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The Cornelius Quartet book cover 1
The Cornelius Quartet book cover 2
The Cornelius Quartet book cover 3
The Cornelius Quartet
Series · 4 books · 1968-1978

Books in series

The Final Programme book cover
#1

The Final Programme

1968

Jerry Cornelius is a scientist, a rock star, and an assassin. He is the hippest adventurer of them all: tripping through a pop art nightmare in which kidnappings, murder, sex and drugs are a daily occurrence. Along with his savvy and ruthless partner-in-chaos, Miss Brunner, Cornelius is on a mission to control a revolutionary code for creating the ultimate human being, a modern messiah—the final programme. The first book in the Cornelius Quartet is the groundbreaking introduction to the misadventures and vendettas of Jerry Cornelius, one of modern literature’s most distinctive characters, the product of a bewildering post-modern culture, and an inspiration for generations of characters since. "Michael Moorcock, rechazando las disputas de límites que han reducido la novela a una confusión de subgéneros en conflicto, recobra en estos cuatro volúmenes una vitalidad y una amplitud proteicas que pudieran llamarse dickensianas si no pertenecieran tan por completo a nustro tiempo volátil. En verdad, ninguna obra reciente de ficción ha manejado mejor las contingencias vertiginosas de la imaginación del medio siglo que esta brava arlequinada de juegos de identidad, realidades falsificadas, historia paródica, y un pobre y ordinario apocalipsis" (W.L. Webb, The Guardian). "Moorcock ha creado una figura capaz de moverse a través de las versiones míticas de los problemas de hoy, sin intentar situarlas o situarse a sí mismo en contextos simplificados. Una ficción semejante, en un mundo de imaginación escasa, es un don necesario" (Harpers Bazaar) Michael Moorcock nació en Inglaterra, ha publicado más de 50 libros y fue animador principal de la célebre revista New Worlds, que introdujo el término "ficción especulativa"; una literatura "moderna, coherente y vital". En EL PROGRAMA FINAL, primera de una serie de cuatro novelas independientes, anticipa la herencia decepcionante y caótica de la década del 60, un dorado presente en el que todo parecía instantáneamente posible.
A Cure for Cancer book cover
#2

A Cure for Cancer

1969

Michael Moorcock author.
The English Assassin book cover
#3

The English Assassin

1972

The English Assassin is the third of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels. It looks through a many-sided lens at English assumptions about themselves, about class, and about the Empire over the past seventy years. It includes all the familiar characters from previous Cornelius novels (Miss Brunner, Bishop Beesley, Frank Cornelius, etc) and introduces us to a host of colourful new ones (especially Jerry's unforgettable mother). The philosophical and moral themes of the book touch on a profusion of problems - violent revolution, the responsibilities of colonialism, racialism, sex and superstition - while the novel as a whole is always highly readable and entertaining.
The Condition of Muzak book cover
#4

The Condition of Muzak

1978

Civilization as we know it has been annihilated. The decay and chaos of the multiverse have left Europe in a surreal, yet ever-fashionable, mess. Jerry Cornelius finds himself in an increasingly futile series of guises, part of a cast of characters dancing the Entropy Tango towards oblivion. Will the legendary Cornelius ever be united with his true beloved, his sister Catherine? And will balance ever be restored to devastated London? Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, The Condition of Muzak is the fourth, climactic novel in the Cornelius Quartet. But this is by no means the last we will see of Jerry Cornelius—an indelible spirit of counter-culture who continues to inspire writers and artists to this day.

Author

Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Author · 134 books

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels. Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine. During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.

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