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Through Von Bek, who begins these tales as Graf Ulrich von Bek, a commander of infantry in the 1630s during the European religious wars, author Moorcock draws a dark historical fantasy to illustrate that a Champion must struggle to decide values and make those values active.
While Von Bek is a series of adventure stories, they are really allegories to express symbolic truths about the differences and similarities between the war hawks and those who "would ease the world's pain." The conflict is not between good and evil as Von Bek deals with the French Revolution of the 1790s and Otto Bismarck and his rise to power with the German Empire. Rather the choice is law versus chaos and entropy versus stasis. In his dark fantasies Moorcock beautifully and tragically shows the Champion fighting not to destroy Law or uphold Chaos, but instead to create a balance.
Larry D. Woods, an attorney, is an avid collector of science fiction.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.