Talk:New Worlds (magazine)

Reprint?
Is it correct to say that the US-based New Worlds was a reprint? I thought it was but Strauss's 1951-1965 index shows Aldiss "Planet of Death" only in New Worlds US. Notinasnaid 12:52, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC) 1`

Orphaned references in New Worlds (magazine)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of New Worlds (magazine)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "issues": From Science Fantasy (magazine): See the individual issues. For convenience, an online index is available at  From Authentic Science Fiction: See the individual issues. From Analog Science Fiction and Fact: See the individual issues. For convenience, an online index is available at and  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This has been fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

2011 relaunch
I've cut the announcement of the 2011 relaunch; here's the text I cut:
 * In April, 2011, news broke that the Daves Dream Company, under the direction of Dick Jude, David Hodson, David Tamlyn, Roger Gray and Felix Jude-West - had reached an agreement with Michael Moorcock to revive New Worlds, and that Moorcock agreed to lend his name to the masthead of the magazine and to contribute editorial pieces. The new publishers said that the magazine will appear in both electronic and traditional print formats and will be backed up by a website with extensive editorial features free to all interested readers.
 * The publishers anticipate that the new incarnation of the magazine will debut in September/October 2011, initially on a quarterly publishing schedule. Subscribers will receive both the electronic and printed versions of the magazine. Subscription rates and details will appear on www.newworlds.co.uk when the website goes live in June/July 2011.

The cite is to |SF Signal. I asked Ealdgyth, a frequent source reviewer at FAC, if she would regard SF Signal as a reliable source, and she said no. If this happens it will be covered by Locus, and since that is a reliable source we would be able to add it at that point. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Reprint editions
I am having some trouble sourcing the overseas editions. Per this page there was a Canadian edition in the mid 1950s and a New Zealand edition from the 1950s for some time, but neither are mentioned in any of my bibliographic sources. Searching on used.addall.com finds the February and March 1955 issues of the Canadian version, so it appears they really do exist. If anyone knows of a site that can be used as a reliable source, please post a note here. I don't think philsp.com can be used since it's self-published. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:COLOUR
WP:COLOUR states that articles should not convey information solely by use of colour, as this articles does in the tables with coloured legends. Alarbus (talk) 15:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The only thing that's conveyed by colour is who was editor, and that's repeated in the bibliographic details section at the end of the article, so I think it's OK as it stands -- the information is not conveyed "solely" by use of colour. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Notes on influence and litcrit
The "influence" paragraph is left over from before I starting working on this article, as are the two paragraphs above it. I'll keep working through the contents and reception section since I think that can be a fairly straightforward listing of notable stories and review commentary; it shouldn't take me long, and then I can stand adding some material to the influence section.

I saw your edit summary about whether to split out the litcrit from the influence section. I think it depends on how much useful material we find. I can source some of the influence section from straightforward genre histories; they'll talk about to what extent New Worlds-type stories began to be seen elsewhere, and so forth. The litcrit stuff is mostly going to be about the content of the stories, and mostly won't confine itself to the magazine, so we may find that much of the material you find by searching for New Worlds is actually more suited for the New Wave science fiction article (which we could work on if you like, or we could just park the source info on that talk page).

I think the influence section needs to cover:
 * the contemporary reception within sf -- how did writers, readers, fans, other editors react? How did they change their writing or reading or editing in response?
 * the impact on the careers of the associated writers -- particularly Moorcock, Aldiss and Ballard, but maybe also Sladek, Disch, Priest, and possibly others.
 * the way sf changed after New Worlds -- had it really made a difference? Was it a symptom or a cause of the changes in sf over the next ten or twenty years?  What is the historical importance of the magazine?

I don't know what we'll find in the literature search, so it's hard to categorize it, but some is likely to fall into the above categories. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Based on my preliminary search, New Worlds is credited with making a significant difference in the development of sf as a genre, although I haven't yet seen many specifics on that. I have actually found some material about the magazine as independent of the stories and the new wave movement - I'll add that in a bit. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:33, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like there's some influence material in Transformations, which I don't have - can you take a look? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:20, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I should be able to take a look tonight and post something. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Check an edit
Nikkimaria: I just split a sentence to organize the influence section more chronologically; there won't be much on the fifties so I wanted to assemble it in the first para. The Ashley quote I moved is definitely related to the 50s, but you supported it with two other cites from sources I don't have. Can you check to make sure they're still in the right place, or if they should be moved to the 1950s para? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:31, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, what era does this quote refer to - 50s or 60s? "New Worlds has been credited with "shap[ing] the way science fiction developed" as a genre", from James & Mendlesohn. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 15:38, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The first two cites fit the 1960s; the James and Mendlesohn doesn't specify an era, and is making a general point, so I think is fine where it is. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:01, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Influence/New Wave section
Nikkimaria, I've restructured the section a bit and retitled it, since it seems sensible, given the sources, to talk about the interaction with the New Wave specifically. A couple of issues.


 * The 1950s para is short and seems out of place. Perhaps it should be moved to the Carnell part of "Contents and reception"? That would work with the retitling of "Influence" to its current title, which excludes the 1950s.  If you can confirm the question I have above about which sources are talking about which decades, I will make that change.
 * I think the general sequence of the section is starting to take shape but I'm not yet happy with it; it doesn't yet read with much flow. I think the sequence is something like:
 * Intro -- New Wave triggered by Moorcock editorials, lots of response from writers, contents of New Worlds changed a lot
 * Comments like Ballard's about what he was trying to accomplish, attempted definitions and characterizations of the New Wave
 * Initial response and proselytization -- Merril advocacy, England Swings SF, lack of interest in the label from writers such as Aldiss
 * Antagonistic response from, in particular, Americans such as Pohl, and from many readers
 * Fizzling out of the movement at the end of the 1960s but ongoing influence within the genre -- e.g. editors such as Knight

If you agree in outline I will have another go at assembling this when I get some more time. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Mostly I agree with that proposed outline. However, it might also work to keep some of the interaction between US writers wrt New Wave - Merril, others responding to Merril, Merril countering - as well as the US response directly to New Worlds. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:01, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Redrafted section
Nikkimaria, could you take a look at User:Mike_Christie/Sandbox and let me know what you think? I've tried to rewrite the section for sequence and flow, without worrying about sourcing the statements; I think everything there can be sourced. If we can get it right in that format I can bring it back here and add back the sourcing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:00, 11 March 2012 (UTC)