NEW WORLDS 3

In the 1960's, under the editorship of Michael Moorcock (he contributes an afterword here), the British sf magazine New Worlds was generally regarded as having sparked the revolution that became known as the New Wave; this relic is an annually published anthology of original material, comprising nine stories plus critic John Clute's witty, slashing, sometimes rather feline roundup of 1991's sf novels. Of the longer stories, Brian W. Aldiss offers a traumatized historical architect searching for his stolen memories; Peter F. Hamilton writes about climatic change and brain-expanding drugs that provide knowledge of the future ; and Paul J. McAuley mingles robots, virtual reality, and revolution in a future Holland. Elsewhere appear agreeable shorter variations: a strange new illness; aliens, robots, and a car mechanic; a robotized humanity rediscovering its soul in the far future; computer-stored personality; an existential waiting-in-line; and weird future street-life. Technically proficient, unobtrusively Anglophone, and different enough to be worthy of investigation by original- anthology enthusiasts.