THE BANE OF THE BLACK SWORD - Michael Moorcock

The saga of the damned albino prince of Melniboné continues in another novel composed of three novellas in The Bane of the Black Sword. As the title might suggest, Elric's cursed sword, the soul-drinking runeblade known as Stormbringer plays a larger part in this collection.

We have the 'usual' three novellas making up this book, with a short extra. The first of these novellas is "The Stealer of Souls" in which the albino king has his final (?) battle with Theleb Ka’arna, the evil wizard who has plagued Elric. Elric is helped by his old friend Dyvim Tvar and a small horde of dragons.

In "Kings in Darkness" Elric and Moonglum are on a hurried retreat from what must surely be a misunderstanding. Elric, who can slay wizards and demons with his soul-drinking sword, runs away from common soldiers. They find themselves in the dark Forest of Troos and Elric falls in love with the beautiful 17 year old Zarozinia. 

"The Flamebringers" sees Elric looking to enjoy his time with his beautiful bride, Zarozinia, to whom he has promised he will not put his hands on his soul-drinking sword, but when you are a fated hero, life intervenes. Elric must face a million mad nomads raping their way toward him while also helping a sorcerer friend whose soul is trapped in the body of a black cat. (Yeah, isn't fantasy great?)

There is also the "Epilogue: To Rescue Tanelorn" which might be the best part of the book even though Elric isn't in the story.  Instead we get Rackhir the Red Archer who must protect Tanelorn (think of Tanelorn like Switzerland - it's neutral territory for all sorts of mercenaries and rebels.  But it's under threat from a wizard and the beggars he's gathered as an army.

I am now in unchartered territory for me in the Elric series and I understand why.  These stories are beginning to feel quite the same.

There is some appeal to this - consistency and knowing what you're going to get.  It's the reason chain stores all look the same. And as a young reader, when these books were still being released new (I was 16 when this first came out), we didn't have that immediacy of being able to read them all in a row (unless we waited for them all or re-read all the previous books) so knowing, in general, what we would get with the next book, was appealing.  But now, reading seven books - essentially in a row - it doesn't hold the same appeal.

This book does seem to be more straight-forward.  In the Sword & Sorcery category, we have both - sword (that is magicked) and wizards and sorcerers aplenty and Elric does much less ruminating or brooding or philosophizing and I almost rather miss it - I mean that's part of what really defines the brooding albino.

I think that this stands as a decent S&S story, and a decent addition to the Elric saga, but not outstanding, and for the hardcore Elric reader, reading all the books in a row, this might be a less-than-exciting, repetitive volume.

Looking for a good book? The Bane of the Black Sword by Michael Moorcock is a volume of the Elric saga - where it falls in the saga depends on which collection you adhere to, but it does fall just a bit short of being truly unique and interesting.

I received a digital version of this book, as part of a larger collection, from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

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The Bane of the Black Sword

author: Michael Moorcock

series: The Elric Saga #5; Elric Chronological Order #8

publisher: (1977) DAW; (2022) Saga Press

ISBN: (1977) 9780879974213; (2022)  9781534445710

paperback, (1977) 157 pages/hardcover, (2022) 851 pages