A review by jayshay
The Steel Tsar by Michael Moorcock
3.0
I read the 1981 Granada Paperback Original which probably means that my review is of the unrevised edition of The Steel Tsar.
My enjoyment dropped for the third and final installment of The Oswald Bastable Trilogy. First, it is a BAD sign that Moorcock feels the necessity to write in that Bastable has selective amenisia. Is it there to reset Bastable, like some sort of sitcom character?
The book has some interesting things to say about history:
"It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called 'History'. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination."
Which I enjoyed the first time it was said in the book, but less the second time, and by the third time I was rolling my eyes with impatience. Yes, yes, you've said this already. It seemed clumsily didactic from a writer as talented as Moorcock.
There was also a scene while bombing the Cossacks where the characters have one of those 'only happens in books' conversations where they discuss the various reasons why the Russians want to give away there freedom. It is one of those bald thematic conversations that I felt Moorcock was able to steer away from in the other books by having Bastable actively oppose the anarchism and anti-racism initially.
Finally, for me the titular Steel Tsar, Joesph Stalin isn't very interesting, not complicated like the Black Atilla and T.A. Shaw were in the other two books. Yes, I would be horrified by a sympathetic Stalin, but structurally having a black hat evil villain in this book weakens it in comparison to the two books that precede it.
But this is, no doubt, a cunning plot to make me track down what I hope is the revised novel.
My enjoyment dropped for the third and final installment of The Oswald Bastable Trilogy. First, it is a BAD sign that Moorcock feels the necessity to write in that Bastable has selective amenisia. Is it there to reset Bastable, like some sort of sitcom character?
The book has some interesting things to say about history:
"It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called 'History'. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination."
Which I enjoyed the first time it was said in the book, but less the second time, and by the third time I was rolling my eyes with impatience. Yes, yes, you've said this already. It seemed clumsily didactic from a writer as talented as Moorcock.
There was also a scene while bombing the Cossacks where the characters have one of those 'only happens in books' conversations where they discuss the various reasons why the Russians want to give away there freedom. It is one of those bald thematic conversations that I felt Moorcock was able to steer away from in the other books by having Bastable actively oppose the anarchism and anti-racism initially.
Finally, for me the titular Steel Tsar, Joesph Stalin isn't very interesting, not complicated like the Black Atilla and T.A. Shaw were in the other two books. Yes, I would be horrified by a sympathetic Stalin, but structurally having a black hat evil villain in this book weakens it in comparison to the two books that precede it.
But this is, no doubt, a cunning plot to make me track down what I hope is the revised novel.