TIME OF THE HAWKLORDS

Book excerpt: Deep at the Earth's Centre lay the Death Generator. Buried there from time immemorial by a long-dead race of aliens, it had at last been triggered into action... For among the ruins of London, surrounded by the survivors of the recent holocaust, Hawkwind rock, their music catalysing the attacking Death Ray - a lethal concoction of high energy that insinuates its way into the mind, tormenting every sense with demonic psychic visions. With the breakdown of the barriers between nightmare and reality, Hawkwind find themselves re-enacting the stages of a war that took place thousands of years before, in which they take the role of the Hawklords - the only potential saviours of the human race otherwise doomed to extermination in an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil... Time of the Hawklords by Michael Butterworth (born 24 April 1947 in Manchester) - based on an idea by Michael Moorcock - was first published in 1976: an echo of New Wave SF, an incomparable psychedelic rock fantasy - and a definitive cult novel! Time of the Hawklords is published in a new edition by Apex-Verlag, reviewed by the author (and supplemented by a preface).