Michael Moorcock The Shores of Death (1966)
Behold the Man was great, and he re-entered my frame of reference when it was recently revealed that he's writing something for Doctor Who (a novel I think). Normally every second-hand bookshop has a token pile of 1970s Moorcock paperbacks about elves and the like, and I tend to steer clear (never really got that whole elves thing) but just this once... actually another reason was a conversation over at Homeworld Base (the same that yeilded the above Who related revelation) which basically concluded that without Moorcock there would have been no Grant Morrison, and without Grant Morrison (esp. Doom Patrol Grant Morrison), Lawrence Miles would have been a very different and probably not quite so fascinatingly weird kettle of fish.
Anyway... obviously I couldn't resist the cover of this one, not least because the blurb suggested it to be entirely elf free. And WOW what a weird novel. The characters are kind of bland but the writing is pretty tight and the whole world-building is absorbingly bonkers, and given how heavily allegorical this all is, I think the characterisation is fine as it is. This is the far future. The Earth no longer spins, but rather keeps one side locked in perpetual daylight (see also Hothouse by Brian Aldiss, guess it was a popular idea at one time), and the moon has been dragged out of the sky (during an alien invasion sometime before) and now sits partially submerged as a huge spherical island in the eternal twilight of the Pacific ocean (I know, I know!). Humanity has reduced to a headcount of hundreds rather than billions, although scientific advances have been such that these last few humans are at liberty to idle away their extended lifespans doing pretty much whatever takes their fancy. This uneasy utopia is upset by the realisation that the current generation has become sterile and the human race is at its end (on the shores of death in fact), fear takes hold, scapegoats are found, Faustian compacts are forged.
It's one of the weirder novels I've read of late, not least the last part (meetings with the Lucifer stand-in scientist Orlando Sharvis in the moon's interior) but holds together well. There's enough poetic licence to just make it a pleasurable read without getting too hung up on believable characters or situations. Er... that's all.
