The Woods of Arcady: Book Two of the Sanctuary of the White Friars

A wild desert crossing, a secret island paradise, a hidden underground civilization, plus London and Paris. The multiverse expands as pulp adventure mixes with unreal memoir in the second volume in The Sanctuary of the White Friars series.

In the 1970s, Michael Moorcock, a writer of genre fiction, attempts to save his failing marriage by taking his wife and daughters to Paris. One night in a bar he is amazed to find himself drinking with heroes of story and history. The next day he awakens aboard a sailing ship, kidnapped into another reality by a French highwayman and the four Musketeers, who know Moorcock well from adventures in London's Alsacia...but that was another Moorcock, from another world.

Soon after they reach Africa, the company is rescued from an ambush by Antara, a poet-adventurer who offers to lead them across the desert and through several realities to the estate of Lord and Lady Blackstone. The trip is full of wonders Moorcock has read, dreamed, or written: an underground civilization of nonhuman creatures; a magical oasis where the lion lies down with the lamb; a lush garden inhabited by miniature dinosaurs.

They are pursued by the notorious Jacob Nixer, who also remembers the Alsacia and is determined to destroy Moorcock and his companions.

The main narrative of The Woods of Arcady is punctuated by episodes from the story of the Blackstones and by spirited, freewheeling appearances by Captain Buggerly Otherly and his companions from the Second Ether. As readers move deeper into Moorcock's multiverse, it rises up on all sides, ready to astound.

Author: Michael Moorcock
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 06/06/2023
Series: Sanctuary of the White Friars #2
Pages: 496
Weight: 1.5lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.40w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9780765324788

About the Author
Michael Moorcock has received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and SFWA's Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award as well as the Nebula and the British Fantasy Award. Perhaps best-known for Elric of Melniboné (part of the Eternal Champion cycle, which spans multiple series and multiple realities), Moorcock is also the author of Mother London, Byzantium Endures, and Gloriana. He keeps homes in Texas (USA) and Paris (France).