The Dancers at the End of Time (1972)

The Dancers at the End of Time is a series of science fiction novels and short stories written by Michael Moorcock, the setting of which is the End of Time, an era "where entropy is king and the universe has begun collapsing upon itself". The inhabitants of this era are immortal decadents, who create flights of fancy via the use of power rings that draw on energy devised and stored by their ancestors millions of years prior. Time travel is possible, and throughout the series various points in time are visited and revisited. Space travellers are also common, but most residents of the End of Time find leaving the planet distasteful and clichéd. The title of the series is itself taken from a poem by a fictitious 19th-century poet, Ernest Wheldrake, which Mrs. Amelia Underwood quotes in The End of All Songs. "Ernest Wheldrake" had been a pseudonym used by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The original trilogy (An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, and The End of All Songs) was published between 1972 and 1976. The trilogy purports to tell the last love story in human history. Other stories in this sequence include The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming (also known as A Messiah at the End of Time) which is a rewrite of the novella Constant Fire. Several short stories, some of which were included in the collection Legends from the End of Time, were published in New Worlds 7–10 (the paperback revival of the magazine). Short stories featuring Elric ("Elric at the End of Time"), and Jerry Cornelius ("The Murderer's Song") also feature characters and places from the End of Time.

Main characters in the series include Jherek Carnelian, one of the few humans at the End of Time to have been born naturally, rather than created; Mrs Amelia Underwood, a time traveller from the late 19th century; the enigmatic Lord Jagged; and Miss Mavis Ming in the eponymous The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming, which also features the Fireclown. The 1993 Millennium omnibus edition of Legends from the End of Time ostensibly assembles all the stories and The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming – under the title Constant Fire – but was affected by severe printing errors and omits the final six lines of Elric at the End of Time and all but the final chapter of Constant Fire. These were corrected for the 1997 Orion edition.

The End of Time

The prologue of An Alien Heat calls it "a story of Jherek Carnelian, who did not know the meaning of morality, and Mrs. Amelia Underwood, who knew everything about it". The novel begins with a discussion between Jherek Carnelian and his mother, the Iron Orchid, about the meaning of the word virtuous. Carnelian, who has looked the word up in an ancient dictionary, finds the concept "bewildering".

Jherek meets his future love, Amelia Underwood, at an extravagant party hosted by the Duke of Queens, the theme of which is "disaster". The Duke of Queens intends the centerpiece of this entertainment to be an alien, Yusharisp, who tries to warn them that the universe will soon end; the people merely find this boring, and the entertainment falls flat. My Lady Charlotina freezes Yusharisp for transport to her menagerie. Jherek is delighted when Mrs. Amelia Underwood reacts to this by exclaiming "Let the poor creature go! Though he is neither human nor Christian, he is still one of God's creatures and has a right to his liberty!"

An example of how lightly sex, including incest and homosexuality, is treated at the End of Time can be found in the early chapters of An Alien Heat. In the chapter "A Conversation with the Iron Orchid" Jherek has sex with his mother, and in the chapter "Carnelian Conceives a New Affectation" he has a same-sex encounter with Lord Jagged. Likewise, in Legends from the End of Time, the Iron Orchid has sex with My Lady Charlotina. When Jherek decides to fall in love with Mrs. Underwood to the exclusion of everyone else, everyone applauds his original thinking.

Landscape

The landscapes at the End of Time are almost entirely artificial or illusory, created by the inhabitants and constantly being altered. In the first chapter of An Alien Heat, the Iron Orchid and Jherek Carnelian awaken after the picnic they have created to find that the sea has been turned a shade of cerise, and the cliff with two palm trees that had previously been behind them had been replaced by a twelve-storey silver pagoda. Beneath the decoration, however, the Earth is a sterile wasteland lit by a dim red sun.

In the short story "Elric at the End of Time" the inhabitants of the end of time attempt to entertain Elric of Melniboné (and amuse themselves) by creating an adventure to keep Elric occupied. Elric is no stranger to chaos and is completely convinced that he has in fact been transported to a realm of chaos. This is largely due to the unexpected, bizarre (and often instantaneous) changes which his hosts make to the landscape.

Plot

An Alien Heat

The title of this volume comes from the poem "Hothouse Flowers" by Theodore Wratislaw.

An alien named Yusharisp comes to Earth to warn its remaining inhabitants that the universe is coming to an end; his own planet has already disappeared, and the Earth is sure to follow. Earth's inhabitants are unfazed as they believe him to be yet another doomsayer; the End of the Earth has been predicted for centuries. Jherek is far more interested in Mrs Amelia Underwood, a time traveller from Victorian England, as he is fascinated by the Victorian era. Jherek resolves to fall in love with her. Mrs Underwood, at first repulsed by the debauchery of the End of Time, finally comes to believe that Jherek is sincere in his affections and starts teaching him about moral values. She falls in love with him at last; as they are about to embrace, however, she is returned to her own time. Jherek, heartbroken, decides to rescue her, and travels to 19th-century London, using the time machine from Moorcock's Behold the Man.