The History of the Runestaff

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
For the Runestaff!
"Then the Earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of age, its ways becoming whimsical and strange in the manner of a man in his last years..."
The Jewel in the Skull

Chronicling the adventures of Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln and another one of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion incarnations. Dorian lives in a far-future Earth that has rebuilt itself after the Tragic Millennium, but is being taken over by the brutal Dark Empire of Granbretan. Hawkmoon, whose own land was recently conquered, has to struggle with what has happened to him as a prisoner of that regime, and strives to help one of the few holdout nations, the Karmarg, ruled by Count Brass. This sets off a quest both to remove the infernal device implanted in him by the Empire and to find the legendary Runestaff, which can help restore the balance of power.

Dorian's story is told in a tetralogy and a trilogy:

  • The History of the Runestaff:
    • The Jewel In The Skull (1967)
    • The Mad God's Amulet (1968)
    • The Sword Of The Dawn (1968)
    • The Runestaff (1969)
  • The Chronicles of Castle Brass:
    • Count Brass (1973)
    • The Champion of Garathorm (1974)
    • The Quest for Tanelorn (1975)
Tropes used in The History of the Runestaff include:

"The Hawkmoon books were written for money and took three days each to do. But I still tried to make them the best I could do of their kind. In the end it's the public who pay me and I feel I owe readers the best value for their money I can produce, irrespective of genre or level of ambition."