An intensely personal fictional tapestry that weaves together numerous
historical and stylistic variations on the enduring myth of Selene and
Endymion.
Written in the early years of the twenty-first century, when the author
was engaged in dream-explorations and mystical practices centered on the
Greek Moon goddess Selene, Somnium is an intensely personal fictional
tapestry that weaves together numerous historical and stylistic
variations on the enduring myth of Selene and Endymion. Ranging through
the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries, it combines medieval,
Elizabethan, Gothic, and Decadent elements in a fantastic romance of
rare imagination.
With its delirious and heartbroken narrative, Somnium is an
extraordinary odyssey through love, loss, and lunacy, illuminated by the
silvery moonlight of its exquisite language.
Alan Moore's afterword details the life of his friend and mentor Steve
Moore, and includes the circumstances surrounding the writing of
Somnium.
This new expanded paperback edition includes Sketches of Shooter's
Hill, a topographical communiqué from the South London hinterlands that
formed the liminal setting for Moore's novel. Originally self-published
by the author and distributed only to a handful of friends, this curious
travelogue is made available to readers here for the first time.
"A masterpiece."
--Alan Moore
"A unique work by a unique genius. Moore has an understanding of the
occult peculiar to a very few and it always gives me the shivers; the
shivers which say 'authenticity.' Get this book while you're part of the
minority who know about it."--Michael Moorcock
"A visionary decrypting of one of fringe-London's most potent downriver
sites. Steve Moore's voyage through plural strands of time echoes the
high craft of his namesake, Alan, and the honourable tradition of
Michael Moorcock's Gloriana."
--Iain Sinclair
