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''The Dancers at the End of Time'' is a series of science fiction novels and short stories written by Michael Moorcock, the setting of which is the End of Time, an era "where entropy is king and the universe has begun collapsing upon itself".〔(【引用サイトリンク】author=Steven Wu )〕 The inhabitants of this era are immortal decadents, who create flights of fancy using power rings that draw on energy devised and stored by their ancestors millions of years prior. Time travel is possible, and throughout the series various points in time are visited and revisited. Space travellers are also common, but most residents of the End of Time find leaving the planet distasteful and clichéd. The title of the series is itself taken from a poem by a fictitious 19th Century poet, Ernest Wheldrake, which Mrs. Amelia Underwood quotes in ''The End of All Songs''.〔Omnibus edition, Granada. 〕 "Ernest Wheldrake" had been a pseudonym used by Algernon Charles Swinburne.〔Edmund Gosse, ''The Life of Algernon Swinburne'' (1917), p44.〕 The original trilogy (''An Alien Heat'', ''The Hollow Lands'', and ''The End of All Songs'') was published between 1972 and 1976.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=13 April 2006 )〕 The trilogy purports to tell the last love story in human history. Other stories in this sequence include ''The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming'' (also known as ''A Messiah at the End of Time'') which is a rewrite of the novella ''Constant Fire''. Several short stories, some of which were included in the collection ''Legends from the End of Time'', were published in ''New Worlds 7–10'' (the paperback revival of the magazine). Short stories featuring Elric ("Elric at the End of Time"), and Jerry Cornelius ("The Murderer's Song") also feature characters and places from the End of Time. Main characters in the series include Jherek Carnelian, one of the few humans at the End of Time to have been born naturally, rather than created; Mrs Amelia Underwood, a time traveller from the late 19th century; the enigmatic Lord Jagged; and Miss Mavis Ming in the eponymous ''The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming'', which also features the Fireclown. (The 1993 Millennium omnibus edition of ''Legends from the End of Time'' ostensibly assembles all the stories and ''The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming'' – under the title ''Constant Fire'' – but was affected by severe printing errors and omits the final six lines of ''Elric at the End of Time'' and all but the final chapter of ''Constant Fire''. These were corrected for the 1997 Orion edition.) == The End of Time == The prologue of ''An Alien Heat'' calls it "a story of Jherek Carnelian, who did not know the meaning of morality, and Mrs. Amelia Underwood, who knew everything about it". The novel begins with a discussion between Jherek Carnelian and his mother, the Iron Orchid, about the meaning of the word ''virtuous''. Carnelian, who has looked the word up in an ancient dictionary, finds the concept "bewildering". Jherek meets his future love, Amelia Underwood, at an extravagant party hosted by the Duke of Queens, the theme of which is "disaster". The Duke of Queens intends the centerpiece of this entertainment to be an alien, Yusharisp, who tries to warn them that the universe will soon end; the people merely find this boring, and the entertainment falls flat. My Lady Charlotina freezes Yusharisp for transport to her menagerie. Jherek is delighted when Mrs. Amelia Underwood reacts to this by exclaiming "Let the poor creature go! Though he is neither human nor Christian, he is still one of God's creatures and has a right to his liberty!" An example of how lightly sex, including incest and homosexuality, is treated at the End of Time can be found in the early chapters of ''An Alien Heat''. In the chapter "A Conversation with the Iron Orchid" Jherek has sex with his mother, and in the chapter "Carnelian Conceives a New Affectation" he has a same-sex encounter with Lord Jagged. (Likewise, in Legends from the End of Time, the Iron Orchid makes love to My Lady Charlotina.) When Jherek decides to fall in love with Mrs. Underwood to the exclusion of everyone else, everyone applauds his original thinking. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Dancers at the End of Time」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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