(Edward) John (Ted) Carnell was for a long time the editor of New Worlds. In about 1964 he left that post, leaving the magazine in the hands of Michael Moorcock, who famously instigated the "New Wave". Carnell at this time began a series of original anthologies: New Writings in SF. This series ran for 21 issues between 1964 and 1972 (when Carnell died), and continued through number 30 in 1977 under the editorship of Kenneth Bulmer. I've seen American editions of a few of these anthologies, but mostly they were only published in the UK. A glance at the tables of contents reveals a strikingly different set of writers from American anthologies (hardly surprising). Carnell's tastes seem, in general, to be somewhat traditional, while Bulmer published some more experimental stories (such as several of Brian W. Aldiss' "Enigmas").

Significant stories published in New Writings in SF include Brian W. Aldiss' "Man on Bridge", a number of James White's Sector General stories, and many of Colin Kapp's "Unorthodox Engineer" stories. Later on, under Kenneth Bulmer, portions of Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous With Rama, and Christopher Priest's novel The Inverted World, were published in the books. Regular contributors to Carnell included Kapp, White, John Rackham, Joseph Green, and John Baxter. Carnell published early stories by Priest, Damien Broderick, and M. John Harrison. Under Bulmer, Kapp remained a regular contributor, and Cherry Wilder, Aldiss, and E. C. Tubb were also frequent contributors.

These anthologies seem quite notably products of the "British Empire": we see Englishmen like Aldiss and Priest, a Northern Irishman such as White, Australians like Baxter and Broderick, a New Zealander in Cherry Wilder, and even the odd American such as Joseph Green.

In the meantime, Michael Moorcock had transformed New Worlds utterly. Throughout the late '60s it was notorious as the leading exponent of the "New Wave" in SF. By 1971, the magazine was dead in that format, however. But Moorcock began publishing New Worlds in book form, at first called New Worlds Quarterly. The books occasionally included reprints of stories from the magazine, but eventually became purely original, and from the beginning, most of the stories were new. The first 5 numbers were edited by Moorcock alone. With number 6 the "Quarterly" designation was dropped, and Charles Platt was co-editor. Platt and Hilary Bailey edited number 7, and Bailey alone edited numbers 8 through 10.

The original anthologies definitely continued the tradition of the Moorcock New Worlds magazine. It is striking to review the contents of these books and see how many fine stories were published. Many of the "experiments" were failures, but many too were very successful, and at his most radical Moorcock wouldn't refuse a very good story that wasn't "experimental". Stories from the Moorcock New Worlds anthologies include one of M. John Harrison's first Viriconium pieces, "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", Thomas M. Disch's "Angouleme", and Keith Roberts' "The Grain Kings" and "Weihnachtabend". Barrington J. Bayley and John Sladek were regular contributors, and Eleanor Arnason's first story was in New Worlds #5.

Under Bailey's editorship, New Worlds featured Arnason's classic "The Warlord of Saturn's Moons", a number of "Dancers at the End of Time" stories by Moorcock, more stuff from Barrington Bayley and Keith Roberts and Thomas Disch, and the debut of Geoff Ryman. New Worlds #10 was published in 1976, and after that the famous name seemed to die.

However, in 1991 David Garnett revived the name, and began a new series of original anthologies, in the tradition, more or less, of Moorcock's New Worlds. Four issues were published, from 1991 through 1994, numbered 1 through 4 (with internal numberings continuing the whole number series of the original magazine so that Garnett's first anthology was #217.) Garnett's anthologies featured contributions from New Worlds mainstays like Brian W. Aldiss and Barrington J. Bayley, as well as fine newer writers such as Gwyneth Jones, Paul di Filippo, Peter Hamilton, and Simon Ings. While this series ended at four, Garnett has again revived the name, publishing a very fine anthology as simply New Worlds (obscurely numbered 222 inside), in 1997. This book included very good stories by Moorcock ("London Bone"), Kim Newman ("Great Western") and Howard Waldrop ("Heart of Whitenesse"), as well as contributions from William Gibson, Ian Watson, and Pat Cadigan among others.

One more UK original anthology series, less well known, was Andromeda, edited by Peter Weston. Three of these were published, from 1976 through 1978, and interesting stories by Ian Watson, Harlan Ellison, George R.R. Martin, Larry Niven and Fritz Leiber were published therein.

Into the 1990s

The significance of general interest SF original anthology series lessened during the 1980s. By the middle of the decade, Terry Carr's Universe was the only remaining such beast, and then Universe ceased with Carr's death. Into the void stepped a new player: Full Spectrum. This was apparently the brainchild of Bantam SF editor Lou Aronica, and for the five editions published in this series, editing credit went to an ever-changing crew of people, apparently all part of the Bantam staff (much as with The Berkley Showcase). (Besides Aronica, editors credited for one or more of the books included Shawna McCarthy, Amy Stout, Pat LoBrutto, Betsy Mitchell, Janna Silverstein, Tom Dupree and Jennifer Hershey.) The Full Spectrum books avowedly had the goal of publishing stories across the "full spectrum" of the SF range, from hard SF to fantasy, and also to publish stories of "literary ambition". In this they most clearly resembled the triumvirate of 1970s anthologies, Orbit, New Dimensions, and Universe. But these books were much bigger than the earlier original anthologies. (Except for some standalones such as Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions.) The first issue featured no less than 25 stories, and it was successful with award voters as well, featuring a Nebula Winner in James Morrow's "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge", as well as two stories which were nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo, Norman Spinrad's novella "Journals of the Plague Years" and Jack McDevitt's short story "The Fort Moxie Branch". Subsequent numbers featured impressive stories such as Greg Bear's "Sleepside Story", David Brin's "The Giving Plague" and "What Continues, What Fails...", Gregory Benford's "Matter's End", Karen Joy Fowler's "Black Glass", Martha Soukup's "The Story So Far", and Gene Wolfe's great novella "The Ziggurat". Interesting writers who published early stories in Full Spectrum include L. Timmel Duchamp, Ted Chiang, Patricia Anthony and David Zindell. Full Spectrum ran for five editions between 1988 and 1995.