The Whispering Swarm by Michael Moorcock

The Whispering Swarm by Michael Moorcock

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The Whispering Swarm by Michael Moorcock

Set in a marvelous multiverse, this fantasy adventure-plus-memoir grapples with questions of identity, creativity, heroism, and the very structure of storytelling.

Postwar London, Swinging Sixties London--a time and place of creativity and social change. Young Michael Moorcock embarks upon adulthood as both editor and writer of science fiction and fantasy, helping shape the genre into its modern form through his work and his friendships with other writers. His marriage is new and fresh; his children are young and raising them, an adventure.

But no adventure lasts forever, and Moorcock begins to chafe under the grind of work and family. What seems a chance encounter with a monk--one of the White Friars--leads to a secret at the heart of London. Massive yet phantasmal doors lead to the Alsacia, a hidden world inhabited by great heroes of both history and fiction. Captivated, Moorcock rides as a highwayman and finds himself drinking in the company of all four Musketeers, though he misses his children and his increasingly-estranged wife.

The Alsacia's dangerous politics come to a head just as Moorcock's wife divorces him, each catastrophe feeding on the other as two realities pull on the emotionally struggling writer.

Part memoir, part adventure novel, The Whispering Swarm--the first book in The Sanctuary of the White Friars series--is both an evocation of a now-vanished London and the beginning of a new journey through the multiverse, created by a master of science fiction and fantasy.

Born in London in 1939, Michael Moorcock now lives in Texas. A prolific and award-winning writer with more than eighty works of fiction and non-fiction to his name, he is the creator of Elric, Jerry Cornelius and Colonel Pyat, amongst many other memorable characters. In 2008, The Times named Moorcock in their list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

Philippe Druillet is a comics artist and writer, known for his innovative approach to visual design. Since the start of his career in 1966, Druillet has won multiple awards, including the European Sci-Fi award for comics in 1972, The Grand Prize for a Science Fiction Franchise in 1976, in 1990 he was inducted into the European Science Fiction Society Hall of Fame for his artistry, and in 1996 he won the National Art and Graphics Grand Prize. In the US, he's best known for his graphic adaptation of Michael Moorcock's hit fantasy series, Elric, the Return to Melnibone, and his work for Heavy Metal, such as City of Flowers.

James Cawthorn has had a long working relationship with Michael Moorcock, illustrating his prose serials, and the comic strip Planet Peril, and writing the three-part serial Handar the Red in Tarzan Adventures, and illustrating for the Sexton Blake Library. He drew covers and interior illustrations for the science fiction magazine New Worlds from 1964, and worked with Moorcock on a variety of magazines in the 70s, drawing The Sonic Assassins, a comic strip based on the band Hawkwind, in Frendz. He drew graphic novels adaptations of Moorcock stories, including Strombringer, The Jewel in the Skull, and The Crystal and the Amulet.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781250868305
ISBN 10 1250868300
Title The Whispering Swarm
Author Michael Moorcock
Series Sanctuary Of The White Friars
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Tor Books
Year published 2023-05-09
Number of pages 480
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.