The English Assassin: A Romance of Entropy

The English Assassin

Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author Michael Moorcock
Cover artist Richard Glyn Jones
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Jerry Cornelius
Genre Literary fiction
Publisher Allison & Busby
Publication date
1972
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 254 pp
ISBN 0-85031-043-1
OCLC 591230
823/.9/14
LC Class PZ4.M8185 En3 PR6063.O59
Preceded by A Cure for Cancer
Followed by The Condition of Muzak

The English Assassin: A Romance of Entropy is a novel by British fantasy and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock . Subtitled "A romance of entropy" it was the third part of his long running Jerry Cornelius series .

Cornelius is the 'English Assassin' of the title, although he spends much of the book near death himself. Darker in tone than other volumes in the series, the novel offers eight alternative catastrophes in a world of chaos and barbarous collapse. The usual glittering array of supporting characters such as the anarchist Una Persson, the occasionally evil Miss Brunner, Professor Hira and the grotesque Bishop Beesley make their appearances amid the rubble of swinging London with the rest of Jerry's colourful clan - his blousy mother, villainous brother Frank and the doomed angelic Catherine.

Reception

Joanna Russ described the novel as "less vividly raw" but "sadder, stranger, more crafted, sometimes more beautiful, and far more complex" than the series' opening volume.[1]

References

  1. "Books," F&SF, April 1975, p. 66