New Worlds: An Anthology

by Michael Moorcock (Editor/Contributor)

From its beginnings as a fanzine before World War II, New Worlds struck out on a different path. In the postwar years, under the editorial direction of Michael Moorcock, the magazine published more award-winning stories than any other science fiction publication; it achieved a unique cross-fertilization between sci-fi and mainstream literature and became the vanguard of the "New Wave" writing that stood sci-fi on its head in the 1960s. It was banned, it received grants, and it became the subject of debate in the Houses of Parliament. Moorcock introduced a broad readership to writers whose names would endure, such as Samuel Delany, M. John Harrison, J. G. Ballard, D. M. Thomas, Harlan Ellison, Brian Aldiss, Fritz Leiber, John Brunner, Norman Spinrad and many others.

Contents:

Gravity by Harvey Jacobs
Concentrate 3 by Michael Butterworth
Dr. Gelabius by Hilary Bailey
Four-colour problem by Barrington Bayley
Running down by M. John Harrison
Eye of the lens by Langdon Jones
Assassination weapon by J.G. Ballard
Heat death of the universe by Pamela Zoline
Valve transcript by Joel Zoss
Tank trapeze by Michael Moorcock
Angouleme by Thomas M. Disch
Scream by Giles Gordon
Masterson and the clerks by John T. Sladek
Multi-value motorway by Brian W. Aldiss
Traveller's rest by David I. Masson
A landscape of shallows by Christopher Finch
Disaster story by Charles Platt
Conversations at Ma Maia Metron by Robert Meadley
No direction home by Norman Spinrad
Mr. Black's poems of innocence by D.M. Thomas
Soft world sequence by George MacBeth
Space hopping with Captain God by John T. Sladek
Scholia, seasoned with crabs, Blish is by John Clute
Sweet analytics by M. John Harrison
A literature of acceptance by James Colvin
Alphabets of unreason by J.G. Ballard
Language mechanisms by Christopher Finch
Languages of science by David Harvey
Circle of the white horse by Francis Arnold

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Fantasy

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.

Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.

During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.

Reviews

[Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories from the magazine .I didnt read the mag , a bit before my time so I was glad to get the chance to read these short stories and essays . I still have the original publication

[Ross Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag, too often marred by the hallmarks of psychedelic-era literary cleverness (think Burroughs meets Ballard). High points are M. John Harrison's “Running Down,” a story that puts a remarkable human face on entropy, and Daphine Castell’s ‘In the Realms of Tolkien,” a heartfelt essay on The Lord of the Rings that is written with unexpected tenderness and aplomb. My copy includes an odd typographical hiccough: Plural possessives are often marked by an end quote instead of an apostrophe, often rendering dialogue confusing.

[RC · Rating 2 out of 5]

The articles are more interesting than the stories.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book in order to learn about the New Wave movement in science fiction, which ended when I was a child (I was born in 1971).

This book is a collection of stories and essays from New Worlds magazine when it was under the editorship of Michael Moorcock. The magazine was one of the main centers of the New Wave movement in science fiction. The New Wave movement, which lasted--roughly--from 1965 to 1975, was controversial.
For example, New Worlds published as a serial Norman Spinrad's _Bug Jack Barron_, which was denounced by British MPs. Although now, I find it hard to see what was so controversial about _Bug Jack Barron._ The New Wave was also controversial within science fiction. An older guard of science fiction readers, writers, and editors did not care for the provocative stories of the New Wave. A good example of a New Wave story comes from this volume: "Gravity" by Harvey Jacobs is about a woman, married to an astronaut, having an affair with a space age philosopher.

On the plus side, the New Wave movement was committed to high literary standards. On the negative side, it seems that it occasionally exhibited the worst features of modern literary fiction: plotless, "slice of life" stories without a point. The ideal synthesis of the old and new, then, would be plot driven, entertaining work, and also well written.

The stories I recommend in this book are:

"Traveler's Rest" by David I. Masson. A masterpiece. If Borges was asked to write a story for a science fiction magazine, he might have written something like this. In this well written story, the flow of time varies by geographical location. The main character is relieved from the war front. He then gets a job, climbs the corporate ladder, has a wife and kids, takes vacations, etc. (Imagine leaving work on Friday afternoon, then being at a vacation spot for two weeks, and then coming back to work on the Monday which followed the weekend you left for vacation!) The main character then is unexpectedly recalled back to the war front: "Your Relief was killed so we sent back for you. You'd only left a few seconds."

"Running Down" by M. John Harrison. Another well written story, about a man who causes an increase of entropy around him. He is accident prone. His girlfriend is younger than she looks. Things around him break down. As his inner state becomes more turbulent, his outer state heads towards catastrophe.

"The Heat Death of the Universe" by Pamela Zoline. One way to interpret this story, which I originally did, is entropy as exhibited in the day in the life of a Californian suburban housewife. Another interpretation I came across, at the DePauw science fiction website, is that the story says things about science fiction as a genre.

The other stories in the book varied, ranging from worth reading to didn't like.

[Allan Dyen-Shapiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of one of the two strongholds of the late 60s/early 70s New Wave in science fiction. Some of it is brilliant. Masterson and the Clerks (although hard to call science fiction) uses minute description of details of office life to create a humorous and very real picture. There are several other very cool pieces. Others were less interesting. Major contribution to literature, but also some dead ends.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains Sladek's black comic masterpiece "Masterson and the Clerks" and M.John Harrison's "Running Down". Nothing else shines as bright as these, but then little does. Moorcock's is good as usual. Ballard just left us, along with Bailey passing last year, Moorcock is the last of the three New Worlds wunderkinds left.

[Nigel Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an anthology of short stories, poetry and articles from New Worlds magazine which, under Michael Moorcock's editorship was highly influential in the development of the British "New Wave" movement in science fiction in the 1960s. The material is of variable quality and much of it can, understandably be described as "experimental". There are a few gems however, and for me these are:
1) Running Down by M. John Harrison. This is a quality piece of writing, particularly in terms of the portrayal of the principal characters and the descriptions of the scenery of the Lake District in northern England, which forms the backdrop for most of the story.
2) Angouleme by Thomas M. Disch, which is a story about a group of well to do New York teenagers who, in need of a summer holiday project, decide to commit a murder. The story can't be described as science fiction, but it certainly is amusing and wonderfully well written.
3) Traveller's Rest by David I. Masson. This certainly is science fiction. A soldier in a war on an unspecified planet is demobilised and suffers distortions in his perception of the rate of passage of time as he moves away from the battle front. The plot idea is reminiscent of Christopher Priest's "Inverted World".
The book also includes some interesting articles about the history of the magazine and the new wave movement, and an index listing all of the stories and articles published in all 216 issues.