Well, any excuse to quote Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds… And this is an actual excuse. Way back in Easter 2012, Kevin and I attended an Eastercon panel about a new iteration of the legendary British SF magazine, New Worlds. The new staff had the blessing of Michael Moorcock himself, and great things were promised. Well, as I know only too well, running a magazine isn’t easy. However, a debut issue is now available online.
It looks very smart. It has four short stories, including one by Jetse de Vries. It has a rant about Rand and Hubbard by no less than Iain (M.) Banks. It has art by Jim Burns. It has reviews, and it has video. For some unexplained reason you have to log in to read/watch anything. That’s probably worth doing, as one of the videos is Moorcock talking about Mervyn Peake. They also feature Alan Moore, Brian Aldiss and John Clute.
So far so good, then. But I did do the usual thing. My congratulations to Laura E. Goodin for being the only named female contributor or subject in the whole darn thing. (Roz Kaveney is clearly moderating a panel in one of the videos, but she doesn’t get named.) Can we do better next time, please, boys?
I’m assuming you have to register to click on each link to delay the disappointment when you find that each link just takes you to a page with another link giving you a chance to “Buy Special Launch Issue #1 Price: £3.00”. Clearly they haven’t read the famous e-commerce article about “The $300 Million Button”, and still think forcing potential customers to register first is a neat idea. I can see what they are trying to do, I have no hang-ups on paying for a magazine, even an electronic one, on my to-read pile I have a Clarkesworld on this PC and an F&SF on my Kindle both of which I paid for, but the way they have done it seems like a bait and switch. Either be a web site, with at least some actual web content I can read, or be a magazine, with a publication I can easily buy, download and read at leisure.