The White Wolf's Son: The Albino Underground by Michael Moorcock Search Amazon for other books by or about Michael Moorcock. Rating: Reviewed by: John Walsh

Michael Moorcock has been writing about his most well-known character Prince Elric of Melnibone since the 1960s. Initially, Elric was best viewed as part of an emergent counter-culture with relaxed attitudes towards sex, drugs and summoning the gods, among other things. As Elric's story progressed, it became clear that he was intimately linked to a series of individuals known as the "Eternal Champion," who was accompanied by a faithful companion with various purposes of his or perhaps own (not entirely unlike Dr Who, in fact) and opposed by a diabolic adversary who represented the Champion's opposite or dark side: the original was Yyrkoon who bore Mournblade, the twin to the demonic runesword Stormbringer which had the ability to steal the souls of those it kills and thereby sustain the albino Elric on his various quests and adventures.

Over the years, new works featuring Elric have appeared and, increasingly, the Champion has become more firmly integrated into a wider universe in which a variety of characters are linked to him in his various guises in different aspects of the universe (known as the multiverse), who interact with recurring symbols such as the Runestaff and the city of haven Tanelorn. In The White Wolf's Son, which in fact completes a trilogy, indeed a trilogy of trilogies, Elric spends most of his time as a prisoner forced to watch on as Oonagh von Bek, a 12-year-old girl, relates most of the narrative and interacts with unusual people and creatures who may or may not be her relatives and some who are devilishly evil and bent on bringing down civilization as it is known. The action covers parallels of London, Yorkshire, and Germany, among other places and long-term readers of Moorcock will surely enjoy the reprise of various themes from the past. Newcomers might find the ride a little confusing, although the main thrust of the narrative appears to be clear enough.

The Moorcockian version of history as explicated in these books is both structural and bourgeois in nature. It is structural in that patterns recur in time and across different locations and it is bourgeois in the sense that it is the actions of individuals which are crucial in determining the events which affect entire nations and also the whole world. This approach fits in with the way that most fantasy is written, since it is a genre that often lends itself to the concept that everything has happened before and will happen again (Battlestar Galactica is a recent high profile television example of this). What is quite pleasing and slightly subversive about this approach is that it reaches back to a pre-Christian (and other religions) past and engages with what are now called pagan ideas as espoused by the ancient Greeks and Scandinavian peoples. Most enjoyable.