Editing New Wave (science fiction) (section)

=== Differences between American and British New Waves ===
The British and American New Wave trends overlapped but were somewhat different. Judith Merril noted that New Wave SF was being called "the New Thing". In a 1967 article for ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'' she contrasted the SF New Wave of England and the United States, writing:

<blockquote>They call it the New Thing. The people who call it that mostly don't like it, and the only general agreements they seem to have are that Ballard is its Demon and I am its prophetess—and that it is what is wrong with Tom Disch, and with British s-f in general... The American counterpart is less cohesive as a "school" or "movement": it has had no single publication in which to concentrate its development, and was, in fact, till recently, all but excluded from the regular s-f magazines. But for the same reasons, it is more diffuse and perhaps more widespread.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Wollheim|first=Donald A.|title=The universe makers: science fiction today|date=1972|publisher=Gollancz|isbn=0-575-01338-9|location=London|oclc=16202154}}</ref><sup>:105</sup></blockquote>

The science fiction academic [[Edward James (historian)|Edward James]] also discussed differences between the British and American SF New Wave. He believed that the former was, due to J. G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock, associated mainly with a specific magazine with a set programme that had little subsequent influence. James noted additionally that even the London-based American writers of the time, such as Samuel R. Delany, Thomas M. Disch, and John Sladek, had their own agendas. James asserted the American New Wave did not reach the status of a "movement" but was rather a concordance of talent that introduced new ideas and better standards to the authoring of science fiction, including through the first three seasons of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]''. In his opinion, "...the American New Wave ushered in a great expansion of the field and of its readership... it is clear that the rise in literary and imaginative standards associated with the late 1960s contributed a great deal to some of the most original writers of the 1970s, including [[John Crowley (author)|John Crowley]], [[Joe Haldeman]], [[Ursula K. Le Guin]], [[James Tiptree, Jr.]], and [[John Varley (author)|John Varley]]."<ref name="James, Edward, 1947–1994">{{Cite book |last=James |first=Edward |date=1994 |title=Science fiction in the Twentieth Century |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-219263-9 |oclc=29668769}}</ref>{{Rp|p=176}}