Partly that's because it was the first book (or, more accurately, stories) Mike wrote to feature the concept of the Multiverse as it is now commonly understood, pretty much making it the first book ever to do that, rather than because it needs to be read first out of all of Mike's books. So now I need to keep my eyes peeled for the UK Eternal Champion! It's so great to be reading all this stuff for the fist time!ĭavid, is The Sundered Worlds an essential part of the EC storyline? Is it the second book of four concerning the same character?ĭavid, is The Sundered Worlds an essential part of the EC storyline? The Sundered Worlds is nowadays subtitled 'The First Book of the Multiverse':

It seems the UK publications make more sense, I was a bit miffed that it didn't include Dragon in the Sword at first because I have a standalone volume of 'Phoenix in Obsidian' and was looking forward to reading what happens next, but I'd rather buy the Eternal Champion instead with the three books together in sequence, even if it makes my stand alone copy obsolete.

TSW will be included in the MOORCOCK'S MULTIVERSE omnibus as part of The Michael Moorcock Collection from Gollancz however. I believe Mike's preferred order (at the time) was the UK series rather than the US one the only reason why The Sundered Worlds wasn't included in the UK series was because the rights didn't belong to Orion Books at the time. binding) issues meant that it wasn't physically possible to publish The Eternal Champion, The Sundered Worlds, Phoenix in Obsidian and The Dragon in the Sword in a single book so the decision was taken to publish it in the VON BEK omnibus instead since TDitS is also a Von Bek novel as well as an Erekosë one. What's immediately noticeable is that the US TEC omnibus contains a novel not otherwise included in the UK series, The Sundered Worlds (aka The Blood Red Game) John Davey will correct me if I've got this next bit the wrong way 'round but simple production (i.e. 'The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius' What's less obvious (from the outside) is that the content of both volumes is different as well. This is also the reason why the first Elric omnibus appears much earlier in the US reading order (Vol.

TEC & VB respectively) because it was felt (by White Wolf) that the American audience for the series were mostly fantasy readers and Mike is best known in the US as a fantasy author. One of the most noticeable differences between the UK and the US omnibus series of twenty years ago is that they have a different 'reading' order, so Vols 1 and 2 in the UK series is VON BEK and THE ETERNAL CHAMPION respectively, but in the US series they're swapped around (i.e. Not quite O7, that's got a slightly different explanation:

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