Denny's life encapsulates the fevered underground of a London teeming with contradiction and ambivalence, subversion and rage. Moorcock's hugely entertaining follow-up to his masterpiece MOTHER LONDON captured the spirit of our age as we staggered into the new millennium.

“The greatest writer of post-Tolkien British fantasyA supreme example of the fantasy genre and more - TIME OUTScenes of beauty and power, and serious ruminations on humankind's capacity for great dreams and profound horrors - LOCUSa great, humane document - London Review of Books”

The greatest writer of post-Tolkien British fantasy

A supreme example of the fantasy genre and more - TIME OUT

Scenes of beauty and power, and serious ruminations on humankind's capacity for great dreams and profound horrors - LOCUS

a great, humane document - London Review of Books

Michael Moorcock (1939-)

Michael Moorcock is one of the most important figures in British SF and Fantasy literature. The author of many literary novels and stories in practically every genre, his novels have won and been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Whitbread and Guardian Fiction Prize. In 1999, he was given the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award; in 2001, he was inducted into the SF Hall of Fame; and in 2007, he was named a SFWA Grandmaster. Michael Moorcock is also a musician who has performed since the seventies with his own band, the Deep Fix; and, as a member of the prog rock band, Hawkwind, won a gold disc. His tenure as editor of New Worlds magazine in the sixties and seventies is seen as the high watermark of SF editorship in the UK, and was crucial in the development of the SF New Wave. Michael Moorcock's literary creations include Hawkmoon, Corum, Von Bek, Jerry Cornelius and, of course, his most famous character, Elric. He has been compared to, among others, Balzac, Dumas, Dickens, James Joyce, Ian Fleming, J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Although born in London, he now splits his time between homes in Texas and Paris.

Moorcock's second great London novel - and thematic sequel to MOTHER LONDON - returns to print in a newly revised edition.The death of Princess Di heralded a spring clean of the soul. And the dirt we wanted off our coffee tables was the kind of salacious exposure tabloid paparazzo photographer Denny Dover had made a fortune out of. Now he's out of work and moving to the godforsaken wastes of Skerring on the South coast to lick his wounds. A former rock star, this East End lad-made-good lived it up with the best of them. But his childhood friend, hugely wealthy magnate Sir John Barbican-Begg (deceased, allegedly) is resurrecting events from a past littered with dysfunction and greed, sex, rock and roll and a ton of drugs. Denny's life encapsulates the fevered underground of a London teeming with contradiction and ambivalence, subversion and rage. Moorcock's hugely entertaining follow-up to his masterpiece MOTHER LONDON captured the spirit of our age as we staggered into the new millennium.

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