Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock

Dancers at the end of time is a remarkable trilogy, and in my opinion, a masterpiece. Moorcock creates a picture of a future society, at the end of time itself: where technology has finally removed the threat of death. The earth?s inhabitants can create sky-scrappers or mountains in seconds, change their appearance to anything that they desire ? and can be anyone or anything that they want. Morals have been long-forgotten and to ?the dancers at the end of time? pleasure is everything. This hedonistic utopia is all that Jherek Carnelian - the protagonist - has ever known. However, this all changes with an arrival from the past: a Mrs Amelia ...

The Dancers At The End Of Time Michael Moorcock strikes again. This is theoretically Volume Seven of the Tale of The Eternal Champion, which might require a little explanation. The majority of Moorcock's novels tie into one gigantic story arc, which weaves in and out of various times and places in fantasy, with occasional trips to science fiction and the wilder shores of the real world - alternate versions of it on occasion. Have you ever noticed how many SF and fantasy authors cluster round the first half of the alphabet? Asimov, Clarke, Poul Anderson, Dick, Gibson, Aldiss, Baxter, Benford, Heinlein...an overwhelming preponderance, and most of the rest ...

I absolutely adore the characters in these books. I'd never read anything of Moorcock's before stumbling across this set in a jumble sale (don't you just live for that feeling when you accidentally discover a book that grips you?) It took me a little while to get pulled into the story, the world it describes is so weird, but once I did I holed myself up for days and finished the three books off like consuming a feast. What are they about? Well, it's set far in the future when people have nothing better to worry about than amusing themselves by inventing new landscapes or changing their bodies to suit their every whim. They listen to the whispers ...