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148-422: Although he held a degree in psychiatry, he became disillusioned with the medical profession, a disenchantment evident in the stories "The Fourth Seal" and "Into Whose Hands". He described his personal philosophy as nihilistic , anarchistic and absurdist , and claimed, not entirely seriously, to be related to "an opera composer named " Richard ". Wagner also admired the cinema of Sam Peckinpah , stating "I worship

296-561: A Doctor Who novel for BBC Books in 2010, one of the few occasions when he has written stories set in other people's "shared universes". The novel The Coming of the Terraphiles was released in October 2010. The story merges Doctor Who with many of Moorcock's characters from the multiverse, notably Captain Cornelius and his pirates. In 2016 Moorcock published the first novel in what he terms

444-428: A self causes suffering. Nonetheless, his critics called him a nihilist who teaches the annihilation and extermination of an existing being. The Buddha's response was that he only teaches the cessation of suffering. When an individual has given up craving and the conceit of 'I am' their mind is liberated, they no longer come into any state of ' being ' and are no longer born again. The Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta records

592-490: A 'decentralization' of authorship, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and certain ideals and practices of humanism and the Enlightenment . Jacques Derrida , whose deconstruction is perhaps most commonly labeled nihilistic, did not himself make the nihilistic move that others have claimed. Derridean deconstructionists argue that this approach rather frees texts, individuals or organizations from

740-644: A 1978 essay, "Starship Stormtroopers" ( Anarchist Review ). There he criticised the production of "authoritarian" fiction by certain canonical writers and Lovecraft for having antisemitic , misogynistic , and racist viewpoints woven into his short stories. Moorcock has allowed other writers to create stories in his fictional Jerry Cornelius universe. Brian Aldiss , Hilary Bailey , M. John Harrison , Norman Spinrad , James Sallis , and Steve Aylett have written such stories. In an interview published in The Internet Review of Science Fiction , Moorcock explains

888-556: A Ph.D in neurobiology. As noted above, Wagner ultimately disliked the medical profession, which he abandoned upon establishing himself as a writer. Wagner was productive as both a writer and editor/anthologist; see below. His friends included the writer Manly Wade Wellman , two of whose collections he published with the Carcosa publishing imprint. Wagner died in his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on October 14, 1994, essentially due to

1036-621: A book in 1969 by Allison and Busby ). A new, final revision of almost Moorcock's entire oeuvre, with the exception of his literary novels Mother London , King of the City and the Pyat quartet, is issued by Gollancz and many of his titles are reprinted in the United States by Simon and Schuster and Titan and in France by Gallimard. Many novels and comics based on his work are being reprinted by Titan Books under

1184-408: A collection of six previously published Kane tales followed (Warner Books, 1978). The publisher also reissued all previous Kane books including a new edition of Darkness Weaves , which reinstated the author's preferred text. The Book of Kane was the last published volume of Kane material (1985) until Night Shade Books' omnibus editions of novels and shorter tales. A proposed fourth Kane novel, In

1332-507: A conversation between the Buddha and an individual named Vaccha that further elaborates on this. In the sutta, Vaccha asks the Buddha to confirm one of the following, with respect to the existence of the Buddha after death: To all four questions, the Buddha answers that the terms "reappears somewhere else," "does not reappear," "both does and does not reappear," and "neither does nor does not reappear," do not apply. When Vaccha expresses puzzlement,

1480-407: A conversation with his teacher Ajahn Chah , comments that he is "Determined above all things to fully realize Nirvana in this lifetime...deeply weary of the human condition and...[is] determined not to be born again." To this, Ajahn Chah replies: "What about the rest of us, Sumedho? Don't you care about those who'll be left behind?" Ajahn Amaro comments that Ajahn Chah could detect that his student had

1628-549: A critical point of his story (this song may also refer to the "Warriors at the Edge of Time", which figure heavily in Moorcock's novels about John Daker; at one point his novel The Dragon in the Sword they call themselves the "veterans of a thousand psychic wars", although the term is also applied to Elric in 2022's "The Citadel of Forgotten Myths"), and " The Great Sun Jester ", about his friend,

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1776-521: A day and gave myself three days a volume. That's how, for instance, the Hawkmoon books were written." Over the period of the New Worlds editorship and his publishing of the original fantasy novels Moorcock has maintained an interest in the craft of writing and a continuing interest in the semi-journalistic craft of "pulp" authorship. This is reflected in his development of interlocking cycles which hark back to

1924-485: A denial of truth, but as a denial of our ability to know truth. That is to say, it makes an epistemological claim, compared to nihilism's ontological claim. Lyotard argues that, rather than relying on an objective truth or method to prove their claims, philosophers legitimize their truths by reference to a story about the world that can not be separated from the age and system the stories belong to—referred to by Lyotard as meta-narratives . He then goes on to define

2072-412: A disproportion between what we want to value (or need) and how the world appears to operate." When we find out that the world does not possess the objective value or meaning that we want it to have or have long since believed it to have, we find ourselves in a crisis. Nietzsche asserts that with the decline of Christianity and the rise of physiological decadence , nihilism is in fact characteristic of

2220-491: A doctor and instead decided to write full-time. During 1973, Warner Paperback library published Death Angel's Shadow , which collected the three original Kane tales (one novella, one novelette, and one short story). He also began selling his stories and poems regularly to the growing small press magazine market. Several of his tales were published in Gary Hoppenstand's Midnight Sunn , a magazine initially devoted to Kane and

2368-709: A literary experiment blending memoir and fantasy, The Whispering Swarm . In 2018, he announced his completion of the second volume The Woods of Arcady . In 2020, he said he was completing the final Elric novel The Citadel of Forgotten Myths ready for Elric's 60th anniversary in 2021. Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novella Pegging the President was launched in 2018 at Shakespeare and Co , Paris, where he discussed his work with Hari Kunzru and reaffirmed his commitment to literary experiment. The first of an audiobook series of unabridged Elric novels, with new work read by Moorcock, began appearing from AudioRealms; however, Audio Realms

2516-503: A long illness. Moorcock abandoned a memoir about his friends Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore because he felt it was too personal. He wrote prose and verse for The Sunday Books first publication in French to accompany a set of unpublished Peake drawings. His book The Metatemporal Detective was published in 2007. His most recent book published first in French is Kaboul , in 2018. In November 2009, Moorcock announced that he would be writing

2664-659: A monograph and an interview, by Colin Greenland . In 1983, Greenland published The Entropy Exhibition: Michael Moorcock and the British 'New Wave' in Science Fiction . He followed this with Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle , a book-length interview about technique, in 1992. Michael Moorcock: Law of Chaos by Jeff Gardiner and Michael Moorcock: Fiction, Fantasy and the World's Pain by Mark Scroggins were published more recently. In

2812-404: A morality that is strong or healthy, meaning that the person in question is aware that he constructs it himself, from weak morality, where the interpretation is projected on to something external. Nietzsche discusses Christianity, one of the major topics in his work, at length in the context of the problem of nihilism in his notebooks, in a chapter entitled "European Nihilism." Here he states that

2960-415: A negation of religious principles. Nihilism has, however, been widely ascribed to both religious and irreligious viewpoints. In popular use, the term commonly refers to forms of existential nihilism , according to which life is without intrinsic value , meaning , or purpose. Other prominent positions within nihilism include the rejection of all normative and ethical views ( § Moral nihilism ),

3108-619: A new Deep Fix album in Paris, titled Live at the Terminal Cafe . Following Stone's death in 2016, Moorcock completed the album with producer Don Falcone . In 2019, Moorcock announced the completion of the album, and it was released 11 October 2019, on Cleopatra Records . Moorcock collaborated with the British rock band Hawkwind on many occasions: the Hawkwind track " The Black Corridor ", for example, included verbatim quotes from Moorcock's novel of

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3256-503: A nihilistic aversion to life rather than true detachment. The term nihilism was first introduced to philosophy by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819), who used the term to characterize rationalism , and in particular Spinoza's determinism and the Aufklärung , in order to carry out a reductio ad absurdum according to which all rationalism (philosophy as criticism) reduces to nihilism—and thus it should be avoided and replaced with

3404-409: A note which often states quite directly that one should serve neither gods nor masters but become one's own master." Besides using fiction to explore his politics, Moorcock also engages in non-violent political activism . In order to "marginalize stuff that works to objectify women and suggests women enjoy being beaten", he has encouraged W H Smiths to move John Norman 's Gor series novels to

3552-573: A pseudonym, particularly in his "Second Ether" fiction. Moorcock talks about much of his writing in Death Is No Obstacle with Colin Greenland, which is a book-length transcription of interviews with Moorcock about the techniques in his writing. Moorcock has also published pastiches of writers for whom he felt affection as a boy, including Edgar Rice Burroughs , Leigh Brackett , and Robert E. Howard . All his fantasy adventures have elements of satire and parody, while respecting what he considers

3700-422: A restrictive truth, and that deconstruction opens up the possibility of other ways of being. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , for example, uses deconstruction to create an ethics of opening up Western scholarship to the voice of the subaltern and to philosophies outside of the canon of western texts. Derrida himself built a philosophy based upon a 'responsibility to the other'. Deconstruction can thus be seen not as

3848-415: A return to some type of faith and revelation . Bret W. Davis writes, for example: The first philosophical development of the idea of nihilism is generally ascribed to Friedrich Jacobi, who in a famous letter criticized Fichte 's idealism as falling into nihilism. According to Jacobi, Fichte's absolutization of the ego (the 'absolute I' that posits the 'not-I') is an inflation of subjectivity that denies

3996-652: A script for a computer game/film/novel by Origin Systems . When Electronic Arts bought Origins, the game was cancelled, but Moorcock's 40,000-word treatment was fleshed out by Storm Constantine , resulting in the novel Silverheart . The story is set in Karadur-Shriltasi, a city at the heart of the Multiverse . A second novel, Dragonskin , was in preparation, with Constantine as the main writer, but she died in January 2021, after

4144-630: A trio with Peter Pavli and Drachen Theaker, some Deep Fix recordings were issued on Hawkwind, Friends and Relations and a limited-edition 7" single of "Brothel in Rosenstrasse" backed with "Time Centre", which featured Langdon Jones on piano. In 2008, The Entropy Tango & Gloriana Demo Sessions by Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix was released. These were sessions for planned albums based on two of Moorcock's novels, Gloriana, or The Unfulfill'd Queen and The Entropy Tango , which were never completed. Pavli, Moorcock and Falcone are currently in

4292-625: A way of commenting on it. Jerry, as Harrison said, was as much a technique as a character and I'm glad that others have taken to using that method. Two short stories by Keith Roberts , "Coranda" and "The Wreck of the Kissing Bitch", are set in the frozen Matto Grosso plateau of Moorcock's 1969 novel, The Ice Schooner . Elric of Melnibone and Moonglum appear in Karl Edward Wagner 's story "The Gothic Touch", where they meet with Kane , who borrows Elric for his ability to deal with demons. He

4440-445: Is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. He states that there is at least the possibility of another type of nihilist in the wake of Christianity's self-dissolution, one that does not stop after the destruction of all value and meaning and succumb to the following nothingness. This alternate, 'active' nihilism on

4588-844: Is a friend and fan of comic book writer Alan Moore and allowed Moore the use of his own character, Michael Kane of Old Mars, mentioned in Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II . The two appeared on stage at the Vanbrugh Theatre in London in January 2006 where they discussed Moorcock's work. The Green City from Warriors of Mars was also referenced in Larry Niven 's Rainbow Mars . Jerry Cornelius appeared in Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century . Cornelius also appeared in French artist Mœbius ' comic series Le Garage Hermétique . In 1995–96, Moorcock wrote

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4736-450: Is abstraction conquering individuality. Kierkegaard, an advocate of a philosophy of life , generally argued against levelling and its nihilistic consequences, although he believed it would be "genuinely educative to live in the age of levelling [because] people will be forced to face the judgement of [levelling] alone." George Cotkin asserts Kierkegaard was against "the standardization and levelling of belief, both spiritual and political, in

4884-460: Is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné , which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s. As editor of the 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

5032-487: Is always by someone of some thing: it is always bound by perspective, and it is never mere fact. Rather, there are interpretations through which we understand the world and give it meaning. Interpreting is something we can not go without; in fact, it is a condition of subjectivity. One way of interpreting the world is through morality, as one of the fundamental ways that people make sense of the world, especially in regard to their own thoughts and actions. Nietzsche distinguishes

5180-499: Is an immortal, cursed to wander the Earth until he is destroyed by the violence that he himself has created. He sells his loyalty as a fighter to the highest bidder. He is a well-read and intelligent man who has traveled the world for centuries and is able to discuss music, poetry, politics, and many other subjects. He is also amoral and a born killer. The Kane stories are often classified as tales of sword and sorcery (although Wagner disliked

5328-404: Is different—in some sense diametrically opposed—to the usual definition (as outlined in the rest of this article). Nihilism is one of the main topics of Deleuze's early book Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962). There, Deleuze repeatedly interprets Nietzsche's nihilism as "the enterprise of denying life and depreciating existence". Nihilism thus defined is therefore not the denial of higher values, or

5476-416: Is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference ... all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it

5624-459: Is indeed the correct term for this stance, and some question whether Nietzsche takes the problems nihilism poses seriously enough. Martin Heidegger 's interpretation of Nietzsche influenced many postmodern thinkers who investigated the problem of nihilism as put forward by Nietzsche. Only recently has Heidegger's influence on Nietzschean nihilism research faded. As early as the 1930s, Heidegger

5772-438: Is its undoing: in its drive towards truth, Christianity eventually finds itself to be a construct, which leads to its own dissolution. It is therefore that Nietzsche states that we have outgrown Christianity "not because we lived too far from it, rather because we lived too close." As such, the self-dissolution of Christianity constitutes yet another form of nihilism. Because Christianity was an interpretation that posited itself as

5920-436: Is like the stillness of death, where one can hear one's own heartbeat, a stillness like death, into which nothing can penetrate, in which everything sinks, powerless. One person can head a rebellion, but one person cannot head this levelling process, for that would make him a leader and he would avoid being levelled. Each individual can in his little circle participate in this levelling, but it is an abstract process, and levelling

6068-559: Is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some other highly regarded concepts are in fact meaningless or pointless. The term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev and more specifically by his character Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons . Scholars of nihilism may regard it as merely a label that has been applied to various separate philosophies, or as a distinct historical concept arising out of nominalism , skepticism , and philosophical pessimism , as well as possibly out of Christianity itself. Contemporary understanding of

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6216-473: Is no God, everything is permitted' , or ' après moi, le déluge ' , provides a principle whose sincerity they try to live out to the end. They search for and experiment with ways for the self to justify itself after God has disappeared." Nihilism is often associated with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , who provided a detailed diagnosis of nihilism as a widespread phenomenon of Western culture. Though

6364-696: Is no longer in business. The second audiobook in the series – The Sailor on the Seas of Fate – was published in 2007. There have been audio-books of Corum and others, several of which were unofficial and A Winter Admiral and Furniture are audio versions of short stories. Since then The Whispering Swarm and the Corum books became available via Audible and all the Elric books were scheduled to appear in audio form to coincide with Simon and Schuster's new illustrated set in 2022. Moorcock has his own music project, which records under

6512-503: Is not a thing you can find, but rather a state where you experience the reality of non-grasping. In the Alagaddupama Sutta , the Buddha describes how some individuals feared his teaching because they believe that their self would be destroyed if they followed it. He describes this as an anxiety caused by the false belief in an unchanging, everlasting self . All things are subject to change and taking any impermanent phenomena to be

6660-517: Is privileged over the other to speak to ultimate truth. Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote briefly of nihilism from the postmodern viewpoint in Simulacra and Simulation . He stuck mainly to topics of interpretations of the real world over the simulations of which the real world is composed. The uses of meaning were an important subject in Baudrillard's discussion of nihilism: The apocalypse

6808-560: Is sometimes used in association with anomie to explain the general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence or arbitrariness of human principles and social institutions . Nihilism has also been described as conspicuous in or constitutive of certain historical periods . For example, Jean Baudrillard and others have characterized postmodernity as a nihilistic epoch or mode of thought. Likewise, some theologians and religious figures have stated that postmodernity and many aspects of modernity represent nihilism by

6956-412: Is that philosophy, and more specifically metaphysics , has forgotten to discriminate between investigating the notion of a being ( seiende ) and Being ( Sein ). According to Heidegger, the history of Western thought can be seen as the history of metaphysics. Moreover, because metaphysics has forgotten to ask about the notion of Being (what Heidegger calls Seinsvergessenheit ), it is a history about

7104-759: Is the Latin root word nihil , meaning 'nothing', which is similarly found in the related terms annihilate , meaning 'to bring to nothing', and nihility , meaning ' nothingness '. The term nihilism emerged in several places in Europe during the 18th century, notably in the German form Nihilismus , though was also in use during the Middle Ages to denote certain forms of heresy . The concept itself first took shape within Russian and German philosophy , which respectively represented

7252-580: Is the concept of an " Eternal Champion ", who has multiple identities across alternate universes. This cosmology is called the " Multiverse " within his novels. The Multiverse deals with fundamental polarities, such as Law versus Chaos , and order versus entropy. Elric's success has overshadowed Moorcock's other works, though he has worked the Elric stories' themes into his other works (the "Hawkmoon" and "Corum" novels, for example). His Eternal Champion sequence has been collected in two different editions of omnibus volumes totaling 16 books (the U.S. edition

7400-514: Is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency. From the 19th century, nihilism has encompassed a range of positions within various fields of philosophy. Each of these, as the Encyclopædia Britannica states, "denied the existence of genuine moral truths or values, rejected

7548-423: Is what Nietzsche calls passive nihilism , which he recognizes in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer . Schopenhauer's doctrine, which Nietzsche also refers to as Western Buddhism , advocates separating oneself from will and desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterizes this attitude as a "will to nothingness ", whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in

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7696-557: The rabble or common masses. Later interpretations of nihilism were heavily influenced by works of anti-nihilistic literature , such as those of Fyodor Dostoevsky , which arose in response to Russian nihilism. "In contrast to the corrupted nihilists [of the real world], who tried to numb their nihilistic sensitivity and forget themselves through self-indulgence, Dostoevsky's figures voluntarily leap into nihilism and try to be themselves within its boundaries.", writes contemporary scholar Nishitani . "The nihility expressed in 'if there

7844-963: The World Fantasy Award for his horror novella "Beyond Any Measure" and the British Fantasy Award during 1984 for "Neither Brute Nor Human". With his friends Jim Groce and David Drake , who were concerned that Arkham House would cease publication after the death of its founder, August Derleth , Wagner formed the Carcosa publishing house in North Carolina during 1973 to preserve the work of their favorite pulp magazine horror writers in hardcovers. Carcosa Press published four substantial volumes of horror tales: Murgunstrumm and Others by Hugh B. Cave , Far Lands, Other Days by E. Hoffmann Price , Worse Things Waiting and Lonely Vigils , both by Manly Wade Wellman . All books were edited by Wagner and illustrated profusely. A fifth collection

7992-405: The interpretation, Nietzsche states that this dissolution leads beyond skepticism to a distrust of all meaning. Stanley Rosen identifies Nietzsche's concept of nihilism with a situation of meaninglessness, in which "everything is permitted." According to him, the loss of higher metaphysical values that exist in contrast to the base reality of the world, or merely human ideas, gives rise to

8140-458: The postmodern condition as characterized by a rejection both of these meta-narratives and of the process of legitimation by meta-narratives. This concept of the instability of truth and meaning leads in the direction of nihilism, though Lyotard stops short of embracing the latter. In lieu of meta-narratives we have created new language-games in order to legitimize our claims which rely on changing relationships and mutable truths, none of which

8288-569: The progressives and traditionalists that came before them, as well as its manifestation in the view that negation and value-destruction were most necessary to the present conditions. The movement very soon adopted the name, despite the novel's initial harsh reception among both the conservatives and younger generation. Though philosophically both nihilistic and skeptical, Russian nihilism did not unilaterally negate ethics and knowledge as may be assumed, nor did it espouse meaninglessness unequivocally. Even so, contemporary scholarship has challenged

8436-482: The top shelf . Moorcock began writing while he was still at school, contributing to a magazine he entitled Outlaw's Own from 1950 on. In 1957, at the age of 17, Moorcock became editor of Tarzan Adventures (a national juvenile weekly featuring text and Tarzan comic strip), which had published at least a dozen of his own "Sojan the Swordsman" stories during that year and the next. At the age of 18, in 1958, he wrote

8584-569: The "Niederdorf" or "Niederdörfli"—in the Café Voltaire. The Dadaists claimed that Dada was not an art movement, but an anti-art movement, sometimes using found objects in a manner similar to found poetry . Michael Moorcock Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) is an English writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy , who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and

8732-559: The 1960s, a Nietzschean 'renaissance' began, culminating in the work of Mazzino Montinari and Giorgio Colli . They began work on a new and complete edition of Nietzsche's collected works, making Nietzsche more accessible for scholarly research. Vattimo explains that with this new edition of Colli and Montinari, a critical reception of Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche began to take shape. Like other contemporary French and Italian philosophers, Vattimo does not want, or only partially wants, to rely on Heidegger for understanding Nietzsche. On

8880-604: The 1990s, Moorcock moved to Texas in the United States. His wife Linda is American. He spends half of the year in Texas, the other half in Paris , France. Moorcock's works feature political content. In one interview, he states, "I am an anarchist and a pragmatist . My moral/philosophical position is that of an anarchist." In describing how his writing relates to his political philosophy, Moorcock says, "My books frequently deal with aristocratic heroes, gods and so forth. All of them end on

9028-626: The 60th anniversary of his hero's appearance. He and Simonson produced the graphic novel, Elric: the Making of a Sorcerer , published by DC Comics in 2007. In 2006, he completed his highly praised Colonel Pyat sequence, dealing with the Nazi Holocaust. This began in 1981 with Byzantium Endures , continued through The Laughter of Carthage (1984) and Jerusalem Commands (1992), and culminated with The Vengeance of Rome (2006). His most recent sequence, KABOUL , with illustrations by Miles Hyman,

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9176-450: The British " pop art " movement exemplified by Eduardo Paolozzi , Richard Hamilton and others. Paolozzi became "Aviation Editor". During that time, he occasionally wrote as " James Colvin ", a "house pseudonym " originally created for him by John Carnell also used by other New Worlds critics. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by Charles Platt as "William Barclay". Moorcock makes much use of

9324-424: The Buddha and Nirvana by stating that a "Person who has attained the goal [nirvana] is thus indescribable because [they have] abandoned all things by which [they] could be described." The Suttas themselves describe the liberated mind as 'untraceable' or as 'consciousness without feature', making no distinction between the mind of a liberated being that is alive and the mind of one that is no longer alive. Despite

9472-409: The Buddha asks Vaccha a counter question to the effect of: if a fire were to go out and someone were to ask you whether the fire went north, south, east or west, how would you reply? Vaccha replies that the question does not apply and that an extinguished fire can only be classified as 'out'. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu elaborates on the classification problem around the words 'reappear,' etc. with respect to

9620-469: The Buddha was alive, some of which were viewed by him to be morally nihilistic. In the "Doctrine of Nihilism" in the Apannaka Sutta , the Buddha describes moral nihilists as holding the following views: The Buddha further states that those who hold these views will fail to see the virtue in good mental, verbal, and bodily conduct and the corresponding dangers in misconduct, and will therefore tend towards

9768-462: The Buddha's explanations to the contrary, Buddhist practitioners may, at times, still approach Buddhism in a nihilistic manner. Ajahn Amaro illustrates this by retelling the story of a Buddhist monk, Ajahn Sumedho , who in his early years took a nihilistic approach to Nirvana. A distinct feature of Nirvana in Buddhism is that an individual attaining it is no longer subject to rebirth. Ajahn Sumedho, during

9916-520: The Christian moral doctrine provides people with intrinsic value , belief in God (which justifies the evil in the world) and a basis for objective knowledge . In this sense, in constructing a world where objective knowledge is possible, Christianity is an antidote against a primal form of nihilism, against the despair of meaninglessness. However, it is exactly the element of truthfulness in Christian doctrine that

10064-507: The Cimmerian, Wagner set about creating his own fantasy character while still attending medical school. The result was initially published as a 1970 paperback original with a lurid cover by West Coast pornography publisher Powell Publications. The novel's text was altered by an unknown copy editor to conform with the cover art. After publishing a pseudonymous pornographic novel with a small New York company, Wagner relinquished his chance to become

10212-1054: The City , the Pyat Quartet and the short story collection London Bone have established him in the eyes of critics such as Iain Sinclair , Peter Ackroyd and Allan Massie in publications including The Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books as a major contemporary literary novelist. In 2008 Moorcock was named by a critics' panel in The Times as one of the fifty best British novelists since 1945. Virtually all of his stories are part of his overarching " Eternal Champion " theme or oeuvre , with characters (including Elric) moving from one storyline and fictional universe to another, all of them interconnected (though often only in dreams or visions ). Most of Moorcock's earlier work consisted of short stories and relatively brief novels: he has mentioned that "I could write 15,000 words

10360-497: The History of Being (1944–46), Heidegger tries to understand Nietzsche's nihilism as trying to achieve a victory through the devaluation of the, until then, highest values. The principle of this devaluation is, according to Heidegger, the will to power . The will to power is also the principle of every earlier valuation of values. How does this devaluation occur and why is this nihilistic? One of Heidegger's main critiques on philosophy

10508-499: The Night , which was originally scheduled to be published by Zebra books during 1978 and Ace Books during 1980. [Refer to David Drake's Newsletter #105 in which he states 'Queen of the Night' was never written.] Wagner created his own mystical and immortal pre-historical anti-hero, Kane , whose name and background are based on traditional conceptions of the biblical Cain . A powerful, left-handed warrior-sorcerer with red hair and blue eyes,

10656-546: The Rings for their " Merry England " point of view, equating Tolkien's novel to Winnie-the-Pooh in his essay " Epic Pooh ". Even so, James Cawthorn and Moorcock included The Lord of the Rings in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books (Carroll & Graf, 1988), and their review is not dismissive. Moorcock has also criticized writers for their political agendas. He included Robert A. Heinlein and H. P. Lovecraft among this group in

10804-627: The Rockets , and Firing the Cathedral , which was concerned with 9/11. All four novellas were included in the 2003 edition of The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius . Moorcock's most recent Cornelius stories, "Modem Times", appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 2 , published in 2008, this was expanded in 2011 as "Modem Times 2.0". Additionally, a version of Cornelius also appeared in Moorcock's 2010 Doctor Who novel The Coming of

10952-450: The Russian nihilist movement can be traced back to 1855 and perhaps earlier, where it was principally a philosophy of extreme moral and epistemological skepticism . However, it was not until 1862 that the name nihilism was first popularized, when Ivan Turgenev used the term in his celebrated novel Fathers and Sons to describe the disillusionment of the younger generation towards both

11100-467: The Terraphiles . Pegging the President (PS. 2018), The Fracking Factory (on FB, 2018) are two recent novellas and further stories are forthcoming. Moorcock is a fervent supporter of Mervyn Peake 's works. Moorcock is critical of J. R. R. Tolkien 's works. He met both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis in his teens and claims to have liked them personally even though he does not admire them on artistic grounds. Moorcock criticised works such as The Lord of

11248-534: The United States, leading to the advent of cyberpunk . His publication of Bug Jack Barron (1969) by Norman Spinrad as a serial novel was notorious; in Parliament, some British MPs condemned the Arts Council of Great Britain for funding the magazine. In 2008, The Times named Moorcock in its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Moorcock is also a recording musician; he has contributed to

11396-488: The Vietnam War, and continued to feature another variation of the multiverse theme. The first Jerry Cornelius book, The Final Programme (1968), was made into a feature film in 1973. Its story line is identical to two of the Elric stories: The Dreaming City and The Dead Gods' Book . Since 1998, Moorcock has returned to Cornelius in a series of new stories: The Spencer Inheritance , The Camus Connection , Cheering for

11544-609: The Wake of the Night , was never completed, although an excerpt was published as part of a World Fantasy Convention souvenir book of 1981; this also appears in the collection Midnight Sun (2003). In 2004, it was reported that movie producer Lauren Moews had "acquired Death Angel's Shadow , and will produce a film based upon "Reflections for the Winter of My Soul," the first of three short stories comprising Death Angel's Shadow . The other two short stories, "Cold Light" and "Mirage," are waiting in

11692-666: The White Wolf ). Wagner wrote several unproduced screenplays and treatments including a film script for Conan III for movie producer Dino De Laurentiis and a TV script based on Robert E. Howard's "The Horror on the Mound" (for Tales from the Darkside ). Wagner provided the foreword to "Fat Face", a Cthulhu Mythos tale by Michael Shea published as a standalone book by Axolotl Press, 1987. Several Wagner works were adapted for audio cassette readings, including: "The River of Night's Dreaming"

11840-458: The absolute transcendence of God. A related but oppositional concept is fideism , which sees reason as hostile and inferior to faith. Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) posited an early form of nihilism, which he referred to as leveling . He saw leveling as the process of suppressing individuality to a point where an individual's uniqueness becomes non-existent and nothing meaningful in one's existence can be affirmed: Levelling at its maximum

11988-1136: The allegorical fantasy novel The Golden Barge . This remained unpublished until 1980, when it was issued by Savoy Books with an introduction by M. John Harrison . At 19, Moorcock worked on The Sexton Blake Library , a serial pulp fiction featuring Sexton Blake , which The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction referred to as the poor man's Sherlock Holmes . Under Moorcock's leadership, New Worlds became central to "New Wave" science fiction. This movement, not of its own naming, promoted individual vision, literary style and an existential view of technological change, in contrast to generic " hard science fiction ", which extrapolated on technological change itself. Some "New Wave" stories were not recognisable as traditional science fiction, and New Worlds remained controversial for as long as Moorcock edited it. Moorcock claimed that he wanted to publish experimental/literary fiction using techniques and subject matter from generic SF but, initially at least, to marry "popular" and "literary" fiction at what he considered their natural overlap. After 1967, this policy became evident and allied to

12136-502: The background of his multiverse. Moorcock is prone to revising his existing work, with the result that different editions of a given book may contain significant variations. The changes range from simple retitlings (the Elric story The Flame Bringers became The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams in the 1990s Victor Gollancz /White Wolf omnibus editions) to character name changes (such as detective "Minos Aquilinas" becoming first "Minos von Bek" and later "Sam Begg" in three different versions of

12284-597: The band on many occasions, including the Black Sword tour. His contributions were removed from the original release of the Live Chronicles album, recorded on this tour, for legal reasons, but have subsequently appeared on some double-CD versions. He can also be seen performing on the DVD version of Chronicle of the Black Sword . Moorcock also collaborated with former Hawkwind frontman and resident poet, Robert Calvert (who gave

12432-534: The character was described by Wagner as one "who could master any situation intellectually, or rip heads off if push came to shove". Kane is an immortal, somewhat like the Wandering Jew (or more specifically, Charles Maturin 's Melmoth the Wanderer , a novel which Wagner cites as a major influence in his essay "The Once and Future Kane"). Kane's character also includes elements of Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane . He

12580-573: The chilling declamation of "Sonic Attack"), on Calvert's albums Lucky Leif and the Longships and Hype , playing guitar and banjo and singing background vocals with his wife Linda. Moorcock wrote the lyrics to three album tracks by the American band Blue Öyster Cult : " Black Blade ", referring to the sword Stormbringer in the Elric books, " Veteran of the Psychic Wars ", showing us Elric's emotions at

12728-829: The complete Kane stories (novels and shorts) in two hardcover volumes. In 2020, a documentary on Wagner, The Last Wolf was released on Vimeo . Some of Wagner's work is set in Robert E. Howard 's universe (featuring Conan the Barbarian and Bran Mak Morn ); he also edited three volumes of Howard's original Conan tales, important to purists for being the first to restore the texts to their originally published forms. His three volumes of Echoes of Valor also featured restored versions of pulp-era fantasy stories by authors such as Fritz Leiber , C. L. Moore , Henry Kuttner , and Nictzin Dyalhis . Wagner wrote an unpublished Bran Mak Morn novel, Queen of

12876-515: The consequences of longterm alcoholism . It was reported in a late 1994 issue of the Newsletter of the Horror Writers of America that Wagner's causes of death were heart failure and liver failure . Exorcisms and Ecstasies , a posthumous volume of uncollected stories, miscellany, and tributes was published by small press publisher Fedogan & Bremer in 1997. Night Shade Books has published

13024-425: The denial of meaning, but rather the depreciation of life in the name of such higher values or meaning. Deleuze therefore (with, he claims, Nietzsche) says that Christianity and Platonism , and with them the whole of metaphysics, are intrinsically Nihilist. Postmodern and poststructuralist thought has questioned the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning,

13172-461: The destruction of Being. That is why Heidegger calls metaphysics nihilistic. This makes Nietzsche's metaphysics not a victory over nihilism, but a perfection of it. Heidegger, in his interpretation of Nietzsche, has been inspired by Ernst Jünger . Many references to Jünger can be found in Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche. For example, in a letter to the rector of Freiburg University of November 4, 1945, Heidegger, inspired by Jünger, tries to explain

13320-399: The drug community' but made venues and stations wary of booking and playing them. The first album New Worlds Fair was released in 1975. The album included Snowy White , Peter Pavli of The Third Ear Band, regulars Steve Gilmore and Graham Charnock, Moorcock himself on guitars, mandolin and banjo, and a number of Hawkwind regulars in the credits. A second version of the New Worlds album

13468-514: The dustjacket for the first edition of Gloriana ( Allison and Busby , 1978). In 1983, Linda Steele became Moorcock's third wife. He was an early member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of eight heroic fantasy authors founded in the 1960s and led by Lin Carter , selected by fantasy credentials alone. Moorcock is the subject of four book-length works,

13616-540: The equating of Russian nihilism with mere skepticism, instead identifying it as a fundamentally Promethean movement. As passionate advocates of negation, the nihilists sought to liberate the Promethean might of the Russian people which they saw embodied in a class of prototypal individuals, or new types in their own words. These individuals, according to Pisarev, in freeing themselves from all authority become exempt from moral authority as well, and are distinguished above

13764-479: The era, for which it was often wrongly characterized as a form of political terrorism . Russian nihilism centered on the dissolution of existing values and ideals, incorporating theories of hard determinism , atheism , materialism , positivism , and rational egoism , while rejecting metaphysics , sentimentalism , and aestheticism . Leading philosophers of this school of thought included Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Dmitry Pisarev . The intellectual origins of

13912-593: The essentials of the form. Although his heroic fantasies have been his most consistently reprinted books in the United States, he achieved prominence in the UK as a literary author, with the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1977 for The Condition of Muzak , and with Mother London later shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize . Novels and series such as the Cornelius Quartet , Mother London , King of

14060-474: The film The Wild Bunch ". Wagner was the fourth and youngest child of Aubrey J. Wagner and Dorothea Huber. His father was an official of the Tennessee Valley Authority . Wagner earned a history degree from Kenyon College in 1967, and a psychiatry M.D. from University of North Carolina School of Medicine . Wagner completed his residency and practiced for several years, and also studied toward

14208-475: The first three non-juvenile books that he read before beginning primary school. The first book he bought was a secondhand copy of The Pilgrim's Progress . Moorcock is the former husband of the writer Hilary Bailey , with whom he had three children: Sophie (b. 1963), Katherine (b. 1964), and Max (b. 1972). Moorcock is also the former husband of Jill Riches, who later married Robert Calvert . She illustrated some of Moorcock's books, including covers, among them

14356-462: The general title The Michael Moorcock Library, while in France a new adaptation of the Elric and Hawkmoon series has been translated into many languages, including English. Moorcock's best-selling works have been the " Elric of Melniboné " stories. In these, Elric is a deliberate reversal of clichés found in fantasy adventure novels inspired by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien . Central to many of his seminal fantasy novels, including his Elric books,

14504-493: The graphic medium in Dark Phantasms 1, Summer 1976. During 1993 Wagner co-wrote the graphic novel Tell Me Dark with John Ney Reiber and Kent Williams, contributing original characters and situations. It was published by DC Comics in both hardcover and trade paperback. At the time of his death, he had just finished compiling Exorcisms and Ecstasies , and had started working on two novels, The Fourth Seal and Tell Me, Dark ,

14652-412: The heroic fantasy anthology Echoes of Valor for Tor Books during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and published a steady sequence of short stories (most of which were apparently written some years earlier), his most productive time was finished. In the story "The Gothic Touch", Kane teams up with the albino warrior-sorcerer Elric in a tribute anthology honoring the fiction of Michael Moorcock ( Tales of

14800-549: The idea stems largely from the Nietzschean 'crisis of nihilism', from which derive the two central concepts: the destruction of higher values and the opposition to the affirmation of life . Definitions by philosophers such as Crosby (1998) and Deleuze (1962) focus on extreme critiques of nihilism like those asserted by Nietzsche. Earlier forms of nihilism, however, may be more selective in negating specific hegemonies of social, moral, political and aesthetic thought. The term

14948-519: The idea that all human ideas are therefore valueless. Rejecting idealism thus results in nihilism, because only similarly transcendent ideals live up to the previous standards that the nihilist still implicitly holds. The inability for Christianity to serve as a source of valuating the world is reflected in Nietzsche's famous aphorism of the madman in The Gay Science . The death of God, in particular

15096-497: The initials "JC"; 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

15244-476: The latter based on the graphic novel he disowned. Nihilism In philosophy , nihilism ( / ˈ n aɪ ( h ) ɪ l ɪ z əm , ˈ n iː -/ ; from Latin nihil  'nothing') is any viewpoint, or a family of views, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, namely knowledge , morality , or meaning . There have been different nihilist positions, including that human values are baseless, that life

15392-495: The latter. The culmination of the path that the Buddha taught was nirvana , "a place of nothingness ... nonpossession and... non-attachment ...[which is] the total end of death and decay." Ajahn Amaro , an ordained Buddhist monk of more than 40 years, observes that in English nothingness can sound like nihilism. However, the word could be emphasized in a different way, so that it becomes no-thingness , indicating that nirvana

15540-517: The levelling process are stronger for it, and that it represents a step in the right direction towards "becoming a true self." As we must overcome levelling, Hubert Dreyfus and Jane Rubin argue that Kierkegaard's interest, "in an increasingly nihilistic age, is in how we can recover the sense that our lives are meaningful." From the period 1860–1917, Russian nihilism was both a nascent form of nihilist philosophy and broad cultural movement which overlapped with certain revolutionary tendencies of

15688-529: The middle of 1880 ( KSA 9.127-128). This was the time of a then popular scientific work that reconstructed the so-called "Russian nihilism" on the basis of Russian newspaper reports on nihilistic incidents (N. Karlowitsch: Die Entwicklung des Nihilismus. Berlin 1880). This collection of material, published in three editions, was not only known to a broad German readership, but its influence on Nietzsche can also be proven. Karen L. Carr describes Nietzsche's characterization of nihilism as "a condition of tension, as

15836-594: The modern age, though he implies that the rise of nihilism is still incomplete and that it has yet to be overcome. Though the problem of nihilism becomes especially explicit in Nietzsche's notebooks (published posthumously), it is mentioned repeatedly in his published works and is closely connected to many of the problems mentioned there. Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. This observation stems in part from Nietzsche's perspectivism , or his notion that "knowledge"

15984-653: The modern trends of value-destruction expressed in the ' death of God ', as well as what he saw as the life-denying morality of Christianity . Under Nietzsche's profound influence, the term was then further treated within French philosophy and continental philosophy more broadly, while the influence of nihilism in Russia arguably continued well into the Soviet era . Religious scholars such as Altizer have stated that nihilism must necessarily be understood in relation to religion, and that

16132-731: The music acts Hawkwind , Blue Öyster Cult , Robert Calvert and Spirits Burning , and to his own project, Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix. Michael Moorcock was born in London in December 1939, and the landscape of London, particularly the area of Notting Hill Gate and Ladbroke Grove , is an important influence in some of his fiction (such as the Cornelius novels). Moorcock has mentioned The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs , The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edwin Lester Arnold as

16280-527: The name Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix . The Deep Fix was the title story of an obscure collection of short stories by James Colvin (a pen name of Moorcock) and was the name of the Jerry Cornelius band. Moorcock's story had dealt with releasing the unconscious, and although it referenced William Burroughs, it was not specifically about illicit drugs. This allegedly lost the band considerable airplay and gave Moorcock what he called 'a great reputation in

16428-468: The new school of epic fantasy writers. This was followed by publication of the first Kane novel, Bloodstone , during 1975. Warner Books commissioned a cover painting by Frank Frazetta (who had helped revive the Conan franchise, and who would paint a number of future covers for the series) and Wagner's writing career improved. After a novel featuring Howard's Pictish hero Bran Mak Morn , Wagner's next Kane book

16576-477: The nineteenth century," and that Kierkegaard "opposed tendencies in mass culture to reduce the individual to a cipher of conformity and deference to the dominant opinion." In his day, tabloids (like the Danish magazine Corsaren ) and apostate Christianity were instruments of levelling and contributed to the "reflective apathetic age" of 19th-century Europe. Kierkegaard argues that individuals who can overcome

16724-434: The notion appears frequently throughout Nietzsche's work, he uses the term in a variety of ways, with different meanings and connotations. With regard to Nietzsche's development of thought, it has been noted in research that although he dealt with "nihilistic" themes from 1869 onwards ("pessimism, with nirvana and with nothingness and non-being" ), a conceptual use of nihilism occurred for the first time in handwritten notes in

16872-555: The notion of " God is dead " as the "reality of the Will to Power." Heidegger also praises Jünger for defending Nietzsche against a too biological or anthropological reading during the Nazi era . Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche influenced a number of important postmodernist thinkers. Gianni Vattimo points at a back-and-forth movement in European thought, between Nietzsche and Heidegger. During

17020-489: The options, usually when they seemed to drift too far off course. In February 2019, BBC Studios announced they had secured the rights to the Runestaff series of fantasy novels, which feature Hawkmoon as their hero. Another of Moorcock's creations is Jerry Cornelius , a hip urban adventurer of ambiguous gender ; the same characters featured in each of several Cornelius books. These books were satirical of modern times, including

17168-607: The origins of fantasy in myth and medieval cycles (see "Wizardry and Wild Romance – Moorcock" and "Death Is No Obstacle – Colin Greenland" for more commentary). This also provides an implicit link with the episodic origins of literature in newspaper/magazine serials from Trollope and Dickens onwards. None of this should be surprising given Moorcock's background in magazine publishing. Since the 1980s, Moorcock has written longer, more literary "mainstream" novels, such as Mother London and Byzantium Endures , but he continued to revisit characters from his earlier works, such as Elric. With

17316-402: The other hand destroys to level the field for constructing something new. This form of nihilism is characterized by Nietzsche as "a sign of strength," a willful destruction of the old values to wipe the slate clean and lay down one's own beliefs and interpretations, contrary to the passive nihilism that resigns itself with the decomposition of the old values. This willful destruction of values and

17464-538: The other hand, Vattimo judges Heidegger's intentions authentic enough to keep pursuing them. Philosophers who Vattimo exemplifies as a part of this back and forth movement are French philosophers Deleuze , Foucault and Derrida . Italian philosophers of this same movement are Cacciari , Severino and himself. Jürgen Habermas , Jean-François Lyotard and Richard Rorty are also philosophers who are influenced by Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche. Gilles Deleuze 's interpretation of Nietzsche's concept of nihilism

17612-419: The overcoming of the condition of nihilism by the constructing of new meaning, this active nihilism, could be related to what Nietzsche elsewhere calls a free spirit or the Übermensch from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist , the model of the strong individual who posits his own values and lives his life as if it were his own work of art. It may be questioned, though, whether "active nihilism"

17760-405: The pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos – at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists. Nietzsche's relation to the problem of nihilism is a complex one. He approaches the problem of nihilism as deeply personal, stating that this predicament of the modern world is a problem that has "become conscious" in him. According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism

17908-545: The period surrounding the French Revolution , the term was also a pejorative for certain value-destructive trends of modernity , namely the negation of Christianity and European tradition in general. Nihilism first entered philosophical study within a discourse surrounding Kantian and post-Kantian philosophies, notably appearing in the writings of Swiss esotericist Jacob Hermann Obereit in 1787 and German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in 1799. As early as 1824,

18056-761: The poet Bill Butler, who died of a drug overdose. Moorcock has performed live with BÖC (in 1987 at the Atlanta, GA Dragon Con Convention). Moorcock contributed vocals and harmonica to the Spirits Burning albums An Alien Heat , The Hollow Lands , and The End Of All Songs - Part 1 . Most of the lyrics were taken from or based on text in novels from Moorcock's The Dancers At The End Of Time trilogy. The albums were produced by Spirits Burning leader Don Falcone , and included contributions from Albert Bouchard and other members of Blue Öyster Cult , as well as former members of Hawkwind. Moorcock plays harmonica on three songs on

18204-426: The possibility of knowledge or communication, and asserted the ultimate meaninglessness or purposelessness of life or of the universe". The term Dada was first used by Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara in 1916. The movement, which lasted from approximately 1916 to 1923, arose during World War I, an event that influenced the artists. The Dada Movement began in the old town of Zürich, Switzerland —known as

18352-786: The posthumous Exorcisms and Ecstasies (1997). They range from the very literate and allusive (such as "The River of Night's Dreaming", which refers to Richard O'Brien 's The Rocky Horror Show and the myth of Carcosa used in the work of Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers ), to the pulpy and parodic (such as "Plan Ten from Inner Space", a crazed homage to Ed Wood 's magnum opus Plan 9 from Outer Space ). His later stories, such as "But You'll Never Follow Me" and "Silted In", were described by Ramsey Campbell as tormented and deeply personal; some deal explicitly with drug addiction (e.g. "More Sinned Against") and sexual subjects, including psychological repression (e.g. "Brushed Away") and transsexualism (e.g. "Lacunae"). During 1983 Wagner won

18500-483: The present time, negation is the most useful of all". Despite Turgenev's own anti-nihilistic leanings, many of his readers likewise took up the name of nihilist , thus ascribing the Russian nihilist movement its name. Nihilism was further discussed by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , who used the term to describe the Western world 's disintegration of traditional morality. For Nietzsche, nihilism applied to both

18648-452: The process of making the intended versions of those songs based on the group's TEAC recordings of the 80s. They are influenced heavily by modern classical music which they look to for inspiration. Moorcock's considerable range is demanded. Moorcock and Pavli have long been advocates for Mahler, Schoenberg, Ives and other 20th century composers. Working with Martin Stone , Moorcock began recording

18796-412: The publication of the third and last book in his Elric Moonbeam Roads sequence, he announced that he was "retiring" from writing heroic fantasy fiction, though he continued to write Elric's adventures as graphic novels with his long-time collaborators Walter Simonson and the late James Cawthorn (1929–2008) and in 2021 announced that he had written a 'straight' Elric novel, within the first canon, for

18944-438: The reason for sharing his character: I came out of popular fiction and Jerry was always meant to be a sort of crystal ball for others to see their own visions in – the stories were designed to work like that – a diving board, to use another analogy, from which to jump into the river and be carried along by it. [...] All of these have tended to use Jerry the way I intended to use him – as a way of seeing modern life and sometimes as

19092-453: The rejection of all social and political institutions ( § Political nihilism ), the stance that no knowledge can or does exist ( § Epistemological nihilism ), and a number of metaphysical positions, which assert that non-abstract objects do not exist ( § Metaphysical nihilism ), that composite objects do not exist ( § Mereological nihilism ), or even that life itself does not exist. The etymological origin of nihilism

19240-403: The same name , and he worked with the band on their album Warrior on the Edge of Time , for which he earned a gold disc. Moorcock also wrote the lyrics to " Sonic Attack ", a Sci-Fi satire of the public information broadcast, that was part of Hawkwind's Space Ritual set. Hawkwind's album The Chronicle of the Black Sword was largely based on the Elric novels. Moorcock appeared on stage with

19388-420: The short story "The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius"), major textual alterations (for example, the addition of several new chapters to The Steel Tsar in the omnibus editions), and even complete restructurings (as with the 1966 novella Behold the Man being expanded to novel-length and into a novel rather than an SF story recreated from the original version that appeared in New Worlds for republication as

19536-406: The statement that "we killed him", is similar to the self -dissolution of Christian doctrine: due to the advances of the sciences, which for Nietzsche show that man is the product of evolution , that Earth has no special place among the stars and that history is not progressive , the Christian notion of God can no longer serve as a basis for a morality. One such reaction to the loss of meaning

19684-561: The study of core elements of its character requires fundamentally theological consideration. The concept of nihilism was discussed by the Buddha (563 BC to 483 BC), as recorded in the Theravada and Mahayana Tripiṭaka . The Tripiṭaka , originally written in Pali , refers to nihilism as natthikavāda and the nihilist view as micchādiṭṭhi . Various sutras within it describe a multiplicity of views held by different sects of ascetics while

19832-420: The term began to take on a social connotation with German journalist Joseph von Görres attributing it to a negation of existing social and political institutions. The Russian form of the word, nigilizm ( Russian : нигилизм ), entered publication in 1829 when Nikolai Nadezhdin used it synonymously with skepticism . In Russian journalism the word continued to have significant social connotations. From

19980-512: The term), which some critics have compared favorably to those of Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock . In his story "The Gothic Touch", Kane actually encounters Moorcock's albino anti-hero Elric . The character Kane is considered one of the most memorable and original anti-heroes of heroic fantasy . Inspired by the sword and sorcery adventures of Fritz Leiber 's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Robert E. Howard's mighty-thewed barbarian Conan

20128-477: The time of Jacobi, the term almost fell completely out of use throughout Europe until it was revived by Russian author Ivan Turgenev , who brought the word into popular use with his 1862 novel Fathers and Sons , leading many scholars to believe he coined the term. The nihilist characters of the novel define themselves as those who "deny everything ", who do "not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in", and who regard "at

20276-472: The two major currents of discourse on nihilism prior to the 20th century. The term likely entered English from either the German Nihilismus , Late Latin nihilismus , or French nihilisme . Early examples of the term's use are found in German publications. In 1733, German writer Friedrich Leberecht Goetz used it as a literary term in combination with noism ( German : Neinismus ). In

20424-491: The wings to be developed into a possible KANE franchise for Tonic Films". Lauren Moews' Tonic Films Acquires Rights to Karl Edward Wagner's Tome Death Angel's Shadow As of 2020 the film had not entered production. Besides the Kane books, Wagner wrote contemporary horror stories (some of which, like "At First Just Ghostly", also feature Kane). These were collected in the books In a Lonely Place (1983), Why Not You and I? (1987) and

20572-513: The world. This mowing away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in this, the nihilist appears inconsistent: this "will to nothingness" is still a form of valuation or willing. He describes this as "an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists": A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning:

20720-418: Was Dark Crusade (1976). A Kane story published elsewhere, "Two Suns Setting", won the 1977 British Fantasy Award and was also a World Fantasy Award nominee. Wagner published other Kane stories in magazines such as Chacal , Whispers and Escape! during 1977. Gerald W. Page, then editor of DAW Books Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Stories , began to reprint Kane tales in the anthology series Night Winds ;

20868-504: Was 15 volumes, while the British edition was 14 volumes, but due to various rights issues, the U.S. edition contained two volumes that were not included in the British edition, and the British edition likewise contained one volume that was not included in the U.S. edition) containing several books per volume, by Victor Gollancz in the UK and by White Wolf Publishing in the US. Several attempts to make an Elric film were made. Moorcock refused to resign

21016-525: Was adapted for the TV series The Hunger during 1998. Sticks provided the inspiration for the lattice type structures used in the television series True Detective . Wagner was involved with several comics ventures. His Kane story "In the Lair of Yslsl" (which was later incorporated into the Kane novel Dark Crusade ) was adapted by Bill Whitcomb and Steve Vance, and illustrated by Vance, Wes Smith, and Bill Black for

21164-539: Was giving lectures on Nietzsche's thought. Given the importance of Nietzsche's contribution to the topic of nihilism, Heidegger's influential interpretation of Nietzsche is important for the historical development of the term nihilism . Heidegger's method of researching and teaching Nietzsche is explicitly his own. He does not specifically try to present Nietzsche as Nietzsche. He rather tries to incorporate Nietzsche's thoughts into his own philosophical system of Being, Time and Dasein . In his Nihilism as Determined by

21312-718: Was issued in 2004 under the album name Roller Coaster Holiday . A non-album rock single, including Lemmy on bass and Moorcock playing his own Rickenbacker 330/12, "Starcruiser" coupled with "Dodgem Dude", was belatedly issued in 1980 on Flicknife . Although announced to appear at Dingwalls, the performance was cancelled when schedules clashed. The Deep Fix gave a rare live performance at the Roundhouse , London on 18 June 1978 at Nik Turner 's Bohemian Love-In , headlined by Turner's band Sphynx and also featuring Tanz Der Youth with Brian James (ex- The Damned ), Lightning Raiders , Steve Took's Horns , Roger Ruskin and others. In 1982, as

21460-539: Was planned, Death Stalks the Night , by Hugh B. Cave ; Lee Brown Coye was working on illustrating it when he died, causing Carcosa to abandon the project. The book was eventually published by Fedogan & Bremer . Wagner later acted as the literary agent for Manly Wade Wellman's estate. Wagner collaborated with Drake on Killer , a science fiction horror novel set during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian . The illustrator of Murgunstrumm and Worse Things Waiting

21608-471: Was published in French by Denoel. Among other works by Moorcock are The Dancers at the End of Time , comedies set on Earth millions of years in the future, Gloriana, or The Unfulfill'd Queen , which he describes as an argument with Spenser 's The Faerie Queen , set in an alternative Earth history and the "Second Ether" sequence beginning with "BLOOD", mixing absurdism, reminiscence and family memoir against

21756-501: Was the annual anthology series The Year's Best Horror Stories ( DAW Books ), which he edited for fourteen years from volume VIII (1980) until volume XXII (1994). The series was canceled after Wagner's death. However, while the original editions were paperback originals, Underwood-Miller preserved the series in a set of three limited-edition hardcovers. Wagner was a frequent visitor to London to attend fantasy and horror conventions. Though he continued to edit, producing three volumes of

21904-501: Was the noted Weird Tales artist Lee Brown Coye . Coye's macabre designs, incorporating mysterious lattices of twigs, were the inspiration for Wagner's British Fantasy Award -winning story " Sticks ". The story was later included in a revised edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. A connoisseur of rare horror stories, Wagner perspicaciously edited many horror and fantasy anthologies ; perhaps his greatest achievement of this topic

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