Voted by the London Times as one of the best writers since 1945, Michael Moorcock was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Prize. He has won almost all the major Science Fiction, Fantasy, and lifetime achievement awards including the “Howie,” the Prix Utopiales and the Stoker. Best known for his rule-breaking SF and Fantasy, including the classic Elric and Hawkmoon series, he is also the author of several graphic novels. Now, in London Peculiar and Other Nonfiction, Michael Moorcock personally selects the best of his published, unpublished, and uncensored essays, articles, reviews, and opinions covering a wide range of subjects: books, films, politics, reminiscences of old friends, and attacks on new foes. Drawn from over fifty years of writing, including his most recent work from the pages of the Los Angeles Times, and the Guardian, along with obscure and now unobtainable sources, the pieces in London Peculiar and Other Nonfiction showcase Moorcock at his acerbic best. They include: “London Peculiar,” an impassioned statement of Moorcock’s memories of wartime London. The architectural “improvements” wrought by the rebuilding of the city after World War Two brought cultural changes as well, many to the detriment of the city’s inhabitants. Review of R. Crumb’s Genesis, previously unavailable in English, this lengthy review of the underground comic artist’s retelling of the first book of the Bible leads Moorcock to address nostalgia for the sixties. “A Child’s Christmas in the Blitz”—An autobiographical recounting of Moorcock’s childhood in wartime London, with memories of the freedom and hardships he encountered during the bombings, and the happy times he spent with his parents. These, along with dozens more, make this a collection Moorcock fans won’t want to miss, and the perfect introduction for new readers who will soon discover why Alan Moore (Watchmen) says: “Moorcock seizes the 21st century bull by its horns and wrestles it into submission with a Texan rodeo confidence.”

Voted by the London Times as one of the best writers since 1945, Michael Moorcock has long been considered one of the top names in science fiction and fantasy. Here, Moorcock has personally selected his best published and unpublished essays, articles, reviews, and opinions—all uncensored. Covering a wide range of topics including books, films, politics, reminiscences of old friends, and attacks on new foes, this collection is the definitive compilation for any serious fan of Moorcock, or science fiction in general. Drawn from more than 50 years of writing, including Moorcock's most recent work from the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian—along with obscure and now unobtainable sources—the prose in this compendium showcases Moorcock at his sharpest.

”I will admit I was lured into temptation during the twenties and thirties, and I blame no one for what happened then, least of all myself.” Unmistakably, this is the voice of Colonel Pyat, addict, inventor, and bizarre Everyman for the twentieth century. In Jerusalem Commands, the third of the Pyat quartet, our hero schemes and fantasises his way from New York to Hollywood, from Cairo to Marrakech, from cult success to the utter limits of sexual degradation, leaving a trail of mechanical and human wreckage in his wake as he crashes towards an inevitable appointment with the worst nightmare this century has to offer. It is Michael Moorcock’s extraordinary achievement to convert the life of Maxim Pyatnitski into epic and often hilariously comic adventure. Sustained by his dreams and profligate inventions, his determination to turn his back on the realities of his own origins, Pyat runs from crisis to crisis, every ruse a further link in a vast chain of deceit, suppression, betrayal. Yet, in his deranged self-deception, his monumentally distorted vision, this thoroughly unreliable narrator becomes a lens for focusing, through the dimensions of wild farce and chilling terror, on an uneasy brand of truth.

First published in 2008, (as Contro l’architettura), Against Architecture has been translated into French and Greek, with editions forthcoming in Polish and Portuguese. The book is a passionate and erudite charge against the celebrities of the current architectural world, the “archistars.” According to Franco La Cecla, architecture has lost its way and its true function, as the archistars use the cityscape to build their brand, putting their stamp on the built environment with no regard for the public good. More than a diatribe against the trade for which he trained, Franco La Cecla issues a call to rethink urban space, to take our cities back from what he calls Casino Capitalism, which has left a string of failed urban projects, from the Sagrera of Barcelona to the expansion of Columbia University in New York City. He finds hope and some surprising answers in the 2006 uprisings in the Parisian suburbs and in wandering the streets of San Francisco. La Cecla recounts his peregrinations, whether as a consultant to urban planners or as an incorrigible flaneur, all the while giving insights into how we might find a way to resist the tyranny of the planners and find the spirit of place. As he comments throughout on the works of past and present masters of urban and landscape writing, including Robert Byron, Mike Davis, and Rebecca Solnit, Franco La Cecla has given us a book that will take an important place in our public discourse.

Meet Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, also known as Pyat. Tsarist rebel, Nazi thug, continental conman, and reactionary counterspy: the dark and dangerous anti-hero of Michael Moorcock’s most controversial work Published in 1981 to great critical acclaim—then condemned to the shadows and unavailable in the U.S. for thirty years—Byzantium Endures, the first of the Pyat Quartet, is not a book for the faint-hearted. It’s the story of a cocaine addict, sexual adventurer, and obsessive anti-Semite whose epic journey from Leningrad to London connects him with scoundrels and heroes from Trotsky to Makhno, and whose career echoes that of the 20th century’s descent into Fascism and total war. This is Moorcock at his audacious, iconoclastic best: a grand sweeping overview of the events of the last century, as revealed in the secret journals of modern literature’s most proudly unredeemable outlaw. This authoritative U.S. edition presents the author’s final cut, restoring previously forbidden passages and deleted scenes

Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, that charming but despicable mythomaniac who first appeared in Byzantium Endures, is back. Having fled Bolshevik Russia in late 1919, Pyat’s progress is a series of leaps from crisis to crisis, as he begins affairs with a Baroness and a Greek prostitute while undertaking schemes to build flying machines in Europe and the United States. His devotion to flamboyantly racist, particularly anti-Semitic doctrines—like his devotion to cocaine—remains unabated, and he both sings the praises of Mussolini and lectures across America for the Ku Klux Klan. (His best kept secret is of course, the fact that he is Jewish.) As the novel ends, Pyat is in Hollywood—his new Byzantium—hobnobbing with movie stars and dreaming of making films like those of his hero, D.W. Griffith. Engineer, braggart, addict, Pyat is a magnificent invention, a genius of innocent vituperation: his finest achievement (and that of the author) is that his own warped and deluded vision is powerful enough to redefine reality. This authoritative edition presents the first time this work has been available in paperback in the U.S., along with a new introduction by Alan Wall.

“With gorgeous mixed-media illustrations and accessible, engaging language, this picture book will spur interest in the world of hippos.” — School Library Journal (starred review) The deadliest animal in Africa isn’t the lion or the crocodile — it’s the hippopotamus! Hippos have razor-sharp tusks, weigh as much as fifty men, and can run twenty-five miles per hour. Follow these hefty hulks as they glide underwater, play tug-of-war, swat balls of dung at one another, and nuzzle their young in the mud. Just don’t get too close — they could chomp you in two!