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Best SF Stories from New Worlds #2
The Best SF Stories from New Worlds #2
More stories from the trailblazing magazine that abandons the conventions and overworked themes of traditional science fiction, and concentrates on writers who are concerned with fresh ideas and new techniques.
153 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
48 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,207 books3,746 followersMichael 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 28, 2024
The 2nd volume of the UK New Worlds collective welcomes the familiar names of Aldiss, Ballard, Platt, Disch, and even Barrington Bayley (here under the guise of PF Woods). While not as rich and vast as the 1st volume, this sophomore-slump maintains the engine of solid tales from different perspectives, however sometimes, the nouveau of these new writings seem enticing but not thoroughly satisfying. Close to a solid 3.5 stars, I guess, highlighted with a Paul Lehr cover that evokes a giant extraterrestrial whale, and the moon-blue craters of a sentient planet.
Kicking it off with Brian Aldiss in tongue-in-cheek mode. 'Another Little Boy' plays with an idiocracy which exposes the profitable socialites/politicians whom have have no idea what history actually is. No longer armed with libraries, the new-world brass have to come up with a festive idea to celebrate the bombing of Hiroshima. Slightly caustic, and clearly Aldiss is toying with the counterculture as dimwit hedonists on the shallow end of celebrity. Speculative sarcasm.
'Poets of Milgrove, Iowa' shows John Sladek taking a page from the works of Barry Malzberg. Yet again, a disillusioned astronaut comes back to Earth. A hero's welcome, or an acidic 'fuck you' to the American smalltown suckers. More speculative sarcasm.
'Transfinite Choice' is David Masson redeeming himself after his oatmeal entry within the 1st volume. This short story is brimming with great ideas about charting timeflows and moving populations. What is the best way to remedy overpopulation? Of course, time-shift the lower-class masses and send them to a new reality, an alternate reality not yet overcrowded. But with equations abounding in dizzying discourse, Masson cleverly shows that even in the mirror-worlds actually overcrowd themselves. Rebellion is always the solution when you have to sleep with strangers. A fine tale that delivers wonders while retaining a rather spastic manner. Still, very interesting.
'Total Experience Kick.' Charles Platt, the author of what I believe is the best sex-SF-farce ever written, 'The Gas', takes on a counterculture tale of obsession. Two sound engineers work towards creating the ultimate in high-fidelity rapture. As the tale develops, infatuation rears its ugly head, and a concert turns into something that defiles the senses, overloads the sensory, turns the mods into maniacs. A tale that brims in 1967 aesthetics, and not quite mind-blowingly so.
Thomas Disch offers a triptych of shorts about the Titanic, a real estate walk-through within a ruined New York City, and a philosophical discussion between two paranoid strangers. Nothing much to offer here, which is a rarity for Disch, one of my favorite SF writers hands-down. All of these pieces fizzle with a half-seeded idea, 'glimpses' not outright 'tales'; experiments more than actual engagements.
'Singular Quest of Martin Borg' by George Collyn. A perfect example to highlight the debate between info-dumping your backstory, or veiling it with restraint and innuendo.... I can see why purist readers would find this tale annoying, but I found this wide-scope story of revenge and body-swapping to be a highly readable farce. And yes, I'm a sucker for stories about dysfunctional and disillusioned robots, and gaudy cross-gender entropy.
'The Countenance' by Barrington Bayley/P.F. Woods' - solid. Why is it that the luxury liner travels the universe but does not have one window looking out into space?
'The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius' - here Michael Moorcock takes on the voice of a standard yank gumshoe amidst the ruins of Berlin. He throws in an alternate universe Hitler, Einstein, Bismarck, and that tongue-in-cheek nudginess is rather trite, and dare I say, annoying. Funny how bland this actually is, especially for Moorcock who seems to be channeling a dime-store hack on purpose, and in the end, a dime-store hack it is. Still, you have a man-eating garden...
'Sisohpromatem' by Kit Reed is a reverse-take on Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. No surprises here at how the story unfolds but entertaining in its own mild & predictable way.
And perhaps the collection is redeemed by Roger Zelazny's 'For a Breath I Tarry.' Of course we've read tales of computers still functioning in a human-less world, but Zelazny's acerbic and witty delivery is what makes this boldly parable tale play like a sincere parody of dueling mind-machines trying to rebuild the human race. Clean, effective, and with an Adam & Eve allusion that while common, is quite a nice way to end this Less-Than-Challenging entry into SF in the mid-to-late 1960s.
Kicking it off with Brian Aldiss in tongue-in-cheek mode. 'Another Little Boy' plays with an idiocracy which exposes the profitable socialites/politicians whom have have no idea what history actually is. No longer armed with libraries, the new-world brass have to come up with a festive idea to celebrate the bombing of Hiroshima. Slightly caustic, and clearly Aldiss is toying with the counterculture as dimwit hedonists on the shallow end of celebrity. Speculative sarcasm.
'Poets of Milgrove, Iowa' shows John Sladek taking a page from the works of Barry Malzberg. Yet again, a disillusioned astronaut comes back to Earth. A hero's welcome, or an acidic 'fuck you' to the American smalltown suckers. More speculative sarcasm.
'Transfinite Choice' is David Masson redeeming himself after his oatmeal entry within the 1st volume. This short story is brimming with great ideas about charting timeflows and moving populations. What is the best way to remedy overpopulation? Of course, time-shift the lower-class masses and send them to a new reality, an alternate reality not yet overcrowded. But with equations abounding in dizzying discourse, Masson cleverly shows that even in the mirror-worlds actually overcrowd themselves. Rebellion is always the solution when you have to sleep with strangers. A fine tale that delivers wonders while retaining a rather spastic manner. Still, very interesting.
'Total Experience Kick.' Charles Platt, the author of what I believe is the best sex-SF-farce ever written, 'The Gas', takes on a counterculture tale of obsession. Two sound engineers work towards creating the ultimate in high-fidelity rapture. As the tale develops, infatuation rears its ugly head, and a concert turns into something that defiles the senses, overloads the sensory, turns the mods into maniacs. A tale that brims in 1967 aesthetics, and not quite mind-blowingly so.
Thomas Disch offers a triptych of shorts about the Titanic, a real estate walk-through within a ruined New York City, and a philosophical discussion between two paranoid strangers. Nothing much to offer here, which is a rarity for Disch, one of my favorite SF writers hands-down. All of these pieces fizzle with a half-seeded idea, 'glimpses' not outright 'tales'; experiments more than actual engagements.
'Singular Quest of Martin Borg' by George Collyn. A perfect example to highlight the debate between info-dumping your backstory, or veiling it with restraint and innuendo.... I can see why purist readers would find this tale annoying, but I found this wide-scope story of revenge and body-swapping to be a highly readable farce. And yes, I'm a sucker for stories about dysfunctional and disillusioned robots, and gaudy cross-gender entropy.
'The Countenance' by Barrington Bayley/P.F. Woods' - solid. Why is it that the luxury liner travels the universe but does not have one window looking out into space?
'The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius' - here Michael Moorcock takes on the voice of a standard yank gumshoe amidst the ruins of Berlin. He throws in an alternate universe Hitler, Einstein, Bismarck, and that tongue-in-cheek nudginess is rather trite, and dare I say, annoying. Funny how bland this actually is, especially for Moorcock who seems to be channeling a dime-store hack on purpose, and in the end, a dime-store hack it is. Still, you have a man-eating garden...
'Sisohpromatem' by Kit Reed is a reverse-take on Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. No surprises here at how the story unfolds but entertaining in its own mild & predictable way.
And perhaps the collection is redeemed by Roger Zelazny's 'For a Breath I Tarry.' Of course we've read tales of computers still functioning in a human-less world, but Zelazny's acerbic and witty delivery is what makes this boldly parable tale play like a sincere parody of dueling mind-machines trying to rebuild the human race. Clean, effective, and with an Adam & Eve allusion that while common, is quite a nice way to end this Less-Than-Challenging entry into SF in the mid-to-late 1960s.
September 22, 2018
New Worlds #2 is a random sample of New Wave science fiction, without much distinction. You'll recognize the authors, at least some of them, but these are midlist works. J.G. Ballard delivers a faceted paranoid story that pushes the limits of the form, Thomas M. Disch has a nice little trio, and Roger Zelazny has a beautiful meditation on supremely powerful robots attempting to find humanity. I can't remember much about the rest of the stories.
January 23, 2020
3.75/5 (collated rating: Good)
The Best SF Stories from New Worlds 2 (1968) maintains a high level of quality with only a few duds. Of the three in the series I’ve read, it falls somewhere in overall quality between the first and the third (rescued from failure by Pamela Zoline’s 1967 masterpiece “The Heat Death of the Universe“).
Recommended for fans of New Wave [..]
For the complete review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
The Best SF Stories from New Worlds 2 (1968) maintains a high level of quality with only a few duds. Of the three in the series I’ve read, it falls somewhere in overall quality between the first and the third (rescued from failure by Pamela Zoline’s 1967 masterpiece “The Heat Death of the Universe“).
Recommended for fans of New Wave [..]
For the complete review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
July 29, 2016
Not as balanced as I imagined it to be but some of the short stories are a marvel. Sladek and Ballard made me devour each page and then re-read the thing again. On the other hand Platt and Collyn were transparent as glass with no surprise in between or at the end.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews