THE END OF ALL SONGS

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

The first two volumes of Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time series, An Alien Heat and The Hollow Lands are practically a prologue to the final novel, The End of All Songs. In fact, the three volumes work to tell a single story so well, it is surprising that they were originally published over a span of four years. While the first two volumes see End-of-Time denizen Jherek Carnelian pursuing his declared love, misplaced-in-time Victorian Mrs. Amelia Underwood through time, in The End of All Songs, Moorcock explores what happens with the decadent and innocent Carnelian manages to catch the Christian and virtuous Underwood.

The novel picks up where the previous book ended. Carnelian and Underwood are displaced to the Lower Devonian, an epoch devoid of land-based animal life. Without being able to tap into the great power of the End of Time, Jherek is practically useless and although Underwood's experience being raised as a missionary is moderately helpful, what really saves them are two deus ex machina events. The first is the appearance of a Time Traveler, who shows up throughout the novel and leaves them with a hamper of food, the latter is their discovery that the Guild of Temporal Adventurers has an operation in the era, allowing Moorcock to tie this series more closely to Behold the Man and his Nomads of the Time Streams and Jerry Cornelius series.

Once his characters are at the End of Time, Moorcock is able to focus his attention on their characters, although still against the decadent background of the period. As the fish out of water, Amelia Underwood shows the most growth, coming to terms with her reality at the end of time as opposed to the Victorian mores of her own period, although the appearance of her husband and Victorian policemen courtesy of the Time Traveller adds complications to her acceptance of her new life and her ability to love and marry Jherek. Jherek's own growth is driven by Amelia Underwood's instruction, although it is unclear how much he is simply playing along with the task he has set for himself, to fall in love, and how much it has actually happened.

Moorcock has also set up a variety of mysteries in the first two books. He already revealed that Lord Jagged of Canaria is able to travel in time and has not only established two identities in Victorian London, but that he was responsible for kidnapping Amelia Underwood to the End of Time. In this final novel of the trilogy, Moorcock allows Jagged's motivations to be explained, giving shape and purpose to everything that has gone before, although even as Moorcock talks about the universe coming to an end, his characters persist in their decadence to an extent that nothing feels overly important.

The novel is at its best not when Jherek and Amelia are interacting with each other, for her instruction often seems to fly past him, but rather when Amelia is challenging Lord Jagged. With a vast array of characters, including Jherek, his mother, Amelia's husband, and the police, Amelia and Jagged come across as the only adults of consequence in the novel. This sense is heightened by the fact that the various time travellers all seem to hold Jagged in high esteem (and, to a lesser extent, respect Amelia).

Return to