Quotes from book
The Steel Tsar

The Steel Tsar

Michael Moorcock

The Steel Tsar is a sci-fi/alternate history novel by Michael Moorcock, first published in 1981 by Granada. Being a sequel to Warlord of the Air and The Land Leviathan , it is the final part of Moorcock's A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy regarding the adventures of Captain Oswald Bastable and which has been seen as an early example of steampunk fiction. The same cover image was used for the 1987 reissue of Judas Priest album Rocka Rolla and also the 1989 video game Ballistix.

“Here the idea of God has been replaced by the idea of the Future. The two notions are, admittedly, all but identical in the way in which they are self-contradictory and thus always fundamentally confusing to their worshippers, who must look to priests for translation, and so inevitably the priests (or whatever they call them) gradually take power…”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 413)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“The captain seemed mad. Perhaps he did not enjoy his trade. Many soldiers did not, when real warfare developed.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 1, Chapter 10 “Lost Hopes” (p. 336)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“But we are all victims, Captain Bastable, just as in other ways we are all aggressors. At root we are victims to the comforting lies we tell ourselves, of our willingness to shift moral responsibility onto leaders, organized religion—onto a deity or a race, if all else fails. Onto God, onto politicians, onto creatures from other planets. It is always the same impulse, to refuse responsibility. If we do not take responsibility for our own actions, ultimately we perish.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 395)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“It’s all a question of power and rarely a question of justice.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 1, Chapter 8 “The Message” (p. 324)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“She was grumbling. “The least he could have done was drop us near a town. Although in these parts they’d probably burn us as witches before asking any questions.” She shuddered. “I’m an awful snob about peasants, I’m afraid.”
I mentioned dryly that I thought those of her political persuasion had some sort of egalitarian duty to resist such prejudice. “Egalitarianism isn’t about prejudices,” she said, “it’s about equal shares of power. It’s the only means we have of steering some sort of even course through a future which is forever, by the very nature of the multiverse, unguessable. We have only institutions and a crude, fragile kind of democracy standing between us and absolute Chaos. That is why we must value and protect those institutions. And be forever reexamining them.””

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 419)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“This could be the beginning of Civil War. There is no kind more distressing, no kind which so rapidly describes the pointlessness of human killing human. I have been fated, for a reason I cannot comprehend or for no reason at all, to witness the worst examples of insane warfare (and all warfare, it seems to me now, is that) and having to listen to the most ridiculous explanations as to its “necessity” from otherwise perfectly rational people, I have long since become weary, Moorcock, of the debate. If I appear to you to be in a more reconciled mood than when your grandfather first met me it is because I have learned that no individual is responsible for War—that we are all, at the same time, individually responsible for the ills of the human condition. In learning this, (and I am about to tell you how I learned it) I also learned a certain tolerance for myself and for others which I had never previously possessed.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Black Ships” (p. 359)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Light suddenly caught the steel of his helmet and made it burn like the face of some mighty fallen angel. It could have been the face of Lucifer himself. I felt then that he was perfectly capable of destroying the whole world without a shred of remorse if he believed that he could not, himself, go on living. Such creatures, I remember thinking, have always dwelt among us. They would reduce the multiverse to ash, if they could. Why, I agonized, can we not recognize them and stop them before they achieve so much power? A tiny part of the human race was responsible for the misery of the majority.
I thought again of the injustices which we ourselves casually perpetrated and I wondered how we should ever set anything to rights while we continued to allow such vast discrepancy, so much at odds with the religious and political principles we claim as our daily guides.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 386)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Unlike so many politicians or military leaders they made no attempt to justify their mistakes, to cling to power. For them power held enormous responsibility and was merely invested in them temporarily.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 5 “A Question of Attitudes” (p. 370)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“I have learned from my experiences that hatred and racial antagonism can be manufactured by the politicians of any one country against any other, so I was no longer the patriot I had been.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 2 “Back in Service” (p. 350)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“I knew that it was human nature which lay at the root of History and that no matter where I found myself I was bound to discover superficial similarities expressing and exemplifying that nature. It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce these terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called “History”. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 1 “The Camp on Rishiri” (p. 339)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

““Petersburg socialism seems cold to the likes of our Cossacks, who would rather worship personalities than embrace ideas.”
I shared his irony. “You make them sound like Americans.””

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

The Steel Tsar (1981)
Source: Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Black Ships” (p. 361)

“I understood that it was only the very best in us, our capacity for love and self-respect, that enabled us to survive in a perpetually fragmenting multiverse. Only our deepest sense of justice allowed us to remain sane and relish the wonders of chaotic Time and Space, to be free at least of fear. Further violence would bring only an endless chain of bloodshed and an inevitable descent of our race into bestiality and ultimate insentience. To survive, we must love.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (pp. 388-389)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“It remained difficult for me to understand how some people are simply born mentally deformed, lacking all the natural moral restraints and imagination which dictate the actions of most of us, however partially. Such creatures have learned from childhood to ape the appropriate sentiments when it suits them, to charm or bully their opponents, to agree to anything, to tell any lie and to pursue their own ends with implacable determination.
“Such men and women are the true aliens amongst you and it is ironic how frequently we come to rule you. We use your very best instincts and deepest emotions against you. We convince you that we alone can satisfy your need for security and comfort and then we drain you dry of everything save perpetual terror. Ha, ha, ha!””

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 389)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Like so many fanatics, he possessed an appalling streak of timidity and terror which feared all that was not absolutely familiar. As his power increased, he would doubtless attempt to destroy anything that made him anxious.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 384)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

““Are you trying to talk peace terms?”
“I’ve given that up,” said Makhno. “It doesn’t appear to work. You mention peace and everyone tries to shoot you or jail you.””

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 5 “A Question of Attitudes” (p. 368)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“What good is a martyr, Captain Bastable? A martyr shows us the power of faith. But what if that faith is misinformed? While people believe in heroes and the magic power of an individual to save them from the human condition, they will never be free.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 422)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“I realized I was fulfilling mankind’s greatest dream—to fly like a bird, as naturally and as joyously as if the air were our familiar habitat.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 419)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Socialists are always quarreling amongst themselves, because of the strong element of messianism in their creeds.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 2 “Back in Service” (p. 353)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“Violence creates nothing but violence, no matter what we call it and what the excuse. And so it goes, down all the centuries.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 423)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

“It’s in the nature of a good despot to say anything that will convince someone to do as he wishes. Only when he does not need them does he really say what he thinks. And by that time, of course, because he has no need of them, they are usually as good as dead. The secret of becoming a successful tyrant lies in an early ability to be all things to all people.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 397)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

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