‘Most fiction bores me these days’: Michael Moorcock on life and the many worlds he’s created

Just 10 days ahead of his 83rd birthday and Michael Moorcock is publishing his latest novel, revisiting his iconic character Elric of Melnibone. David Barnett delves into the background of this national treasure

Michael Moorcock became highly influential in science-fiction circles in the Sixties and Seventies (Getty)

Part of me expects to go on forever like some of my characters,” Michael Moorcock says. He is tall, and bearded, and speaks with an accent that is somehow of an England that is slightly lost.

And what characters have sprung from his mind! Elric of Melnibone, the pale and wan otherworldly albino with a black sword that eats souls, who Moorcock has revisited in his new book, a prequel adventure called The Citadel of Forgotten Myths (8 December).

Then we have Dorian Hawkmoon, the far-future German prince waging war against the fascistic, imperialistic island state of Granbretan. Jerry Cornelius, the hip and sexy secret agent swinging his way through a psychedelic London.