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The Dreamthief's Daughter: |
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y name is Ulric, Graf von Bek, and I am the last of my earthly line. An unhealthy child, cursed with the family disease of albinism, I was born and raised in Bek, Saxony, in the early years of the century. So begins The Dreamthief's Daughter, the latest novel from prolific fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. The book takes place on two levels: the fictionalized but historical world of Von Bek's birth, and a more fantastic universe beyond his initial imaginings.
The book begins with a recap of Ulric's tragic early life, in which his entire immediate family dies in a series of cataclysms global (World War I) and local (a fire in the old castle). Proceeding to the 1930s, Von Bek describes his disgust with Nazism and his resolve to struggle against it. This resolve is immediately tested when his cousin Gaynor joins the Nazis and demands that Ulric "donate" a family heirloom, a black sword called Ravenbrand, to the national cause.
From the beginning, the book poses a puzzle for fans of Moorcock's work. The main character's name and the historical setting place it firmly in the Von Bek series, which deals with the adventures of one family down through the ages and with supernatural elements which lie below the surface of history (the previous entries are available from White Wolf Publishing in a single volume titled Von Bek).
Ulric's story, however, will cause most Moorcock fans to draw an additional comparison: He is an albino, last of his line, whose mother died in childbirth, whose people have turned cruel and insane, and who struggles against his cousin for a black sword. These strongly parallel the life of Moorcock's most popular hero, Elric, and the early parts of the story, like the subtitle, "A Tale of the Albino," strongly hint at Elric without actually promising his presence.
The story develops new dimensions when Ulric is contacted by strange anti-Nazi fighters who reveal to him that his fight against Nazism is only part of a much larger cause, fought on an infinity of other worlds, and that he is just one of an infinity of champions who fight for freedom.
Even lesser Moorcock is liberating
Dreamthief's Daughter is a fascinating--but somewhat frustrating--book, in terms of both fantasy and history.The fantasy displays Moorcock's raw creativity at full tilt. Improbable worlds, creatures and names abound, as do interesting experiences and ways of telling about them (most notably a first-person narration from an entity with two merged personalities). And the book interlocks well with Moorcock's earlier work, with enough cross-references to give a fan the urge read the whole collection over again.
But the plot is missing a sense of direction. The sole purpose of the heroes is to foil Gaynor's unimaginable plans. But these being unimaginable, it is difficult for the reader to grasp what is happening and what will happen next, and a numbness sets in as yet another strange name for a strange being appears without much sense of where the story is going or why.
The use of the history of the Nazi period seems like a natural and very welcome idea, particularly given the German themes and names that run through many of Moorcock's stories and the fascinating use of history in the earlier Von Bek stories. And while it really is interesting, it doesn't quite work. While all the Von Bek books conveyed strong historical opinions, as well as a lot of information the average reader wouldn't know, Dreamthief's Daughter does so in a clumsy and heavy-handed fashion. The reader is constantly barraged with Von Bek's one-note conservative anti-Nazism; he seemingly can't refer to them without the adjectives "ridiculous" or "comic-opera." And historical facts which don't have to do with the story are dragged in simply because Von Bek (or more likely the author) thinks that 21st-century readers should know them, often draining the energy from tense or exciting scenes.
This makes Dreamthief's Daughter a flawed book. But a flawed Michael Moorcock book can be better than an average book by many other authors. Fans of the author and particularly of Elric and the Von Beks won't want to miss it. First timers, however, are strongly urged to begin elsewhere, probably with Elric of Melnibone or with Von Bek, depending on how much history one likes with one's fantasy.
An example of heavy-handedness: to a wonderfully subversive observation that a Nazi gathering might have had Walt Disney as the interior designer, Von Bek adds gratuitously that Walt Disney admired fascism. How much time would a reclusive German Graf spend thinking about Disney anyway? -- Bob
Also in this issue: By Any Other Name, by Spider Robinson
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