The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock

This is a very different book from all the previous Michael Moorcock novels I’ve read, to understate hugely. 

There are some similarities and echoes with what I’ve already read, of course. I’m already aware that Jerry Cornelius I’d an aspect of the Eternal Champion, and the ending with the hermaphrodite is echoed, no doubt deliberately, in The City of the Autumn Stars.

Yet this feels different. It’s more light-hearted, and absolutely a product of the London of the part of the ‘60s where mod was yielding to psychedelia, and both drugs and sexuality were becoming more fluid, although there’s also more of a hint of James Bond. This novel very much evokes that age and, if it feels a little more tough and ready than other Moorcock novels, with as much in common with William S. Burroughs than science fiction, I enjoyed the ride.

Groovy, man. I have no idea what the other Jerry Cornelius novels are going to be like…