Dorian Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff and The Chronicles of Castle Brass
A little while ago, Fearless Leader John O’Neill posted here about Tor reprints of Michael Moorcock’s first four Dorian Hawkmoon books being remaindered (you can still get them at Amazon). It had been years since I’d read that original Hawkmoon series, and I’d never read the second series of three books that followed, despite having them sitting on my bookshelves. So in the wake of John’s post, I thought it was well worth taking another look at Hawkmoon’s adventures. I vaguely remembered enjoying the first series; would it hold up?
That first series, The History of the Runestaff, dates from the late sixties. The Jewel in the Skull was published in 1967, The Mad God’s Amulet (originally published as Sorcerer’s Amulet) and The Sword of the Dawn both came out in 1968, and The Runestaff (originally The Secret of the Runestaff) was published in 1969. A few years later, Moorcock wrote another three books following the adventures of Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln, The Chronicles of Castle Brass; these books tied Hawkmoon more closely to Moorcock’s mythos of the multiverse and the Eternal Champion — concepts tying together all Moorcock’s fiction writing. 1973’s Count Brass and The Champion of Garathorm were followed in 1975 by The Quest For Tanelorn, presenting a possible ending for the overall saga of the Champion.
In a post at Tor.com, Moorcock recalled writing the first series:
My old method of writing fantasy novels was to go to bed for a few days, getting up only to take the kids to school and pick them up, while the book germinated, making a few notes, then I’d jump out of bed and start, writing around 15-20,000 words a day (I was a superfast typist) for three days, rarely for more than normal working hours — say 9 to 6 — get my friend Jim Cawthorn to read the manuscript for any errors of typing or spelling etc. then send it straight to the editor unread by me. I have still to read more than a few pages of the Hawkmoon books.
He’s also said that
It took me three days to write the Hawkmoon books. I used to say that I COULD do the job in two days, but it needed a third day for that extra polish… I used to spend a few days in bed thinking over the story, get up to write it, then go back to bed for another day or so. It was to do with best use of energy.
I doubt if I would have written them had it not been for the fact that I’d burned out on doing comics for Fleetway and wanted fiction which was owned by me rather than owned outright by the publisher. Economically I could earn in three days what those books made me ($1000 a book) from Lancer so I gave myself three days to do them in.
