The Final Programme

About the Book

Jerry Cornelius is a scientist, a rock star, and an assassin. He is the hippest adventurer of them all: tripping through a pop art nightmare in which kidnappings, murder, sex and drugs are a daily occurrence. Along with his savvy and ruthless partner-in-chaos, Miss Brunner, Cornelius is on a mission to control a revolutionary code for creating the ultimate human being, a modern messiah— the final programme.

The first book in the Cornelius Quartet is the groundbreaking introduction to the misadventures and vendettas of Jerry Cornelius, one of modern literature’s most distinctive characters, the product of a bewildering post-modern culture, and an inspiration for generations of characters since.

Praise for The Final Programme

“Moorcock’s story takes flavor from popular media at the time (The Prisoner, The Avengers, et. al) and pulp sci-fi (Cornelius’s psychotropic needle gun), but mixes in metaphysics, mythology, and his own bizarre flourishes to create a violent and strange but compellingly readable story of weird science and shifting identities in a brightly colored, blitzed-out alternate Earth.” - Barnes & Noble

“The trappings of the 1960s, including drugs (particularly hallucinogens), rock and roll, and sexual experimentation, are all over this novel. Add science fiction staples from the pulps such as needle guns, the Hollow Earth, and fringe science. Then add Eastern mysticism.” - Fate SF

“There's an experimental sense to the narrative from page one, as though absolutely anything could happen to its singularly odd protagonists” - Lit Reactor

“Flashback fun” - Pop Cults

“Like reading a Jackson Pollock painting” - Retrenders

“The Final Programme doesn't feel at all dated...Here his (Moorcock’s) Prose sparkles, at turns wry, playful, and deadly serious. When the needle gun goes in, you'll feel it.” - Singular Points

“Sardonic, violent and poppishly sparkly, The Final Programme holds up as one of this great s-f writer’s most entertaining reads." - Blog Critics

“SF/F became respectable, even cool, thanks in no small part to Michael Moorcock” - Pop Mythology