{"id":2843,"date":"2017-04-28T14:25:49","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T14:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=2843"},"modified":"2018-07-09T00:12:01","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T00:12:01","slug":"new-worlds-145-november-december-1964","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=2843","title":{"rendered":"New Worlds SF #145, November-December 1964"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Michael Moorcock<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Shores of Death<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 2) \u2022 serial by Michael Moorcock
\nMix-Up<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by George Collyn\u00a0\u2217\u2217<\/b>
\nGamma Positive<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ernest Hill\u00a0\u2217<\/b>
\nSome Will Be Saved<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Colin R. Fry\u00a0\u2217<\/b>
\nThe Patch<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Barrington J. Bayley [as by Peter Woods]\u00a0\u2217<\/b>
\nEmissary<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Hamilton<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Robert J. Tilley
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Cawthorn, Thomson
\nWe Live in Hope<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by Michael Moorcock
\nA Dish of Dobsons<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 book reviews by Michael Moorcock [as by James Colvin]
\nLetters to the Editor<\/em><\/strong>
\nStory Ratings 144<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Shores of Death<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 2) by Michael Moorcock continues on its merry way for another couple of chapters before becoming an irritating read in chapter nine. On Earth, they are arguing about the content of the message that will be sent into the universe. Marca, meanwhile, arrives at the Bleak Worlds and lands on the planet Klobax. He speaks with the man who meets the spaceship and tries to find out the location of a man called Sharvis, an ex-member of the government cabinet. Take arrives shortly afterwards.
\nThe rest of Marca\u2019s story involves him tracking down various people on Klobax to get to Sharvis, who has what Marca wants, which is the ability to make him immortal. Before Marca can get to Sharvis, Take tracks him down and tells him (among other things in a long data-dump conversation) about the awful side-effects of his immortality (I was never really sure what these were, but they were bad enough that Take wants to die, preferably after getting his revenge on Sharvis). Take kills Marca to spare him having to endure the same thing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Marca wakes up later on to find he has been resurrected by Sharvis, who then gives him another ear-bending until Take, who is has been unable to force his way into Sharvis\u2019s lair, is let in. Sharvis tells Take he can give him death by using him in the process to make Marca immortal.
\nThis final part just isn\u2019t credible. Apart from the hand-wavey stuff about the side-effects of immortality, Sharvis is\u00a0an almost comical mad-scientist type: this\u00a0is just ludicrous. Also, the original storyline about the solar system in peril has been completely dumped (by now, people on Earth have started fighting and the aliens have left).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Marca eventually meets up with Fastina again and finds out the limitations of his immortality; he is also unable to end the foment on Earth. This is an unsatisfactory conclusion, given that none of the parts fit together and it all ends in failure.
\nBy the by, I noticed a few clumsy sentences in this section, and again wondered if this was a first draft written in a hurry to fill a hole.1<\/sup>
\nMix-Up<\/em><\/strong> by George Collyn is the first story by a writer who contributed a number of stories to the paperback-sized edition of the magazine.2<\/sup>\u00a0This one is about a teleportation mishap that swaps the minds of a nubile movie star and an English professor. Routine, but breezily told.
\nGamma Positive<\/em><\/strong> by Ernest Hill starts with a scientist testing a drug on himself. The \u2018negative\u2019 version sends his consciousness back in time but the \u2018positive\u2019 appears to have no effect. He later goes to a psychologist who hypnotises him. The account the scientist gives of the future is a series of odd vocal sounds but the psychologist has more luck getting him to draw something. The result is a painting that is similar to prehistoric cave paintings. The scientist leaves (spoiler) and is killed in a road traffic accident, which the psychologist subsequently relates to the drawing.
\nThis is all dressed up in lots of pseudo-scientific jargon which is a bit of a slog to get through.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some Will Be Saved<\/em><\/strong> by Colin R. Fry has a priest wandering a post-apocalypse landscape who comes across a couple who are farming the land. They are called Adam and Eve, and (spoiler) they eventually turn out to be robots. Naff idea, but it has the odd interesting passage.<\/p>\n

Now it was summer and he stared about him with a renewed interest as he stumbled carefully through the trackless jungle that the countryside had become. He watched one of the groundspiders cunningly trap a blindmouse: if he wanted to guess at the most likely survival form, the groundspiders would have his bet. He shuddered as he thought of it, and felt a kinship with the blind little mouse struggling panic stricken in the evil creature\u2019s sticky trap. Yet: evil creature? It was not evil. It was simply trying to survive. But he was glad he did not see its kind often. It preyed on little mammals, little animals who belonged, if the evolutionists were right, to the far roots and branches of his own family tree. And there was always the nightmare thought that one of the spiders might grow big enough to trap a man.\u00a0 p. 80<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Patch<\/em><\/strong> by Barrington J. Bayley starts with Jundrak, the representative of the king of a space empire, visiting a rebel prince called Peredan. Jundrak offers Peredan a pardon if he will help the king fight a phenomenon known as the Patch. This has been travelling through space and killing planets, leaving dead animals and vegetation in its wake. Pederan refuses and Jundrak leaves.
\nUnknown to Pederan, Jundrak\u2019s ship uses a new form of space drive that enhances the slipways it travels along, and this effect will lead the Patch to the rebels. Later there is space battle between the forces of the prince and king but, even though he wins, Pederan\u2019s forces are then engulfed by the Patch.
\nThe final scenes (spoiler) have Pederan attacking the king\u2019s planet. Peredan\u2019s forces, thanks to the strength of their damper fields, managed to survive being engulfed by the Patch long enough to communicate with it. Pederan explains to Jundrak what the Patch wants:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Patch searches for food. But its food is of a peculiar kind. It feeds off the individuality of organic beings, the mysterious essence that makes each man, woman and animal a conscious entity subtly different from any other. When this is absorbed by the Patch, individuality is lost and the body decomposes into its chemical constituents\u2014as death ensues.
\n[. . . ]
\n\u201cWe found that the Patch is not particularly interested that the individual be full-grown, any stage of development is acceptable. It is the being it wants.\u201d
\nJundrak uttered a sound that was part grunt, part growl, part chuckle. \u201cSo we offer it our new-born children.\u201d
\n\u201cNot quite. The Patch gets just as much satisfaction from fertilised ova. It derives a deal of sustenance even from unfertilised ova, or from male spermatozoa. We offered it something to which everyone in the kingdom will have to contribute: from the women, a proportion of their Graafian follicles; from the men, regular donations of sperm. In return for an unmolested populace, we shall give the Patch the equivalent of the population of the kingdom in fertilised ova, and several thousand times that number of spermatozoa. This is to be repeated every month.\u00a0 p. 109<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a solid if dated space opera for the most part, but it is spoiled by its ridiculous ending.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The final story is Emissary<\/em><\/strong> by John Hamilton3<\/sup>, which describes a man wandering around a town touching many people, and buying various things only to dump them later on. He ends up in the sewers (spoiler) making radio contact with invading aliens, and notifies them he has contaminated humanity and (he finds out as the biter is bit) himself. One that should have stayed in the slushpile.<\/p>\n

This issue\u2019s rather bland (and given its limited colour palette, probably cost-saving) Cover<\/em><\/strong> is by Robert Tilley.4<\/sup>\u00a0There is Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> (although the\u00a0artists are not credited in this issue) by James Cawthorn, Thomson, Gilmore and Graham. The Moorcock and the Fry story are illustrated by Cawthorn and Thomson respectively, so presumably one of Gilmore or Graham did the illustration for the Hamilton, and the other did the\u00a0Editorial<\/em>, Books<\/em>, and Letters to the Editor<\/em> thumbnails, (the one for\u00a0Books<\/em>\u00a0shown below is new to this issue).
\nWe Live in Hope<\/em><\/strong>, Michael Moorcock\u2019s editorial, slates Charles H. Schneer\u2019s film of First Men in the Moon<\/em> before plugging a semi-pro fanzine called Epilogue<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Dish of Dobsons<\/em><\/strong> by Michael Moorcock has this review:<\/p>\n

I did not expect to like another book which Dobson\u2019s published recently. This is Heinlein\u2019s The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag<\/em> (18s). In spite of a deep dislike of Heinlein\u2019s mentality and his barren style, I have to admit that the short novel of the title and its companion short stories are extremely polished, readable and entertaining. Jonathan Hoag<\/em> is scarcely SF (it was originally published in Unknown<\/em>, 1942). It is really a fantasy following a formula that may well have originated in Unknown<\/em> (Fear<\/em> is another) and was used some years later with great effect by Frederick Brown (Come And Go Mad!<\/em> in Weird Tales<\/em>) and Fritz Leiber (You\u2019re All Alone! <\/em>in Fantastic<\/em>). Yet even though I guessed what was coming, Heinlein still managed to keep me reading and the shock ending really did shock me. The other stories are all good Heinlein, apart from The Man Who Travelled in Elephants<\/em> which struck me as an attempt to cash in on over-sweet Bradbury territory. It\u2019s a piece of sentimental nostalgia which may delight those Americans who respond to Goldwater\u2019s Myths and Legends of America<\/em>, but which finds no response at all in the non-American reader (for whom this collection was published). Here we get a good glimpse at Heinlein in a cosy reactionary mood (just as insidious as his more often noted violent reactionary mood). Other stories include They<\/span> (which is a trifle close to Jonathan Hoag<\/em> in theme, and particularly to Come And Go Mad<\/em>), All You Zombies<\/em> (one of Heinlein\u2019s best), \u2018And He Built a Crooked House . . .\u2019 <\/em>(another of his best) and Our Fair City<\/em> (which tends to fall down on its construction towards the end, but isn\u2019t at all bad). A much better collection, I must admit, than many published recently.\u00a0 p. 119-120<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The wealth of information you get from this passage illustrates why I like his reviews: apart from all the normal information you expect, you get a genre history lesson about this kind of story, he gives you an insight into\u00a0his biases and the writer\u2019s, and he does it all with pith and concision.
\nOne of his \u2018Paperbacks Received\u2019 reviews at the end made me smile:<\/p>\n

Atlas Shrugged<\/em>, Ayn Rand, Signet (Four-Square here), 7\/6. Never has such terrible old rubbish appeared between the covers of a book. If you want a good laugh (if a slightly horrified one) from start to finish, try this. At times it reads like Goebbels writing in the style of Marie Corelli.\u00a0 p. 121<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is also a half-page plug for Brian W. Aldiss\u2019s Greybeard<\/em> elsewhere.
\nLetters to the Editor<\/em><\/strong> has a missive from the author of next month\u2019s serial, Arthur Sellings:<\/p>\n

[Equinox<\/em>]? I don\u2019t know\u2014read through it and around it; felt the same way about it as I did the parallel story in F&SF\u00a0<\/em>. . . style, yes . . . basic image, yes . . . but story\u2014most decidedly no. I don\u2019t know who acclaimed Ballard \u2018the finest modern SF writer\u2019 but his ideas are too thin\u2014like those other admirable lads Sturgeon and Aldiss. Give him the title of the best writer writing SF, which is a bit different. It\u2019s probably the main problem today. Critics both in and out of SF plead for better writing and characterisation in SF, but they carp when, as it inevitably must, it crowds out the old SF elements.\u00a0 p. 122<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a number of fanzines listed at the end of the column including Les Spinge<\/em> #13, Peter Weston\u2019s Zenith<\/em> #5 (\u201cA bit earnest but worth a try\u201d), Camber<\/em> #14 (\u201cAnother well-produced duplicated job, with a special \u2018art folio\u2019 by Cawthorn, material by Rackham, and Moorcock on the private life of Elric\u201d), Charles Platt\u2019s Beyond<\/em> #6 (\u201cThis has a somewhat strident note at the moment\u201d) & Amra<\/em> #29.
\nThe final items are Story Ratings 144<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(discussed in the review of that issue),5<\/sup> and the Advertisements<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0page, which has one which\u00a0I believe is Moorcock\u2019s:<\/p>\n

Wanted [. . .] Also AUTHENTIC SF 31, March 53, TWS, Dec. 50, TWS Fruits of Agathon, 1948 plus TWS, Planet, F&SF cont. C. L. Harness stories . . .\u00a0 p. 128<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That issue of Authentic<\/em> has Charles L. Harness\u2019s classic novella, The Rose<\/em>; the December 1950 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories<\/em> has The New Reality<\/em>. Compact Books gathered together these two stories and The Chessplayers<\/em> (F&SF<\/em>, October 1953) in the collection The Rose<\/em> (1966). This was one of the few paperbacks of the time that went on to have a later\u00a0hardback edition (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1968).<\/p>\n

A lacklustre issue and the worst of the four Moorcock edited ones so far.6<\/sup>\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. I later found this in the author introduction to The Shores of Death<\/em> (Mayflower, 1974):<\/p>\n

This novel started life as a somewhat loosely knit and hastily written short serial in New Worlds<\/em> when I had just started editing the magazine and long material was hard to come by. It was a romantic, extravagant piece of work, like most of my stuff, on a kind of Faust theme (like most of my stuff) and although it got a better reception than it deserved, many readers asked \u201cWhere\u2019s the last instalment?\u201d because the ending hadn\u2019t made the point clear it was meant to make. Others hinted\u2014or stated blindly\u2014that the science wasn\u2019t all it could be, particularly the idea of clashing galaxies \u201cexceeding the speed of light and converting to energy\u201d. They were right. I wasn\u2019t convinced by the science either. Thus, I have rewritten the novel entirely, with only a fraction of the original plot and material, using a deliberately formal style, and making quite sure, I hope, that my theme is coherent this time.\u00a0 p. 7<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. George Collyn contributed eight stories (and a couple of reviews) to this version of the magazine and another story appeared in one of the early large-size editions. He also sold one story to F&SF<\/em>. His real name was Colin Pilkington and his ISFDB page is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. John Hamilton was blurbed as \u201can extremely promising writer\u201d: he would produce two tales for New Worlds<\/em> and one for Science Fantasy\/Impulse<\/em> between 1964 and 1966.<\/p>\n

4. Robert J. Tilley is probably better known for his stories to Authentic<\/em>, Nebula<\/em>, New Worlds<\/em>, F&SF<\/em>, etc., than the three cover designs he contributed to New Worlds<\/em>. He was one of a minority of UK SF writers to make multiple sales to F&SF<\/em>, and over a significant period too: 1960-1986. His ISFDB page is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Here are the story ratings for this issue (from #146):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I agree that the Collyn is the best of the short stories, and the Hamilton one of the worst.<\/p>\n

6. Lest you think I am being harsh, there are only four stories from the last two issues that were reprinted: the Jones, Tubb and Bayley from the last issue, and the Collyn from this one. Even then, they all reappeared only in a Best From New Worlds<\/em> collection, apart from the Bayley (Integrity<\/em> from #144) which was also reprinted in the author\u2019s\u00a0The Seed of Evil<\/em>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

First published 28th<\/sup> April 2017.
\nEdited 2nd<\/sup> May to add illustrations and alter formatting, as well as make some minor textual changes.<\/em><\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB link _____________________ Editor, Michael Moorcock Fiction: The Shores of Death (Part 2 of 2) \u2022 serial by Michael Moorcock Mix-Up \u2022 short story by George Collyn\u00a0\u2217\u2217 Gamma Positive \u2022 short story by Ernest Hill\u00a0\u2217 Some Will Be Saved \u2022 short story by Colin R. Fry\u00a0\u2217 The Patch \u2022 novelette by Barrington J. Bayley [as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-worlds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-JR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2843"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5463,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843\/revisions\/5463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}