THE ENTROPY EXHIBITION: Michael Moorcock and the British "New Wave" in Science Fiction.

Greenland, Colin; Michael Moorcock, signed.

ISBN 10: 0710093101 / ISBN 13: 9780710093103

Published by London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1983) dj

About this Item

SIGNED hardcover first edition - First printing. The first critical assessment of the literary movement known as "New Wave" science fiction. Michael Moorcock edited and produced the magazine New Worlds from 1964 to 1973. and in it, he encouraged the development of new kinds of popular writing - the essential paradox of the writing lay in its fascination with the concept of "entropy" - the universal and irreversible decline of energy into disorder. The New Worlds writers were not concerned with the far future and outer space, but with the ambiguous and unstable conditions of the modern world. As Ballard put it, "the only truly alien planet is earth." This study gives detailed attention to of the three main contributors to the New Worlds magazine - Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard. SIGNED on the title page by Moorcock and uncommon thus. Notes, bibliography, index. xii, 244 pp. Near fine in near fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 83483

Bibliographic Details

Title: THE ENTROPY EXHIBITION: Michael Moorcock and...

Publisher: London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1983) dj

Binding: Soft cover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

When first published in 1983 The Entropy Exhibition was the first critical assessment of the literary movement known as ‘New Wave’ science fiction. It examines the history of the New Worlds magazine and its background in the popular imagination of the 1960s, traces the strange history of sex in science fiction and analyses developments in stylistic theory and practice.

Michael Moorcock edited and produced the magazine New Worlds from 1964 to 1973. Within its pages he encouraged the development of new kinds of popular writing out of the genre of science fiction, energetically reworking traditional themes, images and styles as a radical response to the crisis of modern fiction. The essential paradox of the writing lay in its fascination with the concept of ‘entropy’ – the universal and irreversible decline of energy into disorder. Entropy provides the key to both the anarchic vitality of the magazine and to its neglect by critics and academics, as well as its connection with other cultural experiments of the 1960s. The Fiction of the New Worlds writers was not concerned with far future and outer space, but with the ambiguous and unstable conditions of the modern world.

Detailed attention is given to each of the three main contributors to the New Worlds magazine – Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard. Moorcock himself is more commonly judged by his commercial fantasy novels than by the magazine he supported with them, but here at last the balance is redressed: New Worlds emerges as nothing less than a focus and a metaphor for many of the transformations of English and American literature in the past two decades.

Review:

‘I cannot believe that there is any better criticism of SF in print at the moment.’ – John Sutherland