Editing New Wave (science fiction) (section)

== History ==
===Influences and predecessors===
Though the New Wave began during the 1960s, some of its tenets can be found in [[H. L. Gold]]'s editorship of ''[[Galaxy Science Fiction|Galaxy]]'', which began publication in 1950. [[James Gunn (author)|James Gunn]] described Gold's emphasis as being "not on the adventurer, the inventor, the engineer, or the scientist, but on the average citizen,"<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gunn|first=James E.|title=Alternate worlds : the illustrated history of science fiction|publisher=Prentice-Hall|year=1975|isbn=978-1-4766-7353-0|location=New Jersey|chapter=Alternate Worlds: 1949–1965|oclc=1045641028}}</ref> and according to SF historian David Kyle, Gold's work would result in the New Wave.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kyle|first=David A.|title=A pictorial history of science fiction|publisher=Tiger Books International|year=1986|isbn=0-600-50294-5|oclc=15522165|orig-date=1976}}</ref><sup>:119-120</sup>

The New Wave was partly a rejection of the [[Golden Age of Science Fiction]]. [[Algis Budrys]] in 1965 wrote of the "recurrent strain in 'Golden Age' science fiction of the 1940s—- the implication that sheer technological accomplishment would solve all the problems, hooray, and that all the problems were what they seemed to be on the surface".<ref name="budrys196508">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Budrys
 |first=Algis
 |date=August 1965
 |title=Galaxy Bookshelf
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v23n06_1965-08#page/n185/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=186–194
}}</ref> The New Wave was not defined as a development from the science fiction which came before it, but initially reacted against it. New Wave writers did not operate as an organized group, but some of them felt the tropes of the pulp magazine and [[Golden Age of Science Fiction|Golden Age]] periods had become over-used, and should be abandoned: [[J. G. Ballard]] stated in 1962 that "science fiction should turn its back on space, on interstellar travel, extra-terrestrial life forms, (and) galactic wars",<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ballard |first=J. G. |date=1996 |orig-date=1962 |chapter=Which way to inner space? |title=A user's guide to the millennium: essays and reviews |location=London |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-00-748420-1 |oclc=604713425}}</ref> and Brian Aldiss said in ''[[Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction]]'' that "the props of SF are few: rocket ships, telepathy, robots, time travel...like coins, they become debased by over-circulation."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Aldiss |first1=Brian |last2=Wingrove |first2=David |date=1986|title=Trillion year spree: The history of science fiction |publisher=Little, Brown Book Group Limited |isbn=9780722133019 |language=en |oclc=812942029}}</ref> [[Harry Harrison (writer)|Harry Harrison]] summarised the period by saying "old barriers were coming down, pulp taboos were being forgotten, new themes and new manners of writing were being explored".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Aldiss |first1=Brian W. |last2=Harrison |first2=Harry |date=1980 |title=Decade the 1950s |location=New York |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=978-0-312-18987-7 |language=en|oclc=5564828}}</ref>

New Wave writers began to use non-science fiction literary themes, such as the example of beat writer [[William S. Burroughs]]—New Wave authors [[Philip José Farmer]] and [[Barrington J. Bayley]] wrote pastiches of his work (''The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod'' and ''The Four Colour Problem'', respectively), while J. G. Ballard published an admiring essay in an issue of ''New Worlds''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Title: Mythmaker of the 20th Century|url=https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1645085|access-date=2022-12-29|website=isfdb.org}}</ref> Burroughs' use of experimentation such as the [[cut-up technique]] and his use of science fiction tropes in new manners proved the extent to which prose fiction could seem revolutionary, and some New Wave writers sought to emulate this style.

[[Ursula K. Le Guin]], one of the newer writers to be published during the 1960s, describes the transition to the New Wave era thus:

{{blockquote|Without in the least dismissing or belittling earlier writers and work, I think it is fair to say that science fiction changed around 1960, and that the change tended toward an increase in the number of writers and readers, the breadth of subject, the depth of treatment, the sophistication of language and technique, and the political and literary consciousness of the writing. The sixties in science fiction were an exciting period for both established and new writers and readers. All the doors seemed to be opening.<ref>Le Guin, Ursula K. "Introduction". In Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery (eds.), ''The Norton Book of Science Fiction'' (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993)</ref>{{rp|18}} }}

Other writers and works seen as preluding or transitioning to the New Wave include [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[The Martian Chronicles]],'' [[Walter M. Miller Jr.|Walter M. Miller]]'s 1959 ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]],'' [[Cyril M. Kornbluth]] and [[Frederik Pohl]]'s anti-hyper-consumerist ''[[The Space Merchants]]'' (1952), [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s mocking ''[[Player Piano (novel)|Player Piano]]'' (1952) and ''[[The Sirens of Titan]]'' (1959), [[Theodore Sturgeon]]'s humanist ''[[More Than Human]]'' (1953) and the hermaphrodite society of ''[[Venus Plus X]]'' (1960), and [[Philip José Farmer]]'s human-extraterrestrial sexual encounters in ''The Lovers'' (1952) and ''Strange Relations'' (1960).<ref name=":5" />

===Beginnings===

There is not any consensus about a precise beginning for the New Wave—British author [[Adam Roberts (British writer)|Adam Roberts]] refers to [[Alfred Bester]] as having single-handedly invented the genre,<ref name=":32"/> and in the introduction to a collection of [[Leigh Brackett]]'s short fiction, Michael Moorcock referred to her as one of the genre's "true godmothers".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brackett|first=Leigh|title=Martian quest: the early Brackett|date=2002|publisher=Haffner Press|others=Moorcock, Michael, 1939–|isbn=1-893887-11-1|edition=1st|location=Royal Oak, Mich.|chapter=Martian quest|oclc=54378410}}</ref> Algis Budrys said that in New Wave writers "there are echoes... of [[Philip K. Dick]], [[Walter Miller, Jr.]] and, by all odds, [[Fritz Leiber]]".<ref name="budrys196710">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Budrys
 |first=Algis
 |date=October 1967
 |title=Galaxy Bookshelf
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v26n01_1967-10_modified#page/n175/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=188–194
}}</ref> However, it is accepted by many critics that the New Wave began in England with the magazine ''[[New Worlds (magazine)|New Worlds]]'' and [[Michael Moorcock]]. who was appointed editor in 1964 (first issue number 142, May and June<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Greenland |first=Colin |title=[[The Entropy Exhibition: Michael Moorcock and the British 'New Wave' in Science Fiction]]|date=1983 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul|isbn=0-7100-9310-1|location=London|oclc=8728389}} At the [https://archive.org/details/entropyexhibitio0000gree Internet Archive] {{registration required}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Gunn|first1=James E|title=Speculations on speculation: theories of science fiction|last2=Candelaria|first2=Matthew|date=2005|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-4902-0|location=Lanham, Md.|language=en|chapter=The 'Field' and the 'Wave': The History of New Worlds|oclc=318276608}}</ref>{{rp|251}});<ref group="note">
For example:

1) Luckhurst, Roger. ''Science Fiction'' (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005)

"What became known as the New Wave in SF was centred in England on the Magazine ''New Worlds'', edited with missionary zeal by Michael Moorcock between 1964 and 1970..."{{rp|141}}

2) James, Edward. ''Science Fiction in the 20th century'' (Oxford University Press, 1994)

"In April 1963 Michael Moorcock contributes a guest editorial to John Carnell's ''New Worlds'', Britain's leading SF magazine, which effectively announced the onset of the New Wave."{{rp|167}}

3) Roberts, Adam. ''The History of Science Fiction'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)

"It [the New Wave] was initially associated with the London magazine ''New Worlds''...which was reconfigured as a venue for experimental and unconventional fiction in the 1960s, particularly under the editorship of Michael Moorcock from 1964"{{rp|231}}</ref> Moorcock was editor until 1973.<ref name=":5" /> While the American magazines ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' and ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'' had from the start printed unusually literary stories, Moorcock made that into a more definite policy, and he sought to use the magazine to "define a new [[avant-garde]] role" for science fiction<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stableford|first=Brian|year=1996|title=The Third Generation of Genre Science Fiction|journal=Sciefictstud Science Fiction Studies|language=en|volume=23|issue=3|pages=321–330|isbn=9780722133019|issn=0091-7729|oclc=5544150298}}</ref> by the use of "new literary techniques and modes of expression".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ashley, Michael|title=Transformations : the story of the science-fiction magazines from 1950 to 1970|date=2005|publisher=Liverpool University Press|isbn=978-1-84631-427-8|location=Liverpool|oclc=276235554}}</ref><sup>:251-252</sup> No other science fiction magazine was made to differ as consistently from traditional science fiction as much as ''New Worlds''. By the time it ceased regular publication it had rejected identification with the genre of science fiction itself, styling itself as an [[experimental fiction|experimental]] [[literary journal]]. In the United States, the best known representation of the genre is probably the 1967 anthology ''[[Dangerous Visions]]'', edited by [[Harlan Ellison]].<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|title=The SF Site Featured Review: Dangerous Visions, 35th Anniversary Edition|url=http://www.sfsite.com/03b/dv148.htm|access-date=2022-12-29|website=sfsite.com}}</ref><ref>[http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/816.html Dangerous visions by Harlan Ellison: Official SFWorld.com review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906185727/http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/816.html|date=September 6, 2015}}. Retrieved May 10, 2012</ref><ref name=":5" />

According to Brian W. Aldiss, during Moorcock's editorship of ''New Worlds'', "galactic wars went out; drugs came in; there were fewer encounters with aliens, more in the bedroom. Experimentation in prose styles became one of the orders of the day, and the baleful influence of William Burroughs often threatened to gain the upper hand."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Aldiss|first=Brian W.|title=The detached retina : aspects of SF and fantasy|date=1995|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=0-8156-2681-9|edition=1st|location=Syracuse, N.Y.|oclc=32167428}}</ref>{{rp|27}} [[Judith Merril]] observed,  "...this magazine [<nowiki>''</nowiki>New Worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>] was the publishing thermometer of the trend that was dubbed "the New Wave". In the United States the trend created an intense, incredible controversy. In Britain people either found it of interest or they didn't, but in the States it was heresy on the one hand and wonderful revolution on the other."<ref name="Loved3">{{Cite book|last=Merril|first=Judith|title=Better to have loved the life of Judith Merril|date=2009|publisher=Between the Lines|oclc=757036408|orig-date=2002}}</ref>{{rp|162–163}}

Brooks Landon, professor of English at the University of Iowa, says of ''Dangerous Visions'' that it

<blockquote>was innovative and influential before it had any readers simply because it was the first big original anthology of SF, offering prices to its writers that were competitive with the magazines. The readers soon followed, however, attracted by 33 stories by SF writers both well-established and relatively unheard of. These writers responded to editor Harlan Ellison's call for stories that could not be published elsewhere or had never been written in the face of almost certain censorship by SF editors... [T]o SF readers, especially in the United States, ''Dangerous Visions'' certainly felt like a revolution... ''Dangerous Visions'' marks an emblematic turning point for American SF.<ref name="landon">Landon, Brooks. ''Science Fiction after 1900. From the Steam Man to the Stars'' (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997)</ref>{{rp|157}}</blockquote>

As an anthologist and speaker Merril with other authors advocated a reestablishment of science fiction within the literary mainstream and better literary standards. Her "incredible controversy" is characterized by David Hartwell in the opening sentence of a book chapter entitled "New Wave: The Great War of the 1960s": "Conflict and argument are an enduring presence in the SF world, but literary politics has yielded to open warfare on the largest scale only once."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Hartwell|first=David G|title=Age of wonders: exploring the world of science fiction|date=1984|publisher=Walker|isbn=0-8027-0808-0|location=New York|oclc=11029522}}</ref>{{rp|141}} The changes were more than the experimental and explicitly provocative as inspired by Burroughs; in coherence with the literary ''nouvelle vague'', although not in close association to it, and addressing a less restricted pool of readers, the New Wave was reversing the standard hero's attitude toward action and science. It illustrated egotism—often by depriving the plot of motivation toward a rational explanation.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Gunn|first1=James E|title=Speculations on speculation: theories of science fiction|last2=Candelaria|first2=Matthew|date=2005|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-4902-0|location=Lanham, Md.|language=en|chapter=The Readers of Hard Science Fiction|oclc=318276608}}</ref><sup>:87</sup>

In 1962 Ballard wrote:

<blockquote>I've often wondered why s-f shows so little of the experimental enthusiasm which has characterized painting, music and the cinema during the last four or five decades, particularly as these have become wholeheartedly speculative, more and more concerned with the creation of new states of mind, constructing fresh symbols and languages where the old cease to be valid... The biggest developments of the immediate future will take place, not on the Moon or Mars, but on Earth, and it is ''[[Inner space (science fiction)|inner space]]'', not outer, that need to be explored. The only truly alien planet is Earth. In the past the scientific bias of s-f has been towards the physical sciences—rocketry, electronics, cybernetics—and the emphasis should switch to the biological sciences. Accuracy, that last refuge of the unimaginative, doesn't matter a hoot... It is that ''inner'' space-suit which is still needed, and it is up to science fiction to build it!<ref name="ballard12"/>{{rp|197}} </blockquote>

In 1963 Moorcock wrote, 
<blockquote>"Let's have a quick look at what a lot of science fiction lacks. Briefly, these are some of the qualities I miss on the whole—passion, subtlety, irony, original characterization, original and good style, a sense of involvement in human affairs, colour, density, depth, and, on the whole, real feeling from the writer..."<ref name="galacticjourney.org"/></blockquote>
Roger Luckhurst pointed out that J. G. Ballard's 1962 essay, ''Which Way to Inner Space?''<ref name="ballard12">Ballard, J. G. "Which Way to Inner Space?", ''New Worlds'', 118 (May 1962), 117. Reprinted in: Ballard, J. G. ''A User's Guide to the Millennium'' (London: Harper-Collins, page 197, 1996)</ref> "showed the influence of media theorist [[Marshall McLuhan]] and the 'anti-psychiatry' of [[R. D. Laing]]."<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Luckhurst|first=Roger|title=Science fiction|date=2005|publisher=Polity|isbn=978-0-7456-2892-9|location=Cambridge; Malden, MA|language=en|oclc=58843750}}</ref>{{rp|148}} Luckhurst traces the influence of both these thinkers in Ballard's fiction, in particular ''The Atrocity Exhibition'' (1970).<ref name=":2" />{{rp|152}}

After Ellison's ''Dangerous Visions'', Judith Merril contributed to this fiction in the United States by editing the anthology ''England Swings SF: Stories of Speculative Fiction'' (Doubleday 1968).

The New Wave also had political associations:

{{blockquote|Most of the 'classic' writers had begun writing before the Second World War, and were reaching middle age by the early 1960s; the writers of the so-called New Wave were mostly born during or after the war, and were not only reacting against the sf writers of the past, but playing their part in the general youth revolution of the 1960s which had such profound effects upon Western culture. It is no accident that the New Wave began in Britain at the time of [[the Beatles]], and took off in the United States at the time of the [[hippies]]—both, therefore at a time of cultural innovation and generational shake-up...<ref name="James, Edward, 1947–1994"/>{{rp|167}}

[[Eric S. Raymond]] observed:

<blockquote>The New Wave's inventors (notably Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard and Brian Aldiss) were British socialists and Marxists who rejected individualism, linear exposition, happy endings, scientific rigor and the U.S.'s [[cultural hegemony]] over the SF field in one fell swoop. The New Wave's later American exponents were strongly associated with the New Left and opposition to the Vietnam War, leading to some rancorous public disputes in which politics was tangled together with definitional questions about the nature of SF and the direction of the field.<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Political History of SF|url=http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/sf-history.html|access-date=2022-12-29|website=catb.org}}</ref>}}</blockquote>

For example, Judith Merril, "one of the most visible—and voluble—apostles of the New Wave in 1960s sf"<ref name="Latham 2006 251–274">{{Cite journal|last=Latham|first=R|year=2006|title=Sextrapolation in New Wave Science Fiction|journal=Science Fiction Studies|language=en|volume=33|pages=251–274|issn=0091-7729|oclc=109022231}}</ref><sup>:251</sup> remembers her return from England to the United States: "So I went home ardently looking for a revolution. I kept searching until the [[1968 Democratic Convention|Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968]]. I went to Chicago partly to seek out a revolution, if there was one happening, and partly because my seventeen-year-old daughter... wanted to go."<ref name="Loved3" />{{rp|167}} Merril said later, "At the end of the Convention week, the taste of America was sour in all our mouths";<ref name="Loved3" />{{rp|169}} she soon became a political refugee living in Canada.<ref name=":1" />{{rp|142}}

Roger Luckhurst disagreed with critics who perceived the New Wave mainly in terms of difference (he gives the example of Thomas Clareson), suggesting that such a model "doesn't quite seem to map onto the American scene, even though the wider conflicts of the 1960s liberalization in universities, the civil rights movement and the cultural contradictions inherent in consumer society were starker and certainly more violent than in Britain."<ref name=":2" />{{rp|160}}<ref name="vietnamads">{{Cite magazine|date=June 1968|title=Paid Advertisement|magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction|pages=4–11}}</ref> In particular, he noted:

<blockquote>The young turks within SF also had an ossified 'ancient regime' to topple: [[John W. Campbell|John Campbell]]'s intolerant right-wing editorials for [[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|''Astounding Science Fiction'']] (which he renamed ''Analog'' in 1960) teetered on the self parody. In 1970, when the campus revolt against American involvement in Vietnam reached its height and resulted in the [[Kent State shootings|National Guard shooting four students dead in Kent State University]], Campbell editorialized that the 'punishment was due', and rioters should expect to be met with lethal force. Vietnam famously divided the SF community to the extent that, in 1968, 'Galaxy' magazine carried two adverts, one signed by writers in favour and one by those against the war.<ref name=":2" />{{rp|160}}<ref name="vietnamads" /> Caution is needed when assessing any literary movement, particularly regarding transitions. Science fiction writer [[Bruce Sterling]], reacting to his association with another SF movement in the 1980s, remarked, "When did the New Wave SF end? Who was the last New Wave SF writer? You can't be a New Wave SF writer today. You can recite the numbers of them: Ballard, Ellison, Spinrad, Delaney, blah, blah, blah. What about a transitional figure like Zelazny? A literary movement isn't an army. You don't wear a uniform and swear allegiance. It's just a group of people trying to develop a sensibility."<ref>{{Cite web|title=The SF Site Convention Report: A chat with Bruce Sterling|url=http://www.sfsite.com/09a/bru16.htm|access-date=2022-12-29|website=sfsite.com}}</ref></blockquote>

Similarly, Rob Latham observed:

<blockquote>...indeed, one of the central ways the New Wave was experienced, in the US and Britain, was as a "liberated" outburst of erotic expression, often counterpoised, by advocates of the "New Thing" (as Merril called it), with the priggish Puritanism of the Golden Age. Yet this stark contrast, while not unreasonable, tends ultimately, as do most of the historical distinctions drawn between the New Wave and its predecessors, to overemphasize rupture at the expense of continuity, effectively "disappearing" some of the pioneering trends in 1950s sf that paved the way for the New Wave's innovations.<ref name="Latham 2006 251–274"/>{{rp|252}}</blockquote>

However, Darren Harris-Fain of [[Shawnee State University]] emphasized New Wave in terms of difference:
{{blockquote|The split between the New Wave and everyone else in American SF during the late 1960s was nearly as dramatic as the division at the same time between young protesters and what they called "the establishment," and in fact, the political views of the younger writers, often prominent in their work, reflect many contemporary concerns. New Wave accused what became de facto the old wave of being old-fashioned, patriarchal, imperialistic, and obsessed with technology; many of the more established writers thought the New Wave shallow, said that its literary innovations were not innovations at all (which in fact, outside of SF, they were not), and accused it of betraying SF's grand view of humanity's role in the universe. Both assertions were largely exaggerations, of course, and in the next decade both trends would merge into a synthesis of styles and concerns. However, in 1970 the issue was far from settled and would remain a source of contention for the next few years.<ref name="Harris">{{Cite book|last=Harris-Fain|first=Darren.|title=Understanding contemporary american science fiction: the age of maturity, 1970–2000|date=2005|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|isbn=1-57003-585-7|oclc=803950614}}</ref>{{rp|13–14}}}}

===Decline===
In the August 1970 issue of the ''SFWA Forum'', a publication for [[Science Fiction Writers of America]] members, Harlan Ellison stated that the New Wave furore, which had flourished during the late 1960s, appeared to have been "blissfully laid to rest". He also claimed that there was no real conflict between writers:

<blockquote>It was all a manufactured controversy, staged by fans to hype their own participation in the genre. Their total misunderstanding of what was happening (not unusual for fans, as history... shows us) managed to stir up a great deal of pointless animosity and if it had any real effect I suspect it was in the unfortunate area of causing certain writers to feel they were unable to keep up and consequently they slowed their writing output.<ref name="Ellison, Harlan 1970 pp.296">Ellison, Harlan. 'Letter to the Editor' ''SFWA Forum 15'' (August 1970): 27–28. Quoted in Latham, Rob. 'New Worlds and the New Wave in Fandom: Fan Culture and the Reshaping of Science Fiction in the Sixties' in ''Extrapolation''. (Kent State Univ., Kent, OH) (47:2) [Summer 2006], pp.296–315</ref></blockquote>

Latham however remarks that Ellison's analysis "obscures Ellison's own prominent role—and that of other professional authors and editors such as Judith Merril, Michael Moorcock, Lester Del Rey, Frederik Pohl, and Donald A. Wollheim—in fomenting the conflict..."<ref name="latham3">Latham, Rob. 'New Worlds and the New Wave in Fandom: Fan Culture and the Reshaping of Science Fiction in the Sixties' in 'Extrapolation'. (Kent State Univ., Kent, OH) (47:2) [Summer 2006], pp. 296–315: page 296</ref>{{rp|296}}

For Roger Luckhurst, the closing of ''New Worlds'' magazine in 1970 (one of many years it closed) "marked the containment of New Wave experiment with the rest of the counter-culture. The various limping manifestations of New World across the 1970s... demonstrated the posthumous nature of its avant-gardism."<ref name=":2" />{{rp|168}}

By the early 1970s, a number of writers and readers were commenting about the differences between the winners of the [[Nebula Award]]s, which had been created in 1965 by the [[Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America|SFWA]] and were awarded by professional writers, and winners of the [[Hugo Award]]s, awarded by fans at the annual [[World Science Fiction Convention]], with some arguing that this indicated that many authors were alienated from the sentiments of their readers: "While some writers and fans continued to argue about the New Wave until the end of the 1970s—in ''The World of Science Fiction, 1926–1976: The History of a Subculture'', for instance, Lester Del Ray devotes several pages to castigating the movement—for the most part the controversy died down as the decade wore on."<ref name="Harris" />{{rp|20}}