Miss Brunner's last program
Miss Brunner's Last Program (OT: The Final Program) is atext by the science fiction / fantasy author Michael Moorcock that was publishedin excerpts from 1965 in the British magazine New Worlds , but was not published until 1968 in the USA as a coherent novel; According to Moorcock, his publishers found the text "too freaky" at the time. Originating in the early years of the London underground scene, the novel tells the adventures of the hip, ultra-cool and tragically entangled Jerry Cornelius , who would later reappear in other novels by Moorcock and other authors. Critic Ralph Willet described the world of Jerry Cornelius as "the world of the 1960s - lively, elitist, androgynous, narcissistic, crowded and full of depictions of violence". The descriptions in the novel are often fixated on consumption, consumer goods and brands. Many of the consumer goods offered at the time, from alcohol to fashion items to bands, were named by name and brand. In 1973, the novel by Robert Fuest was filmed under the same title.
The introductory pages of the novel are titled "Preliminary Data". In a luxury suite in the Hilton Angkor, modeled on the mysterious temple complex, near the ruins of Angkor Wat, Jerry meets the Indian scientist Dr. Hira. They talk about the cyclical time of the Vedas; Hira mentions that the time is right for a new Messiah, he is looking for a universal formula, and that a certain Miss Brunner, a fleeting adventure in Delhi, made a deep impression on him. The two fall asleep in Hira's bed.
In the following story, which can also be interpreted as the dream of a narrator due to the "introductory data", Jerry has to face his evil brother Frank, who holds his lover and sister, Catherine, imprisoned and works with Miss Brunner on a supercomputer, his final program represents a kind of world formula. Miss Brunner herself is a kind of vampire being who consumes her various partners. Miss Brunner convinces Jerry to support her project. Finally, Jerry and Miss Brunner merge to form the gigantic supermessia Cornelius Brunner.
The story can partly be interpreted as a variant of the story about Moorcock's antihero Elric of Melniboné : Jerry would then be Elric, Catherine Cymoril, Miss Brunner the soul-consuming sword Stormbringer and brother Frank's cousin Yyrkoon.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b "The Final Program + Q&A with Michael Moorcock" , BFI.
- ↑ Ralph Willett, "Moorcock's Achievement and Promise in the Jerry Cornelius Books" , Science Fiction Studies , 8, Vol. 3, Part 1, March 1976th
- ^ The Complete Review