Thu 12 Aug 2021
Diary Review: NEW WORLDS SCIENCE FICTION September 1966.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Magazines , Science Fiction & Fantasy[11] Comments
NEW WORLDS SCIENCE FICTION. September 1966. Overall rating: ***½ stars.
MICHAEL MOORCOCK “Behold the Man.†Novella. An English bookseller and amateur psychiatrist travels in time to observe Christ’s crucifixion, but becomes Christ himself. It is hard to imagine that this was not written for controversy-in-itself, for it seems deliberately offensive. Much is made of the conflict between religion and science, but there seems to be no real point, as Moorcock cannot justify his version either. ****
ARTHUR SELLINGS “The Evening Sun Go Down.†The future society of a conquered Earth, maybe. (0)
JOHN CALDER “Signals.†The memoirs of an interatomic signals physonomist, or communications expert. Nothing really new. (3)
CHARLES PLATT & B. J. BAYLEY “A Taste of the Afterlife.†Novelette. To aid in the the skirmishes before WWIII, scientists devise a way to separate the electronic afterlife from a man. Far-out, but chillingly real. (3)
J. G. BALLARD “The Atrocity Exhibition.†Supposedly this means something. (0)
BRIAN W. ALDISS “Another Little Boy.†A parallel between the Bomb and the Pill is made, at a time 100 years from Hiroshima when the associated guilt feelings exists no more. Light treatment is terrifying. (4)
THOMAS M. DISCH “Invaded by Love.†Novelette. How Love can conquer the world, especially when brought by invading aliens. Only the Secretary-General of the UN resists, but he waits too long for his triumph. Powerfully portrayed. (4)
August 12th, 2021 at 8:36 pm
Agree the Disch is the standout, but then he is in most anthologies or magazines he was in.
I do think Moorcock succeeded at what he wanted to do, both in terms of story and shock value. The whole New Worlds concept was to sort of thumb its collective nose at the norm and try, not always successfully, to tell the old stories is a different way.
Granted Moorcock could be uneven, but I do think, at least in the expanded book version, he connects with what he wanted to say in “Man.” How any of us react to what he wanted to say is a differnt thing.
August 12th, 2021 at 10:12 pm
“Behold the Man” won the Nebula Award for Best Novella for that year. In spite of some unhappiness I seem to have had with the story, I’m glad to see I gave it four stars.
I’ve never read the expanded version. I think it’s about time I did.
Even with a couple of stories that failed with me, this issue of NEW WORLDS still had an overall ranking of 3 and a half stars. Not many SF magazines back then had three stories I considered worth four stars. That’s what saved the day for this one.
August 12th, 2021 at 10:20 pm
JG Ballard and Brian Aldiss. Whew. Coupla heavy-hitters there.
August 13th, 2021 at 10:17 am
Yes. Looking back from the future, almost 55 years later!, I think you could consider this to be an All-Star issue. I say this even though I’ve never cared for anything J. G. Ballard wrote, with one exception. I am quite willing to allow others to praise him, however.
August 13th, 2021 at 3:44 pm
Steve, Which Ballard did you like? For myself, I really dug High Rise. To me, the first line is one of the best all time: “Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr. Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”
August 13th, 2021 at 5:36 pm
The book by Ballard that really knocked my socks off was EMPIRE OF THE SUN, which of course was a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy living on his own, separated from his parents in Japanese-occupied Shanghai after Pearl Harbor. The movie made from it is extremely good, too.
I suspect that Ballard’s own similar experience at a very young age had a lot to do with the kind of SF and other genre fiction he ended up writing.
August 13th, 2021 at 6:20 pm
Ballard has long been one of my favorite writers.
Steve is certainly right, that Ballard’s childhood influenced his fiction.
I don’t know what “The Atrocity Exhibition” means.
But think it is one of Ballard’s richest and most creative pieces.
August 13th, 2021 at 7:20 pm
Atrocity Exhibition is also famous for predicting Reagan’s presidency in the piece titled “why I want to f*** Ronald Reaganâ€. Supposedly some GOP group got hold of the story and actually thought it was a legit psychiatric piece on Reagan’s electability….seriously.
August 14th, 2021 at 6:50 am
Ballard is one of my favorite writers and I’ve reread some of his fiction several times. I think Terminal Beach was one of the first stories I read and I was hooked by the moody atmosphere, etc. I then went on to read all his short stories and novels.
August 14th, 2021 at 9:26 am
You’re not the only one who’s that fond of Ballard’s work, Walker. I wish I could say the same about myself, but I’ve come to accept that it’s me who’s lacking.
August 14th, 2021 at 2:12 pm
An impression: most people either love or hate Ballard. That was true in the 1960’s, and apparently still true today. So the divergent views here, are a microcosm of the reception of Ballard in general.
Maybe the best place to start reading Ballard, is the short story “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D”. (It is one of his “Vermillion Sands” stories.) After that, “The Voices of Time” and “The Illuminated Man” would be good to read.
I really liked EMPIRE OF THE SUN too. But am not sure how typical it is of Ballard’s work. It’s a very good book – but maybe not a good place to start reading Ballard.