The InternationalFoundation Review of Science Fiction 125 Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction In this issue: Jacob Huntley and Mark P. Williams guest-edit on the legacy of the New Wave A previously unpublished interview with Michael Moorcock Brian Baker tours Europe with Brian Aldiss Jonathan Barlow conjures with Elric, Jerry Cornelius and Lord Horror Foundation Nick Hubble on the persistence of New Wave-forms in Christopher Priest Peter Higgins is inspired by Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun Gwyneth Jones revisits aliens and the Aleutians 45.3 Volume Conference reports from Kerry Dodd and Gul Dag In addition, there are reviews by: number 125 Jeremy Brett, Kanta Dihal, Carl Freedman, Jennifer Harwood-Smith, Nick Hubble, Carl Kears, Paul Kincaid, Sandor Klapcsik, Chris Pak, Umberto Rossi, Alison Tedman and Juha Virtanen 2016 Of books by: Anne Hiebert Alton and William C. Spruiell, Martyn Amos and Ra Page, Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson, Brian Catling, Sonja Fritzsche, Ian McDonald, Paul March-Russell, China Miéville, Carlo Pagetti, Hannu Rajaniemi, Tricia Sullivan and Gene Wolfe Special section on Michael Moorcock and the New Wave Cover image/credit: Mal Dean, cover to the original hardback edition of Michael Moorcock, The Final Programme (Allison & Busby, 1968) Foundation is published three times a year by the Science Fiction Foundation (Registered Charity no. 1041052). It is typeset and printed by The Lavenham Press Ltd., 47 Water Street, Lavenham, Suffolk, CO10 9RD. Foundation is a peer-reviewed journal. Subscription rates for 2017 Individuals (three numbers) United Kingdom £22.00 Europe (inc. Eire) £24.00 Rest of the world £27.50 / $42.00 (U.S.A.) Student discount £15.00 / $23.00 (U.S.A.) Institutions (three numbers) Anywhere £45.00 / $70.00 (U.S.A.) Airmail surcharge £7.50 / $12.00 (U.S.A.) Single issues of Foundation can also be bought for £7.00 / $15.00 (U.S.A.). All cheques should be made payable to The Science Fiction Foundation. All subscriptions are for one calendar year; please specify year of commencement. Address for subscriptions: The Science Fiction Foundation, c/o 75 Rosslyn Avenue, Harold Wood, Essex, RM3 0RG, U.K. Email: Roger Robinson, [email protected] – all messages should include ‘SFF’ in the subject line. Back issues can be obtained from Andy Sawyer – see contact details below. Editorial address (for submissions, correspondence, advertising): Dr Paul March-Russell, [email protected] Articles should be up to 6000 words in length, double-spaced and written in accordance with the style sheet available at the SF Foundation website (www.sf-foundation.org). Books for review: Please send to Andy Sawyer, Science Fiction Foundation Collection, Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, PO Box 123, Liverpool, L69 4DA, UK. Please clearly mark ‘For Review’. Reviews (up to 1500 words in length) should be sent to [email protected] All contents copyright © 2016 by the Science Fiction Foundation on behalf of the original contributors ISSN 0306-4964258 Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction Editor: Paul March-Russell Guest Editors: Jacob Huntley and Mark P. Williams Book Reviews Editor: Andy Sawyer Editorial Team: Cait Coker, Dean Conrad, Andrew Ferguson, Heather Osborne, Maureen Speller Contents Volume 45.3, number 125, 2016 Paul March-Russell 3 Editorial Special Section: Michael Moorcock and the Legacy of the New Wave Jacob Huntley and 5 Guest Editorial: New Worlds-New Waves Mark P. Williams Mark P. Williams 8 ‘All-purpose human being’: An Interview with Michael Moorcock Brian Baker 21 The European Circuit: Report on Probability A and Barefoot in the Head Jonathan Barlow 35 New Wave Sword and Sorcery: Jerry Cornelius and Lord Horror Nick Hubble 48 Christopher Priest and the Persistence of the New Wave Features Gwyneth Jones 61 Aliens in the Twenty-First Century Peter Higgins 73 The Fourfold Library (4): Gene Wolfe PB 1 Conference Reports Gul Dag 76 Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities Kerry Dodd 78 Global Fantastika Book Reviews Kanta Dihal 84 Anne Hiebert Alton and William C. Spruiell, eds. Discworld and the Disciplines Paul Kincaid 86 Paul March-Russell, Modernism and Science Fiction Sandor Klapcsik 92 Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson, eds. Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction Umberto Rossi 95 Carlo Pagetti, Il senso del futuro: La fantascienza nella letteratura americana Alison Tedman 99 Sonja Fritzsche, ed. The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film Jeremy Brett 103 Hannu Rajaniemi, Invisible Planets: Collected Fiction Carl Freedman 106 China Miéville, This Census-Taker Jennifer Harwood-Smith 109 Martyn Amos and Ra Page, eds. Beta-Life Nick Hubble 112 Tricia Sullivan, Occupy Me Carl Kears 115 Gene Wolfe, A Borrowed Man Chris Pak 119 Ian McDonald, Luna: New Moon Juha Virtanen 123 Brian Catling, The Vorrh 2 3 Editorial Paul March-Russell As every Trekkie knows, on 8th September 1966, Star Trek aired for the first time on NBC. Three days earlier though, in Portmeirion, the cameras started to roll on a follow-up to the popular spy series, Danger Man. The Prisoner, however, would be no mere sequel and its defiance of genre categories would perfectly complement the anti-authoritarian mood when it finally aired a year later. Between them, Star Trek and The Prisoner offer two contrasting visions of the late 1960s. The former, influenced by an American liberal democratic tradition, emerged at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and just before Lyndon B. Johnson’s model of ‘the Great Society’ was broken on the wheel of Vietnam. The latter, informed by a sceptical tradition within British philosophy that includes John Locke and David Hume, dovetailed with modish concerns to be found elsewhere in the neo-avant-garde: consumerism, pop culture, sex, death and eroticism, madness and personal liberty. These contrasts aside, what is most striking is their near-proximity to one another, and how quickly the optimistic vision of Star Trek was lapped by The Prisoner’s pessimism. The sense of cultural acceleration is captured in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s current exhibition on the period 1966–70, So You Want a Revolution? Like its previous celebration of the work of David Bowie (reviewed in Foundation 116), the V&A seeks to overwhelm the spectator with a barrage of music, imagery and displays, the disorientation of which is designed to resemble the effect of those overloaded times . At least for those living in or around Ladbroke Grove, which is of course where Michael Moorcock was, whilst he was editing New Worlds from 1964 to 1970. The same kinds of visual and psychological dislocation to be found in The Prisoner, or at the V&A, can also be observed in the pages of New Worlds, especially after the magazine moved to its A4 format in 1967. By contrast, whereas Star Trek has grown into a global franchise after initially being cancelled three years into its five-year mission,New Worlds (like The Prisoner) has only ever been a cult phenomenon. The relative insignificance of the British New Wave has provoked several sf critics to diminish its importance in recent years, to promote the work of its American counterparts such as Samuel R. Delany and Joanna Russ as being of far greater influence on the genre, and to criticise the undue emphasis given to it by an academia fetishistically inclined towards literary experiment. Such a criticism seems to me to be misplaced. As the near-proximity in terms of date between Star Trek and The Prisoner reveals, there is no one monolithic 2 3 view of the late 1960s. And to compare one with the other is not to compare like with like. Instead, we have to see the development of the New Wave as part of the growing diversification of sf during the post-war years, as history, politics, ideology and demography affected the social character of economic production. (Although, with the exception of writers such as Hilary Bailey and Pamela Zoline, New Worlds did little to promote the cause of feminist sf.) Cult phenomenon it may be but, like The Prisoner, the New Wave had long-term effects upon writers such as Iain M. Banks, China Miéville and Alan Moore who are popular with academic and general readers alike. So, to dismiss consideration of the New Wave as out of court would seem to me to be a critical misjudgement. Jacob Huntley and Mark P. Williams have assembled, then, three articles that examine the legacy of the New Wave as well as a previously unpublished interview with Moorcock from 2008. Literary experiment crops up elsewhere in the journal, not least in Peter Higgins’ appreciation of Gene Wolfe (whose latest book is also reviewed). I am delighted that Gwyneth Jones has given us permission to print the text of a 2014 lecture, a sequel to her essay, ‘Aliens in the Fourth Dimension’. In what might appear to be a somewhat male-dominated issue, Jones supplies a badly-needed corrective to questions of alienness, female exploitation and the abuse of migrants. Lastly, whereas the V&A could be accused of seeking cultural kudos through a nostalgia trip, it is wholly appropriate for Foundation to revisit the New Wave since, in many respects, the journal was one of its by-products. John Brunner, a key New Worlds author, was interviewed in the very first issue whilst the journal was later staffed by ex-New Wavers such as Christopher Priest and Ian Watson. Speaking of whom . Ian Watson would like to point out that his collaboration with Roberto Quaglia, The Beloved of My Beloved (2009), was written in English and not translated as claimed in Foundation 124. However, in the same year, Quaglia’s sf novel, Pane, Burro e Paradossina, was translated into English and published by Immanion Press as Paradoxine: The Adventures of James Vagabond.