Michael Moorcock has published more than seventy novels, and there are more than twenty million copies of his books in print worldwide. Among the major literary prizes Moorcock has received are the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Nebula Award. He and his wife divide their time between homes in London, Texas, and Spain.
Like Gargantua or Tristram Shandy, Dennis "Denny" Dover is born with all the portents of some future myth. "I was born in Mustard Street. In the top back room of the Hare and Hounds. On 21 December 1952. My dad... was the last real Londoner to be hanged for murder." We first meet Denny, the narrator of Moorcock's scurrilously exuberant London novel, on a downer. He has scored a coup, photographing a supposedly dead English billionaire, Johnny Barbican Begg, enjoying illicit, copulatory bliss with an English countess on a Bahamian island. Denny's scoop is outscooped, however, by Princess Di's car wreck, which not only chases everything else off the headlines, but puts paparazzi in bad odor with the public, forcing Denny to hide out in an English resort town, Skerring. In the long flashback taking up most of the book, we go from the early '70s remnants of a swinging London, with Denny a cult rock and roll guitarist, to his news photography in Rwanda and then his paparazzo days. At the heart of Denny's story is his love for his cousin Rosie Beck, and for working-class London. Rosie metamorphoses from a radical to Barbican Begg's wife and, perhaps, the plotter of his downfall. Moorcock includes real people, like Johnny Lydon, and a host of fictional characters, like the Quentin Crisp-like actor, Norrie Stripling, as though the book were Moorcock's version of the Sgt. Pepper album cover: private favorites and public enemies. Fans of Moorcock's science fiction might find the references hard going, but readers of his Booker Prize-nominated Mother London will enjoy the novel's angry rant against the vices of the age. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Moorcock (The Cornelius Quartet), the Whitbred-nominated British author well known for his sf and fantasy novels, here ventures into the world of destructive, morally corrupt John Barbican Begg. When he reappears in the life of London paparazzo Dennis Dover, the out-of-work tabloid junkie sees that his friend has become not only richer but more powerful and avaricious; his plans to engulf and devour now extend beyond monies and land rights to Dover's beloved cousin Rosie. Begg's onslaught awakens Dover from his extended stupor and galvanizes him into action. Much of the pleasure of the novel results from Dover's recounting of his life as a rock musician turned journalist turned photographer through the latter part of the century, which is like a catalog of England's pop culture fads and fashions. Dover, who narrates the book, is a wonderful creationall wit, sarcasm, and opinion. Despite the topical references, most readers stateside should find it fascinating and highly entertaining. And despite the lack of traditional sf elements, the book is dense with activity and detail and presents a kaleidoscopic view of London, which will likely appeal to fans of Moorcock's previous popular works.Marc Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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