The Brothel in Rosenstrasse - Michael Moorcock

 In 1897 Ricky and Alexandra are staying at a luxury hotel in Mirenburg.   Alexandra is sixteen, Ricky twice her age.   Ricky is one of several Counts von Bek, not the important one, but a wealthy adventurer.   He and Alexandra have exhausted the permutations of sex and Alexandra in particular is keen to try something new.   So Ricky takes her to Frau Schmetterling's internationally renowned brothel in Rosenstrasse where he himself was educated in sexual matters.   They indulge.

Meantime the prospect of war hangs over this enclave of Mittel Europe.   Wedged between three mighty imperial powers, Russia, Germany and Austria, Waldenstein has remained proudly independent but disgraced politician Holzhammer has done a deal with the Austrians.   Soon Mirenburg is under siege.   The hotel is hit by a cannonball.   Ricky and Alexander become residents of the brothel in Rosenstrasse.   For a time they are safe - Frau Schmetterling's girls have after all served the senior officers on all sides - but Ricky fears he is losing Alexandra to a houseful of lesbians (all of whom he has had sex with in the past, or hopes to soon).   He starts to plan his escape.

This is very different from the usual Moorcock.   Ricky is a von Eck but he is not a Champion, far from it.   There is a stream punk element here - balloonists, etc - but nothing far-fetched or in any way fantastical.   The fantasy here is Mireburg which, despite the minute detail served up, including extracts from books of the period, is wholly 100% imaginary.   The other fantasy element is, obviously, sexual fantasy, in particular lesbianism and, in Ricky's case, paedophilia.   Alexandra is by no means his youngest; he goes into fond reminiscence about a younger girl whose virginity he bought from her disabled father in Naples.

Indeed, the book is Ricky's memoir, written on the eve of World War II, somewhere warm.  The text is peppered with interruptions from his manservant-nurse Papadakis, who also has his secrets, it seems, though they are only hinted at.

Written in 1992 this is Moorcock's take on the decadent fin de siecle literature of the 19th century.   Some of the material here is pretty hardcore but the brilliance of Moorcock's writing just about accommodates it.