Customer Reviews
Familiar streets transformed - By: Paul Kirby, 12 Aug 2008 
Like Neil Gaiman (Gaimanesque?), the supernatural is everydayin Mother London. And like Anthony Burgess (Burgessian?), the authorial voice here is unlike that of any other Moorcock work, despite thematic (and political) resonances with the histories of the Pyat Quartet. This is London describing itself through the glimmering weirdos that love it. Indeed, the London of Josef Kiss, David Mummery, Mary Gasalee & their lives is at both fantastical & familiar, a new world & a common one revealing some old scars. I cannot think that these streets will look the same again after this fragmented little joy of a book. It misses a little something, but not much. It is worth both your time & your money.
Flotsam and Jetsam - By: frenesi_g, 13 Sep 2005 I loved the structure of this novel. The chaptersin each book ebb & flow through time, mirroring London's great river, revealing the flotsam & jetsam of the book's voices & inhabitants.
The magical realism bit of this book tends to idealise London, but onlyin the most humane of ways. If you want to see the flip side & get deep down & dirty however, I'd recommend anything by Iain Sinclair.
Wonderful novel - By: Arnold Gold, 16 Dec 2003 
This is a wonderful novel. Rich, complex & genuinely humane. Michael Moorcock's ability to create realistic characters oftenin the most fantastic situations is here seen at its finest, where he is describing ordinary Londonersin an ordinary city.
Only the device of using 'voices' -- a sort of Londoners' chorus -- makes this bookin any way fantastic. He takes a triangle of disparate people -- a music hall performer, a reclusive writer & a woman who has awakened from a coma after many years -- & describes them, their relatives & friends during the years from 1942 (the Blitz) to 1988, but it is not the typical 'family saga'. Its picture of an entire city is loving & at the same time profound. It could be readin conjunction with Peter Ackroyd's non-fiction about London & give you a very thorough picture of the city. I came to Michael Moorcock recently & have read his fantasy (though I am not much of a fantasy reader) as well as his literary fiction & I find that whenever I feel like a thoroughly satisfying read I reach either for a new Moorcock (one I haven't read) or Mother London, which always delivers more than the first, second or even third time I read it. It has my heartfelt recommendation!
A joy.... - By: , 26 May 2003 I've always had a 'fondness' for Moorcock, & read all, & I mean all, his Eternal Champion series as a teenager, but would find it hard to recommend any to anyone other than teenagers now.
This novel, however, is a joy to read, Complex, deep, but always with a wonderful sense of the love of life that clearly infects Mr Moorcock to this day if you read his website. I cannot recommend this book highly enough & the ending is an elegy to better days ahead.....
Victorian virtues, modern obsessions - By: , 15 May 2003 This is probably my favourite novel by a living English author.
I recently bought my third copy because I keep lending it & not getting it back. Anyone interestedin the history of contemporary London but who wants to read a novel with a cast of characters & variety of scenery as rich & complex as Dickens should get Mother London. My only advice is not to go lending it to anyone. You'll probably find you have to buy
another!
