#53. THE DANCERS AT THE END OF TIME By Michael Moorcock

Published : 1993
Pages : 664
Overall Mark : 8/10

Enter a decaying far, far future society, a time when anything and everything is possible, where love blooms mysteriously between Mrs Amelia Underwood, an unwiling time traveller, and Jherek Carnelian, a bemused denizen of the End Of Time. The Dancers At The End Of Time, containing the novels An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End Of All Songs, is a brilliant homage to the 1890s of Wilde, Beardsley and the fin-de-siecle decadents, satire at its sharpest and most colourful.

MICHAEL MOORCOCK (1939-)
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.

VERDICT
AN ALIEN HEAT
A fun romantic time travel story with a future human rescuing his beloved from Victorian England. Very well written, and it proves that knowing about something isn't necessarily the same as experiencing it.

THE HOLLOW LANDS
Future human Jherek travels back again to Victorian England to find Mrs Underwood, but is faced with her husband and pursued by police as the lovers flee to the end of time - but take a wrong turn. Quite funny and enjoyable to read.

THE END OF ALL SONGS
Jherek and Mrs Underwood try to prevent the end of the world in the conclusion to the trilogy, and this makes for a witty and suitable ending to the tale.