The Skrayling Tree

Michael Moorcock

A woman watches while her husband is kidnapped and dragged off to another world by some ghostly indians. Oona, also known as the Dreamthief's Daughter, follows and finds herself drawn into another world. It is America, but an old America of myth and legend, she finds herself accompanying a legendary Indian chief on his quest.

We see the story from three perspectives, Oona's, her husband Ulrich Von Bek and Elric. Three disparate threads that are gradually drawn together. The writing is beautiful, Moorcock really taking it all in his stride, taking time to create a story of wonderful complexity, yet with a paradoxical simplicity. It builds slowly, gradually gathering steam as the story reaches its climax. Each step along the way is an opportunity to stop and look around at the strange and wonderful world he has created, where mass and time and scale mean little.

The story, from Elric's perspective, is set in the middle of Stormbringer and the linkage is brilliantly done. His is a journey to find the ancient forgers of his sword, yet finds himself caught up in the quest of a pigmy tribe to find their stolen artifacts. The third, from the perspective of the "kidnapped" Ulrich, takes the story up to its conclusion.

The book is philosophical, questioning the nature of reality, and utterly intoxicating. If The Dreamthief's Daughter was a light wine, then this is a glass of absinthe, stretching space and time into new shapes. The three stories occuring in the same world, yet in very different places, at strange angles to one another. When the stories collide it is as tragic and dramatic as anything you'd expect from his pen. It underlines the fact that few if any inhabit the space that Moorcock occupies and to journey into his territory is to see the world in a new and colourful light.