No writer who lists 12 of his books and then accounts for the rest with a weary "etc. etc." can be all bad. In fact, Michael Moorcock has written far more than a dozen good books, ranging from entertaining to profound; in his native Britain, he's taken quite seriously. It's wonderful to see Moorcock grow from a genre writer into, simply, a writer, which he officially does with [Byzantium Endures[, the first of his books that's not science fiction or fantasy.

Here Moorcock has the audacious idea of telling—in this and further projected volumes—the story of the 20th century as it appears to one of its victims. The victim in question is Colonel Pyat, a charming, confused, and unscrupulous Ukrainian. (p. 42)

Pyat appeared earlier in Moorcock's four Jerry Cornelius novels as a diplomat, moving with world-weary skill through a globe in such disarray that the British Empire...