The World Above
Elric, last Emperor of Melniboné, and his friend Moonglum go questing in search of knowledge and answers to the albino’s questions concerning his ancestors and the long history of his people. He has fragments of information and recollections from his dream-quests, but his search takes them to the World Above, where scattered remnants of precursors to his own people are said to still dwell. Their adventures take them to strange cities and ruined kingdoms before—while also searching for a way home—they discover a path to Kirinoir, a fabled land and the source of blue honey and blue mead as well as a cousin people to Elric’s own. Before his own needs can be sated, however, Elric must swear to defend the place against a massive army headed by mysterious figures, one of whom may be a supernatural entity obsessed with rewriting the laws of the balance between Law and Chaos.
The Prince of Ruins
The book acts more like a series of linked short stories or a fix-up novel more than as a coherent, single novel. The third and longest story is bloated and loses all momentum for substantial stretches as a time. The second story is the most conventional as a pulpy, fantasy adventure story, so while not innovative, it does work as a fun, thrilling tale. The focus is always on Elric in these adventures. There are also questionable technical and editorial choices, such a lot of redundant explanations and descriptions—often within the same story—baffling locations for chapter breaks, and far too many instances of exposition that remove much of the ambiguity or nuance. All these choices draw readers out of the story and drastically slow down the pace of the narrative.
Without stories there was no culture, no memory, no forward march into a future.
-The Citadel of Forgotten Myths
The Citadel of Forgotten Myths is not good. Elric is nostalgic and melancholic in a way that makes him come across as shallow and one-note. There are secondary characters that get a fair bit of time on the page. None of them contribute meaningfully to the stories, however, nor do they do much to alter the solipsistic tone. Long passages of Elric’s moody reminiscing reads more like whining than mourning or something approaching genuine regret. The action often comes across as rote, with only an occasional sense that the protagonists might be in danger, and Stormbringer’s lust for blood and souls only troubles Elric when it is convenient for the plot to do so. Otherwise, it is something he frets about much more than something that adversely affects him in any meaningful way.
Black Blade
For good and for ill, this book is an Elric book more than it is an eternal champion book. There are not constant connections to the Moorcockian multiverse nor is there a perpetual rotating cast of other eternal champion characters. The overlapping is reasonably restrained, and there are some passing references to the Runestaff and the like. Otherwise, these stories are similar in their basic format to what readers can find in earlier Elric collections like Elric of Melniboné. The focus remains on the albino adventurer, but unfortunately, he is not given enough interesting do to, resulting in the prolonged doldrums of this book.
Best Forgotten
The Citadel of Forgotten Myths is for diehard fans of Michael Moorcock and Elric completionists only. This is not the place to start reading about Elric nor the wider, Moorcockian multiverse. Much better books about both exist. Start with those, and if a reader cannot get enough, eventually pick up this book from your local library.
Source
Moorcock, Michael. The Citadel of Forgotten Myths. Saga Press, 2022.
© 2025 Seth Tomko