New Worlds in print form

[Michael Moorcock]

New Worlds is likely to reappear, if only briefly, in 2004, which will be the
40th anniversary of my taking the magazine over! At the moment David Garnett is negotiating to put out a special issue of new work and Four Walls Eight Windows have bought the old New Worlds: An Anthology originally published in 1983. Ultimately, we hope to have an online edition running.
Meanwhile Fantastic Metropolis and RevolutionSF are running work which is very similar to that which we'd be running in New Worlds.

[Jules]

Any ideas on artists / photographers? I was wondering who you would use on an ideal (budget no object) contemporary New Worlds.

[Michael Moorcock]

I suppose that would depend on who submitted material!
The last one had material by writers as diverse as Brian Aldiss, Peter Ackroyd, Andrea Dworkin, Jack Trevor Story, Libby Dean, Iain Sinclair and myself. If I was doing an issue (which I'm not) I'd have a similar diversity -- very few writers associated with genre. Writers associated with genre I'd be happy to run would be Thomas M. Disch, J.G.Ballard,
M.John Harrison, China Mieville, K.J.Bishop, Steve Aylett, Jeff VanderMeer, Jeffrey Ford and others. Actually a magazine running writers of that quality already exists -- the new Argosy, which I mention in the Q&A. Any New Worlds I edited would continue the 'experimental' tradition but obviously we'd be a couple of decades further on.
While it doesn't run much experimental work, Argosy is the magazine which seems to me to reflect the other NW tradition, where writers associated with genre were asked to write 'outside' their genre and writers associated with the broad literary world were asked to write imaginative fiction.

[Jules]

Sorry Mike - might not have been clear enough, I was wondering what visual artists you'd have, seeing as the magazine issues had some good covers, etc.

Thanks for mentioning Argosy - I've contacted Jayde Design about getting a copy.

[Michael Moorcock]

Argosy is about the best fiction periodical I've seen in a long time.
I hope you enjoy it.
Artists would include Mark Reeve, who has done work with me in the past and whose political cartoons are also brilliant. He's also done the Seaton Begg section of the Multiverse comic. I like John Picacio a great deal. He's the guy who illustrated the special edition of Behold the Man and also did the jacket of Tales from the Texas Woods. He's also done the cover for the new edition of Wizardry and Wild Romance. My guess is that I'd tend to use Reeve the way I used Mal Dean while he was alive, to set the general style I wanted. There are plenty of other graphic artists I like to work with, such as Walter Simonson, who might want to do something. I also like the work of Mervyn Peake's son Fabian and might ask him to do some work on a new New Worlds. In my experience artists emerge if you have the space for them. Bill Jekylls was interested in doing work with us when there wasn't much work to do and his energies went into the rock magazines of the time instead. Harry Douthwaite is back working with Savoy, so I'd probably call on him again.
John Coulthart would definitely be on board, if he was willing. He's done the distinctive design for Savoy and recently did the Thackeray T. Lambshead book. He'll be working with me on Moorcock's Mammoth Miscellany which Constable and Robbins will be doing this coming Christmas. K.J.Bishop, one of the new writers I particulary like (see my review in The Guardian -- guardian.co.uk -- books) is also a professional designer. There's a lot of talent out there. I cut my teeth on magazine production and journalism and I still have the bug. I just don't have the time at the moment.

[A_Non_Ymous]

Argosy is indeed a fine magazine. I hope it stays afloat. Quality in
the long run can make a difference because its impact can make itself
felt a long time after. Look at the original New Worlds...

...As for the original incarnation of New Worlds, attempts to revive it on an
occasional basis have produced some interesting results, but to some extent
those revivals seem like attempts to recapture the Zeitgeist that animated
(in part) the original -- something about which I have qualms.

The original New Worlds was a remarkable publication, and the best s-f
periodical of its time. The number of good-to-excellent stories, many
of them challenging or surprising, was high. As Disch has remarked on occasion,
you guys were "kicking ass" and knew it. (His words, not mine.)

I just pulled down my copies of New Worlds 1-4 when it went to a quarterly
schedule in the very early '70s. The contents are at the very least first-rate.
I'm particularly fond of the Thomas M. Disch story from NW #1, "Angoulأ¨me."
The novella "334" by the same writer was in NW#4. There were excellent stories
from people like Keith Roberts (underrated and little known in the U.S. except
for Pavane), Ballard, Harrison, Aldiss, Sladek, Barrington Bayley, and Norman
Spinrad. There's an essay by M. John Harrison that appeared in NW#2 called
"By Tennyson out of Disney" that took on Tolkien and the Tolkien boom before
it had consumed the contemporary fantasy landscape; highly recommended,
if you can find it.

It's difficult to imagine a magazine dedicated purely to s-f and
associated essays that could hit the level that these first 4 quarterlies
reached. It's possible, of course, but I want to see someone deliver it.
They've got their work cut out for them. ;)

LSN