Blood: A Southern Fantasy
London: Millennium, 1995 (January 26th) hardcover and simultaneous trade-sized paperback;
original prices: £15·99 (h/c), £9·99 (p/b);
248 pages;
I.S.B.N.s: 1-85798-232-0 (h/c) & 1-85798-233-9 (p/b);
cover artist: Gustave Moreau (Jupiter et Sémélé).
First volume in a trilogy, collectively ‘The War Amongst The Angels’ (sometimes referred to as the “Second Ether” trilogy), it was collected in The War Amongst The Angels (omnibus, 2014) with Fabulous Harbours and The War Amongst The Angels.
Although mostly written in the U.K., Blood is set in the southern states of the U.S.A., but — like so many of Moorcock’s works — in a world close to but not quite our own, this time one in which the black races have dominance over the disadvantaged whites. Destinies are woven inexorably together, as characters are drawn towards a mythical realm called the Second Ether, there to fight in the Game of Time, the unending conflict between Plurality and Singularity (or Chaos and Law).
(+ book-club ed.)
First American edition: New York: AvoNova/Morrow hardcover, 1995 (November);
original price: $22·00;
337 pages;
I.S.B.N.: 0-688-14362-8;
cover artist: Dorian Vallejo.
cover artist: Bill Binger.
London: Millennium mass-sized paperback, 1995 (November 6th);
original price: £4·99;
273 pages;
I.S.B.N.: 1-85798-236-3.
N.B. The copyright page states that “Parts of this novel were first published in slightly different form[s] in New Worlds, edited by David Garnett, © 1991, 1992, 1994, and in The Time Centre Times, edited by John and Maureen Davey, Ian Covell and D.J. Rowe, © 1993”. These were ‘Colour’, ‘Corsairs Of The Second Ether’ and ‘Free States’, respectively, the latter split (in Blood) as ‘Free States’ and ‘Codes’.
(Followed by Fabulous Harbours)
Blood: A Southern Fantasy is available as an audiobook (download), narrated by Chet Williamson; also as an e-book: 9780575092747.
Moorcography.org 