Michael Moorcock
The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius
Stories of the Comic Apocalypse

More Borges-ian than Asimov-ian, Jerry Cornelius, time hopping anti-hero, is one of fantastic literature's greatest creations. This collection, written between 1965 and 2003, includes the early Cornelius stories and also "The Spencer Inheritance" (which enmeshes Jerry with Princess Di), "Cheering for the Rockets" (which involves an attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant), and the novella "Firing the Cathedral" (which concerns 9/11 and after): none have before seen print this side of the Atlantic.

When he first appeared, Cornelius was seen as born of cutting-edge literature, not science fiction. Most SF readers of the day found him too shocking for their taste. But William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and the original cyberpunks claimed Jerry as the first cyberpunk hero. The rock band Human League claimed Jerry as their inspiration and Hawkwind's "Needle Gun" is a Jerry Cornelius song. As a member of Hawkwind, Michael Moorcock won a platinum disc for "Warrior on the Edge of Time," which featured Cornelius-inspired music. Blue Öyster Cult's "Veteran of the Pyschic Wars" was about Jerry Cornelius and was on the sound track of the movie Heavy Metal. Cornelius was also the acknowledged inspiration for Alan Moore's "Watchmen" graphic novels and for much of Neil Gaiman's work in graphic novels. Mick Jagger was offered the part of Jerry Cornelius by David Putnam (who produced The Final Program) but turned the part down as "too freaky."

Michael Moorcock was born in London in 1939. Moorcock is a giant of the non-genre amalgam known as "slipstream" fiction, to which writers such as Jack Womack, Paul Di Filippo, and William Gibson belong. The Cornelius brand of his fiction is freewheeling and intellectually adventurous. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures when he was sixteen. His first novel, The Sundered Worlds, was published when he was twenty-six. In 1967, his novella Behold the Man won the Nebula Award. He soon combined his writing with the editing of New Worlds, a SF and fantasy magazine which under his reign became hugely influential, publishing stories by many of SF's more literary writers such as Brian Aldiss, Samuel Delany, Thomas Disch and M. John Harrison. In all, he has written more than eighty books, both fiction and non-fiction, and edited another ten. Some of the best known include The Condition of Muzak, Gloriana (World Fantasy Award), Mother London (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize, 1988), Count Brass (1998), Behold the Man (Nebula Award, 1999), and King of the City (2000).

"(Moorcock) has been compared by reviewers to Tolkien and Raymond Chandler, Wyndham Lewis and Ronald Firbank, Mervyn Peake and Edgar Rice Burrouighs, Charles Dickens and James Joyce. I could throw in Nabokov and Borges… Jerry Cornelius is still Moorcock's most original, dream-haunting creation — a mind-blown Spirit of the Age… The only way to enjoy and understand the Jerry Cornelius stories is to jump in and strike out for the nearest raft. From the diving board it may all appear strange and futuristic. But down below, even Homer and Edmund Spenser would soon feel at home." —The Sunday Times (U.K.) "Jerry is the perfect modern hero, because he's about the effect that speed (in every conceivable sense) has on our consciousness. And he also stands for the infinite possibilities of chaos and time against the repressing force of space and conformity." —Time Out

He has written for and performed with the rock groups Hawkwind and Blue Öyster Cult, scripted films and an interactive live-action computer game. His mass market fantasy novels featuring Elric have sold over two million copies; a major film is in the works from Universal Studios. He lives in Austin, Texas.

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