Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
I don’t often get that excited about books, but I am pretty excited about one right now.
There’s an author named Michael Moorcock, whose writing I enjoy quite a bit. In 1981 he published a book called Byzantium Endures, the first of what he then called his “Pyat Quartet”. In 1984 he released The Laughter of Carthage, and in 1992 Jerusalem Commands came out. Despite their only getting very brief release in the US, I bought them all around ‘93 or ‘94, although the exact date is somewhat hazy. I was happy at the time to have found them, as I had already devoured the rest of Moorcock’s genre work, and was looking forward to reading this new series. However, I was somewhat disappointed to learn that this was a quartet of books and the 4th one was not out yet — so I put the 3 I had in my “can’t read” pile and left them alone. As it turns out, for more than 10 years.
Every few months I would check around and see if the fourth book, The Vengeance of Rome, had come out, and it never had. Eventually the duration extended to once a year, and then I just gave up. I kept the first 3 books out of stubbornness, but I really just expected to eventually read them after Moorcock died and any kind of posthumous publication seemed unlikely. However, a week or two ago I was talking about this with somebody online, and it occurred to me to check to see if there was any update in its status. I was shocked to learn that it had been published, and on January 13th of this year. I ordered it immediately, paying through the nose for shipping from the UK, but I didn’t care. It arrived yesterday, and like I said, I am quite excited.
I hope the books are good.