New Wave (science fiction)
| New Wave | |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1964 (disputed) to late 1970s |
| Location | Global, mainly the United States and the United Kingdom |
| Major figures | Michael Moorcock, Brian W. Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, John Brunner, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Thomas M. Disch, Roger Zelazny, Samuel R. Delany, James Tiptree Jr., Norman Spinrad, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip José Farmer, R. A. Lafferty |
| Influences | Nouvelle vague, avant garde, counterculture of the 1960s, antiwar movement, drug subculture, sexual revolution, environmentalism, surrealism, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, existentialism, Beat Generation |
| Influenced | Cyberpunk, New weird, Slipstream, Feminist science fiction, Afrofuturism |
The New Wave was a science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, characterized by a great degree of experimentation with the form and content of stories, often influenced by the styles of non-science fiction literature, and an emphasis on the psychological and social sciences as opposed to the physical sciences. New Wave authors often considered themselves as part of the modernist tradition of fiction, and the New Wave was conceived as a deliberate change from the traditions of the science fiction characteristic of pulp magazines, which peaked during the Golden Age. Many New Wave writers considered the sci-fi of such as irrelevant or unambitious.
The most prominent source of New Wave science fiction was the British magazine New Worlds, edited by Michael Moorcock, who became editor during 1964. In the United States, Judith Merril's anthologies and Harlan Ellison's 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions are often considered as the best early representations of the movement. Worldwide, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanisław Lem, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr. (a pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon), Thomas M. Disch and Brian Aldiss were also major writers associated with the movement. Moorcock wanted writers to borrow from the genre's techniques but encouraged writers to develop their own styles. Apart from Moorcock and Ballard, authors included Hilary Bailey, Barrington Bayley, M. John Harrison, Pamela Zoline, Rachel Pollack and Christopher Priest.
The New Wave was influenced by postmodernism, surrealism, the politics of the 1960s, such as the controversy concerning the Vietnam War, and by social trends such as the drug subculture, sexual liberation, and environmentalism. Although the New Wave was critiqued for the self-absorption of some of its writers, it was influential in the development of subsequent movements, including cyberpunk and slipstream. Authors like Michael Chabon and Hari Kunzru are also considered among later authors of New Wave fiction.