‘The Blood Red Game’

‘The Blood Red Game’ was the second of two novellas originally published in Science Fiction Adventures in 1962 and ’63 (as ‘The Sundered Worlds’ and ‘The Blood Red Game’ respectively). In 1965, the two were combined as the novel The Sundered Worlds, which was later retitled as The Blood Red Game (1970), then later still significantly revised and retitled back to The Sundered Worlds (1992).

The Sundered Worlds was the first book to introduce Moorcock’s concept of a multiverse of alternative realities — infinite variations of our own universe and experience — a notion and indeed term long since embraced by modern, mainstream scientific theory.

First appearance: Science Fiction Adventures Vol. 6 No. 32
London: Nova Publications digest, May 1963;
edited by John Carnell;
price: 2/6;
112 pages;
I.S.S.N.: none;
cover artist: Gerard Quinn.

‘The Blood Red Game’: pp. 2–69.

Subsequently (only) in and as part of The Sundered Worlds/The Blood Red Game (novel)…

First edition, as The Sundered Worlds, Compact, 1965 paperback (q.v.).
First retitled edition, as The Blood Red Game, Sphere, 1970 paperback (q.v.).
First revised edition, as The Sundered Worlds, Roc, 1992 paperback (q.v.).

The Sundered Worlds (revised) subsequently collected in…

The Eternal Champion, White Wolf (only), 1994 paperback (q.v.).
Moorcock’s Multiverse, Gollancz, 2014 paperback (q.v.).

Foreign (i.e. non-English language) appearances:-

The Blood Red Game (novel) as Le Jeu Du Sang, France (1976); Das Blutrote Spiel, Germany (1979); Το Ματωμένο Παιχνίδι, Greece (1988).

The Blood Red Game (anthology/omnibus title) as Багряная Игра, Russia (1994).

Also in Бегство Из Сумерек, Russia (1996).