Psychedelic blowout.

A Cure for Cancer - We're in London during the apocalypse and it's Ian Fleming-style international thriller meets Hieronymus Bosch Garden of Earthly Delights. This 350-page humdinger is the second of four novels forming Michael Moorcock's Cornelius Quartet.

Eternal Champion, Dell Comic Superhero, Demon of Death, you get to choose. This New Wave SF/Magical Surrealist yarn features a souped up version of Jerry Cornelius sporting jet-black ebony skin, silky milk-white hair, earthshaking vibragun (much more deadly than his simple needle-gun) and Rolls-Royce Phantom VI convertible capable of turning into a submarine or sprouting wings to fly like a jet fighter. Take that, James Bond!

Black Knight Jerry. Oh, the Places You'll Go!

The Marvelous Moorcock lays out enough linear narrative to move in action adventure mode coupled with enough strangeness to qualify as experimental. To give a glimpse of what a reader will glean, gander at this batch of bullets:

Apocalyptic London
Here comes the napalm, courtesy of the American military. But all is not lost - "North Kensington, the largest densely populated part of the Royal Borough, the most delicious slum in Europe. It is almost teatime." Hey, if you're a member of the British aristocracy, you can play tourist and take a tour of your city's largest slum, watching poor people writhe in agony, suffering on a grand scale. What fun!

The Organization
Jerry Cornelius' first loyalty is to the organization but, our chic, fashion plate death dealer admits he works exclusively on a strict commission basis. Jerry, baby, you're in a line of work quite different than 007 in service of the British crown. And what is the organization? - too top secret for easy definition.



Bishop Beesley
This fat, slovenly churchman, forever munching on a fistful of chocolates, proves the prime nemesis for Mr. Cornelius. The Bishop makes numerous declarations, claiming he's all for equilibrium, after all, he knows what's good for people. Ha! Our British author slides in a slice of political satire (or sarcasm). Beware any leader acting sadistically, inflicting pain for "someone's own good."

The Multiverse
Luscious Karen von Krupp, one of the tale's big players, asks Jerry which life he likes, to which Jerry replies, "Oh, all of them really." Jerry has a sense the universe extends thousands of times beyond what we can see, a cornucopia of worlds with diverse laws, where space is different, time is different, atoms are different and even gravity may be different.

Merciless Mercenaries
Jerry travels to New York but then the plot thickens: along with dozen of middle class older folk, he's herded on a bus to Pennsylvania, the destination having an eerie resemblance to a Nazi concentration camp. "The camp governor wore a uniform cut from fine, black needlecord and his cap was at just the right angle above his mirror sunglasses which were as black and as bright as his highly polished jackboots." All this is caused by "present emergency conditions laid down by our president" as a piece of social experimentation. This section of the novel gives one the shudders - echoes of the current day private Blackwater military.

Buffalo Nose
Jerry makes his way to the American frontier, out by South Dakota where he smokes the peace pipe with the Sioux and other Indian tribes (what we nowadays term Native Americans). Jerry takes on the name of Buffalo Nose and it isn't long before he and the tribes conduct raids on a number of local towns. But then he's off, flying to Las Vegas for his next adventure.

Comic Book Superhero on the Scene
"Jerry let his hog fall and shielded his eyes to peer upward.
There in the shadows of the sixth-storey balcony stood a figure which, as he watched, came and leaned over the rail. the figure was dressed in a long, dirty raincoat buttoned in the neck.
It could only be Flash Gordon."

Could Flash the Gordon be related in some way to Jumpin' Jack Flash? Oh, the questions you'll be prompted to ask.

Chic Brand Names
Knockout young blonde Mitzi wears Miss Cardin cologne that will take a man's breath away. Mitzi always wears Guerlain's Gremoble lipstick and a turquoise and gold pin and armlets by Cadoro. It might be the apocalypse but one thing remains - top of the line products keep those special sexy men and women in top sexy form.

Chapter Headings
A Cure for Cancer features 79 short chapters with hip chapter headings, as in "Sing to me, darling, in our castle of agony" and "The erotic ghosts of Viet Nam" and "The old Hollywood spirit never dies." Back in the '60s, cool was king.

Epigraphs
Michael Moorcock tosses in clips from current day news, each section of the novel carries an epigraph, subjects ranging from a money back guarantee on how you can impress your friends as you maneuver a polaris nuclear sub to the discovery of echos from the Big Bang. My personal favorites: "Along with the Smothers Brothers and Rowan and Martin, Mort Sahl is part of that radical fringe who try to tear down American decency and democracy." and "Newly and/or unexpectedly imposed tyranny can make people commit suicide."

Beauty Amid Chaos
Sure the cancer in the book's title can signify the cancer eating away at Western Civilization but there remains the beauty of a garden, after all Hieronymus Bosch's triptych Garden of Earthy Delights contains scenes of birds and fountains in their full splendor. "Entering the quiet streets of the great village, with its trim grass verges and shady trees, Jerry was filled with a sense of peace that he rarely experienced in rural settlements. Perhaps the size of the empty buildings helped, for most of them were over eighty feet high, arranged around a series of pleasant squares with central fountains splashing a variety of coloured, sparkling water or with freeform sculptures set in flower gardens."

A Cure for Cancer is tops. Get with it. Pick up a copy.


Photo taken around 1968, the time when British author Michael Moorcock started writing The Cornelius Quartet