THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN: A Romance of Entropy

by Michael Moorcock ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 1974

A montage of the Decline of Western Civilization, set in 1975 or so and centering around Jerry Cornelius, assassin, or his foul crucified seaweedy corpse. There is a world war of sorts featuring barbarians versus aesthetes and an Israeli-Arab alliance against Europe, and Zeppelins and Malays and Highland Clans. Wordsworth Cottage is ravaged and the Queen has abdicated; but the lower classes live on in the sowlike, ginny person of Cornelius' mother, while a priapic Bishop Beesley joins Prinz Lobkowitz and beautiful lesbians in high boots or Worth gowns in a series of mutilations, degradations and minor murders. It is all sick-making, as they used to say in Evelyn Waugh novels, and Waugh's satiric entropy gets turned into bestialism relayed with a cool smirk which has nothing to do with satire. This is the third in a tetralogy: save us from Moorcock's sanguinary, camp apocalypse, spliced with news items of death of and by children -- in case we miss the point.

Pub Date: May 8, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION