Byzantium Endures, the first of the Pyat Quartet, introduces one of Michael Moorcock's most magnificent creations - Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski. Born in Kiev on the cusp of the twentieth century, he discovers the pleasures of sex and cocaine and glimpses a sophisticated world beyond his horizons before the storm of the October Revolution breaks. Still a student at St Petersburg, he is deflected into more immediate concerns, caught up in the rip-tide of history.