![\"NW089x600b\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/NW089x600b.jpg?resize=416%2C600&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Other Reviews: Fiction: Non-fiction: This is the first early issue here of one of the stalwarts of British SF magazine publishing. First published in 1946, it has, in various incarnations, been in\u00a0and out of\u00a0existence till almost the present day\u2014if you count a recent online version. One of the\u00a0two main editors was John Carnell (Michael Moorcock being the other), who helmed the magazine from its first\u00a0issue to #161 in 1964. This issue was from the middle of a period where the magazine had settled into regular monthly publication with a regular stable of authors.<\/p>\n As to this issue’s cover, I have\u00a0never been that much of a fan of Brian Lewis\u2019s colour work in New Worlds<\/em> and this one\u00a0is poorer than most. I\u2019m not any more a fan of this \u2018individual elements against a grid\u2019 style than I was of the various floating heads you used to get on old Astounding<\/em> covers. I\u2019d also add that the cover layout doesn\u2019t make matters any better: the \u2018Time Out of Joint\u2019 title is barely legible against the grid of the painting, and the other material on the cover is far more cluttered than it needs to be.2<\/sup> All in all, the whole thing looks like some badly executed attempt to copy the cover layout of Galaxy<\/em> magazine. Anyway, the contents. This issue starts the serialisation of what was probably the first noteworthy Philip K. Dick novel: Time Out of Joint<\/em><\/strong>.3<\/sup> This was an unusual novel for New Worlds<\/em> to serialise. It starts, for instance, in quite a low-key manner with Vic Nielson at his daily job at a grocery store and, indeed, the first part of the serial turns out to be almost entirely like a mainstream 1950s novel. However,\u00a0towards the end there are a number of slightly unusual occurrences. It must have been quite odd for all those 1950s SF readers well into the first part with very little sign of it being a SF novel. Colin Kapp wasn\u2019t a particularly fashionable writer to like in the mid-seventies when I first discovered\u00a0his work but I liked some of it (The \u2018Unorthodox Engineers\u2019 for instance) while realising that he could also be pretty bad at times. Breaking Point<\/em><\/strong> is one of those stories and does not match up to Editor Carnell\u2019s introduction:<\/p>\n \u2026a breakaway from the traditional approach to a psychological story. Colin Kapp now joins Brian Aldiss and Jim Ballard as British writers who are pioneering the new type of science fiction which is rapidly replacing the old.<\/em><\/p>\n This is a pretty dreadful novelette from Kapp. It opens with a military unit running the gauntlet of a mob in a world that seems to have gone mad. At some point a \u2018giant\u2019 spouting gibberish and laying about the mob with an iron bar appears. There are other periodic bouts of action throughout the story which helps drive it forward. In between this the characters talk incessantly about the fact the world has gone to hell and the contribution of the \u2018Beats\u2019. Oh, and a conspiracy involving a couple of the army personnel and the \u2018giant\u2019 develops. At one point the unit commander chirps up:<\/p>\n \u201cI think,\u201d said Foresyte dangerously, \u201cyou\u2019d better start talking sense.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I wish they had as I would have had\u00a0some idea of what this was supposed to be about.<\/p>\n There are three short stories. Appropriation<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Silverberg (Satellite Science Fiction<\/em>, May 1959) is an OK story about Earthmen on an alien planet populated with empaths. When they are ordered to leave they fear it will cause irreparable damage to the aliens. Matters, it turns out, are not as simple as they seem. The non-fiction starts on the inner front cover with New Worlds Profiles: Philip K. Dick<\/em><\/strong>. This has a photo of a very young Phil Dick5<\/sup> with no beard and, among other material, a quote:<\/p>\n Of science fiction he says, \u201cWithout being art, it does what art does, since as Schopenhauer pointed out, art tends to break free of the reality around us and reach a new level of gestalting. The virtue of its approach, too, is that it can reach persons who do not have a developed aesthetic sense, which means that it has a higher degree of sheer communicability than great art.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So there you have another definition of SF: ersatz art for the great unwashed.<\/p>\n There is an unusual editorial, Two In… One Out<\/em><\/strong>, where Carnell talks about the competition. He mentions the demise of Nebula<\/em> (concentrated too much on the American market apparently, rather than consolidating during the British printing strike of 1959 with its Dublin printed edition). He also mentions a couple of new US reprint mags and wonders whether the recent end of import controls will affect them now that the originals can be imported. But space is a merciless taskmaster, and no one is going to remain alive out there without long training and superb physical fitness; things which come from study and hard work and are not to be found in dance halls and billiard saloons.<\/em> p.107<\/p>\n Pass the hair shirt. Over many years I have proved to my own satisfaction that not only is telepathy a fact beyond doubt, but also that the \u201cmaterialisation\u201d of a physical substance outside the body of the medium must be admitted. <\/em>p.124<\/p>\n Overall, a disappointing issue, with the exception of the Dick serial and the Barclay story. Some of the rest of the fiction is so poor it makes it something of a slog reading\u00a0this issue.<\/p>\n Other Reviews: John Boston & Damien Broderick:\u00a0Building New Worlds, 1946-1959: The Carnell Era1 Fiction: Time Out of Joint (Part 1 of 3) \u2022 serial by Philip K. Dick \u2665\u2665\u2665+ Breaking Point \u2022 novelette by Colin Kapp Appropriation \u2022 reprint short story by Robert Silverberg \u2665\u2665 Peace on Earth \u2022 short story by Michael Moorcock and […]<\/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-626","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-a6","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","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=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJohn Boston & Damien Broderick:\u00a0Building New Worlds, 1946-1959: The Carnell Era<\/a><\/em>1<\/sup><\/p>\n
\nTime Out of Joint<\/em><\/strong> (Part 1 of 3) \u2022 serial by Philip K. Dick \u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nBreaking Point<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Colin Kapp
\nAppropriation<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Robert Silverberg \u2665\u2665
\nPeace on Earth<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Michael Moorcock and Barrington J. Bayley [as by Michael Barrington] \u2665
\nNearly Extinct<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Alan Barclay \u2665\u2665\u2665<\/p>\n
\nTime Out of Joint<\/i><\/b> \u2022 cover by Brian Lewis
\nNew Worlds Profiles: Philip K. Dick<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by John Carnell
\nTwo In… One Out<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by John Carnell
\nOutward Bound 6: Project Mercury<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Kenneth Bulmer and John Newman [as by Kenneth Johns]
\nPostmortem<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reader\u2019s letters<\/p>\n
\nWhile I\u2019m talking about layout I\u2019d also add that the typography inside the magazine is peculiar. Nearly every open quote mark is followed by a space but there isn\u2019t one at the closing quote. Also, before the start of every\u00a0sentence\u00a0there are\u00a0two spaces rather than one, and there are other peccadilloes as well.<\/p>\n
\nAs it turns out, Vic isn\u2019t really the main character\u2014that turns out to be Ragle Gumm, his brother-in-law. Ragle has an odd occupation in that he spends all day scrutinising the paper to complete a \u2018Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next\u2019 competition, at which he is very successful.
\nThe odd things that happen to these two, and also Vic\u2019s wife Junie, are: Vic lifts his hand in the bathroom to try and pull a light switch that isn\u2019t there; Junie tries to go three steps up where there are only two; most significantly, Ragle sees a drinks-stand disappear leaving only a slip of paper with printing on it. There are other inexplicable events as well, e.g. Marilyn Munroe is unknown in this world, etc. The plot thickens at the very end of this first part when Bill Black, a close neighbour of the Gumm\u2019s, telephones a work colleague and wonders whether Ragle is becoming sane again…
\nThis is actually a lot more engaging than is sounds and I found it an intriguing read, and I look forward to the next part.
\nBy the by, it is worth noting that this serial is edited not only for length but for content: a certain amount of bowdlerisation is evident, albeit not all this material has been removed\u2014some has been left where required for narrative reasons.4<\/sup><\/p>\n
\nPeace on Earth<\/em><\/strong>, a collaboration between Michael Moorcock and Barrington J. Bayley, concerns two immortal Men visiting Earth in the far future looking for a solution to the ennui they feel. After wandering about for a while they come across a deserted ship. Having discussed this they decide they should explore Earth further\u00a0and they go out into the desert where (spoiler) they find the skeleton of the occupant of the ship. They then run out of air (Earth\u2019s atmosphere has changed) and die, but before their end they find their \u2018[final] few seconds of his life were charged with meaning.\u2019 This kind of tosh could only be written by young men (20 and 22 respectively). I don\u2019t know what Carnell\u2019s (47) excuse was for publishing it.
\nThe best short fiction of the issue is Nearly Extinct<\/em><\/strong> by Alan Barclay. In this a man helps a woman who is pursued by aliens on a future occupied Earth. After killing a couple of these \u2018Frogs\u2019 he meets up with the woman and takes her to his family group in a cave in the hills. It turns out that the man, his children and father can teleport, which is why they have survived. The rest of the story details their lifestyle and further skirmishes with the aliens. I liked the low-key feeling of realism about this, even though we have both aliens and<\/em> teleporting in the one story.<\/p>\n
\nOutward Bound 6: Project Mercury<\/em><\/strong> by Kenneth Bulmer and John Newman is about the early days of space exploration. This article covers the animals that have been shot into space\u2014I note that no-one ever voices any concern that they must have been terrified\u2014and the recruitment of the first batch of astronauts and what their training will involve. The authors are going for the gritty hard-work approach to space travel and not the sense of wonder one:<\/p>\n
\nFinally we have Postmortem<\/em><\/strong>, the reader\u2019s letters. There are four correspondents in this column, including James White, all replying to an earlier letter from a Mr Haller who disliked psi stories and didn\u2019t want any more. Most of the replies are reasonable but one is a bit barking:<\/p>\n\n
\nIf you are going to copy the Galaxy<\/em> cover why not do the below:![\"NW089alternatex600\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/NW089alternatex600.jpg?resize=416%2C600&ssl=1\")
\nThat font for the type isn’t the best but it gives you an idea. If you\u00a0want to keep the odd\u00a0New Worlds<\/em> design:
\n![\"NW089alternate2x600\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/NW089alternate2x600.jpg?resize=416%2C600&ssl=1\")
\nYes, I know: way\u00a0too much time on my hands.<\/li>\n
\n“I have the sweetest little old dentist I go to,” Liz chirruped. “Must be nearly a hundred years old. He don\u2019t hurt me a bit; he just scrapes away and it\u2019s done.” Holding aside her lip with her red-enameled thumbnail, she showed him a gold inlay in one of her upper molars. A breath of cigarette smoke and cinnamon whisked around him as he leaned to see. “See?” she said. “Big as all get out, and it didn\u2019t hurt! No, it never did!”<\/em>
\nI wonder what Margo would say, he wondered. If she walked in here through the magic-eye glass door that swings open when you approach it and saw me gazing into Liz\u2019s mouth. Caught in some fashionable new eroticism not yet recorded in the Kinsey reports.\u201d<\/em>
\nThere are several other missing sections that I noticed and there may be more:
\np.15: a section that concerns the sexual dynamics between Vic, his brother Ragle and Junie Black, the neighbour.
\np.16: almost a page missing where Junie asks Ragle whether he is lonely not being married, and his mention of being divorced from a Polish girl.
\np.28: three paragraphs cut.
\np.29: several paragraphs cut.<\/li>\n
\n![\"Philip](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Philip-K-Dick.jpg?resize=208%2C300&ssl=1\")
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