New Worlds 4 David Garnett

It’s a phrase I’ve heard a number of times, often from people who are quite willing to read a 500 page novel. Or a trilogy which adds up to 2000 pages. Or a series with a page count approaching infinity.

They do have the ‘time’ to read short stories, but they don’t want to read something which is different. They like what they know. They don’t like change, they don’t like anything new.

And every short story is different. With an anthology such as New Worlds, every story is new.

Different and new are not the route to commercial success. For example: every high street and shopping precinct in Britain is becoming like every other one. The same shops can be found in every town, and each one will carry the same line of products. Go into any franchised restaurant and you can eat the same hamburger, drink the same cola, and they will taste equally the same - equally tasteless. People don’t want to risk trying anything new in case they won’t like it. Or even worse. They might like it.

When it comes to records, films, television, books, it’s exactly the same.

Because that’s what the majority of the public wants: familiarity, recognition, reassurance.

Give them more of the same. No surprises. Repeat the formula. Over and over.

Geriatric rock bands go on annual ‘reunion’ tours, and their ‘greatest hits’ albums shift countless units. Some radio stations play nothing but ‘golden oldies’. Old records are re-recorded, remixed, sampled. You’ve heard it all before, and you’ll hear it all again. And again.

Hollywood exists to make money, not movies. And the way to do that is by making films which are like previous money-making films. If a new film becomes a hit, there will almost inevitably be a sequel. Old films are remade with a new ‘all star’ cast, but without a spark of inspiration. French films become American movies, because the audience can’t possibly watch anything with sub-titles.

Countless books have become film scripts and there are also films based on comics, on video games, on dimly remembered ancient television series. If viewers saw it on TV, they’ll want to see it again. Something which may once have been original is given the big screen gloss, polished and polished until it slips down smoothly and easily. There’s no danger of viewers being surprised by anything new or of not understanding what they see.

The most popular television programmes are soap operas. Three times a week, the same familiar characters live out their ‘normal’ lives. Even if there’s a murder or a kidnapping or an outbreak of rabies, it’s all part of ‘everyday’ life. Nothing original will ever happen, and there certainly won’t be any surprises. Viewers know every major event long before it’s screened because they’ve read about it in the tabloid press, who treat the soaps as news. TV listing magazines and papers give programme times for each episode - and also print exactly what will happen during that half hour.

Films attract similar media attention, with newspaper reviews which reveal the whole plot, cinema trailers which show key scenes, and television presenters who tell you how if all ends. As with the soaps, the majority of a film audience know in some detail what they are about to watch.

It’s becoming like that with books. Originality is a liability. I’ve written about this elsewhere, including previous New Worlds editorials, and there’s no point going on again about series and trilogies, novelizations and franchising, novels which are as heavy (and as readable) as bricks, books attributed to long-dead authors - and books by authors who write as if they were long dead.

At one time, I wondered if people only bought such books because it was what publishers offered to them. Now I realize it’s what they prefer. Readers want what they know, something like they’ve read before, even something exactly like they’ve read before.

Which is not what they get with short stories. Every short story has different characters, an original background, a fresh plot, new themes and ideas.

If this was what readers really wanted, it’s what they would buy. It isn’t, because short stories don’t sell.

And New Worlds hasn’t sold.

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Readers who have seen any of the three previous volumes in this, the latest series of New Worlds, will notice that NW4 is slightly different. There are no illustrations, no photographs. The reason is simple: lack of space. There is more fiction and non-fiction in this volume than in the other three, and so everything else had to go. This introduction is shorter than the others, and there isn’t even enough room for the usual three or four pages of authors’ biographies.

So I’ll mention the writers here ...

Barrington Bayley published his first NW story in 1959, as half of ‘Michael Barrington’; his co-author was Michael Moorcock. Graham Charnock and Robert Holdstock both broke into print in the 1968 ‘New Writers’ issue of NW. Charnock contributed several more stories, was assistant editor for a time, and wrote ‘On the Shores of a Fractal Sea’ in NW3; ‘The Charisma Trees’ is Holdstock’s second NW story. Another second timer is Matthew Dickens, who wrote ‘The Descent of Man’ in NW1. David Langford contributes his second article on books; the first was in NW2. Peter Hamilton makes it three stories in a row, following earlier appearances in NW2 and NW3. Ian McDonald has also had three stories in this new series, with ‘Innocents’ from NW2 winning the British Science Fiction Award in 1993. Garry Kilworth, Elizabeth Sourbut and Lisa Tuttle all make their NW debut in this volume. Whether they will ever make a second NW appearance is anyone’s guess.

Because this is the final volume of New Worlds. For a while at least.

Gollancz contracted to publish a four-book series and, as the title suggests, New Worlds 4 is the fourth and therefore the last. If sales had been higher, the series would have continued. But: short stories don’t sell.

Michael Moorcock published his first NW story in 1959, as half of ‘Michael Barrington’; in 1964 he became the editor, later acquiring rights to the title; since 1991 he has been consultant editor to the current series. He was born in London, originally edited NW from his London flat, is the author of the novel Mother London, and in 1994 he moved to Texas.

Perhaps that’s where the next New Worlds will be edited from.

What form will it take?

And when?

Who knows?

There may even be another volume from Gollancz next year. New Worlds 5. Edited by me.

Keep watching this space.

But at the moment I’m looking forward to a break from wading through the good, the bad and the unreadable: the Mobius strip of manuscripts which every editor has to confront.

I hope to find time to read some short stories.

<<Contents>>

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