Immortality and morality: The Dancers at the End of Time (1972-6) by Michael Moorcock

A comic, multiversal tribute to the late 19th century

Almost all of Michael Moorcock’s many novels are braided together into his vast multiverse. His myriad characters like Elric of Melniboné and Jerry Cornelius each have their many entrances and exits, and the stories make up a sprawling web, with no true beginning nor final end. In his fertile 1970s, Moorcock introduced a new series focusing on one particular ending for the multiverse, or at least one version of Earth - the baroque adventures of The Dancers at the End of Time.

Published between 1972 and 1976, the Dancers books are generally described as a trilogy, but may be better thought of as a single long novel issued in three volumes. These are An Alien Heat (1972), The Hollow Lands (1974), and The End of All Songs (1976). One of very few multi-volume works included in David Pringle’s book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985), these books are set millions of years in the future, a time when the stars are dimming, entropy is closing in, and a small community of immortal, godlike humans live out their lives in frivolous fancy.

These are some of Moorcock’s most humorous books, inspired by the fiction of the late 19th century. Though written with a light touch and seemingly with low stakes, the Dancers books also explore morality, mortality, the purpose of life, and what it means to be in love.

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From the End of Time to Bromley

It is the End of Time. The Earth has grown old and nature has withered away. Life remains, however, in the form of a small community of humans. These eccentrics have lived for thousands of years, sustained by the vast energies stored in the “rotted cities” built by their forgotten ancestors. These dancers at the End of Time command almost unlimited powers, channelled through special rings; they can manipulate gravity, create and destroy objects at will, change their own bodies on a whim, and even resurrect the dead. Their only challenge is finding new experiences to keep them amused.

Jherek Carnelian is an oddity in this frivolous world - he is one of very few people to have been born, rather than made. This may explain his own peculiar fancy. Upon meeting Mrs. Amelia Underwood, who has been abducted from Bromley in Kent in 1896, Jherek revolves to fall in love with her. Initially, this is just another idle affectation - but Jherek’s love grows, and when Amelia is returned to her own time, the immortal follows her into the past. Jherek fancies himself an expert on the 19th century, but his knowledge is flawed to say the least and even Amelia’s moral rectitude may not save him from the hangman’s rope…

The Dancers at the End of Time is in large part a humorous love story. Jherek and Amelia navigate various comic scenarios both in 19th century Britain and in the technicolour dreamscape of the End of Time. Both periods are populated with a host of bizarre characters, and the would-be lovers become entangled with the fate of their world, and of time itself.

The entropic playground

The End of Time is one of Moorcock’s most distinctive settings, rich with potential for grand spectacle and comic situations. The last remaining humans have used their powers to create a synthetic environment for themselves, one as changeable as their whims. They build and live in grandiose follies, like immense castles or palaces at the bottom of lakes. As Jherek puts it, “the long history of mankind, if it has a purpose at all, has found complete fulfilment in us.” For his part, he travels in a flying steam locomotive which belches multicoloured smoke. While the dancers could travel into space with ease, they regard such adventurism as rather gauche.

Moorcock populates the End of Time with a gallery of loveable rogues, true eccentrics in a very English tradition. Among others there is Jherek’s mother, the Iron Orchid; the Duke of Queens, always eager to impress; the gloomy Lord Mongrove, the time-scientist Brannart Morphail, and Argonheart Po, “the inventor of the savoury volcano.” They while away the centuries in meaningless recreation, from building entire cities to various brief sexual flings in many combinations. Moorcock’s plot disturbs this idle Eden with two new developments which may be linked - Jherek’s love for Amelia, and the impending end of everything.

Culture clash

Much of the humour in The Dancers at the End of Time comes from the contrast between the two main settings and their respective cultures. The denizens of the End of Time have amusing misconceptions about the deep past. The Duke of Queens, for example, believes that the neon lights of ancient New York “were protective talismans [...] to ward off the forces of darkness.” Inspector Springer, an upright London copper, is utterly perplexed when he is dragged into the End of Time. After meeting a group of belligerent aliens called the Lat, he becomes convinced they are instead “Latvians”. 

Moorcock’s playfulness is everywhere. During one of his sojourns to 1896 Bromley, Jherek has an encounter with one H. G. Wells, who was born in the town (and described it as a “morbid sprawl of population”). Later, the Time Traveller from Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) makes an appearance, his presence alone making it clear that multiple planes of the multiverse are intersecting. 

Moorcock has stated that the Dancers series was intended as a tribute to Wells and the whole late 19th century period. Other writers he has cited include George Meredith, William Pett Ridge, and two who - in stark contrast to Jherek and his friends - died very young: Aubrey Beardsley (25) and Ernest Dowson (32). The people of the End of Time tend to exhibit late-Victorian mannerisms, reinforcing the idea that these books are as much about the past as they are about a wild, imagined future. The citizens of the End of Time resemble superpowered Decadents, living in a world of excess and artifice. 

Beginning at the end

One irony about The Dancers at the End of Time is that although they are about the end of the world, they are a good starting point for newcomers to Moorcock’s work. Light and witty, they are more refined than some of his earliest work but not as challengingly literary as his later novels. While there are connections with the wider multiverse which will reward experienced Moorcock readers, no prior knowledge of his work is necessary. In Jherek and Amelia, Moorcock created two of his most likeable characters, and the books produce great pleasure from their comic clash of cultures.

The Dancers at the End of Time is one of the strongest threads in Moorcock’s constantly engaging multiverse, and a consistently entertaining work in its own right.

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• There are numerous connections with other works in Moorcock’s multiverse. For example, Jherek and Amelia use a time machine which is of the same design as the one used by Karl Glogauer in Behold the Man (1969). 
  
• At one point, Jherek uses the name “Lord Carnell”. This may be a reference to important SF editor John Carnell, who died in early 1972. Carnell was a key figure in the career of writers like Moorcock and John Brunner. Moorcock has used the initials “JC” for many character names, and for his own pseudonym James Colvin.
  
• A very good 2020 overview of the series is available at the Moorcock blog “Terhali’s Particular Satisfaction.” 
  
• On his blog “Eight Miles Higher”, Andrew Darlington has provided a tweaked version of his original overview of the series, first published in Vector (the journal of the British Science Fiction Association) in 1978.