Fantastic Metropolis

What we are offering you here are examples of some of the best of the past, which you might not have had a chance to see, together with those writers who best exemplify our enthusiasms today. As a policy, we are actively looking for non-anglophone contributions and contributions by women, who are rather absent from this site. We know you are out there. Please let us see your work. We are currently shown a slight bias towards humorous fiction as you will see from stories like John Sladek’s ‘Stop Evolution in its Tracks!’ and Rhys Hughes’s Engelbrecht adventure. In the pipeline for publication very soon is some very funny work from Langdon Jones (the man who restored Titus Alone and wrote the beautiful music for Peake’s Rhyme of the Flying Bomb), Barrington Bayley and, newly arrived, Steve Aylett. James Sallis further enriches the site. Miéville will soon be appearing along with writers who were as little known to the general public as he was until recently, and, until we get more of your contributions, you’ll see more work by members of the editorial team, Rodrigues, Witcover, VanderMeer, Živković and myself, which we publish also as examples of the kind of thing we intend to run. You will note that we are championing no movements. We are enthusiasts, however, for ambitious writing. We have also supplied suitable links to sites about writers whose work exemplifies in some way the kind of fiction we enjoy. I repeat, we are actively looking for new contributors. We have no special policy, no manifesto, nothing but a hope to show the world that adult literary imaginative fiction is ambitiously written and conceived and offers as much variety, for every taste, as any other ambitious fiction. We are not here to persuade anyone through argument. We are here, however, to provide examples of the best and hope you will find plenty to enjoy.

The newest addition to our editorial team is the experienced editor, critic and novelist Paul Witcover. He was asked to join because we believe he can bring further dimensions and work of high quality to the site. You’ll find a piece on him here, which was one of the first things Gabe Chouinard put up. We’re also glad to be publishing Steve Aylett, a writer of whom I’m particularly fond. His stories set in the fictional city of ‘Beerlight’ are what first brought him to broad public attention. The Crime Studio, Slaughtermatic, Atom and his latest Shamanspace (‘God has been found to exist and the race is on to take revenge…’) are all recommended. An earlier generation would have called him a surrealist and the nearest writer I can compare him to is Boris Vian. James Sallis, another new contributor, was a colleague of mine on New Worlds from the late 1960s. Vian was a common enthusiast of ours. Sallis has written some authoratitive works on the guitar (viz. The Guitar in Jazz), which he plays with enviable genius, has translated Queneau and introduced Vian (see I Spit On Your Graves, which is on the Amazon UK site, if not the US) but is best known for his Lew Griffin detective novels. In books like Eye of the Cricket he offers a far subtler intervention than, say, Paul Auster’s. He has also published short stories in collections like Limits of the Sensible World and Time’s Hammer which is available through Amazon UK if you can’t find it anywhere else and from which the short story here was taken. Needless to say it is highly recommended. As a critic, he is admired for his work on writers like David Geddes and Chester Himes. He is also the translator of Queneau’s novel Saint Gingling and the author of Ash of Stars, about the work of Samuel R. Delany. A couple more lights brightening our favourite city, pards, and a lot more to come. You ain’t been dazzled by nothing yet…

On behalf of the Fantastic Metropolis editorial board I wish you all the compliments of your season and hope you’ll find this site substantial, stimulating and satisfying holiday reading!

With best wishes,

—Michael Moorcock

(Needless to say, the specific opinions in this editorial are my own!)