Michael Moorcock's new New Worlds is go!

Geoffrey sez, "In April of 2011, Boing Boing posted that Michael Moorcock's New Worlds was coming back to life. Well, Issue 1 went live this past October. The website is slick and the stories are great, there is only one problem: no one seems to know that New Worlds has returned. I know Boing Boing hates to see the good citizens of the interwebs miss out on anything grand, so I had to pass this along."

And it is grand. There's an essay by Iain Banks on Ayn Rand and L Ron Hubbard, ferchrissakes (but the annoying regwall is really annoying).

Michael Moorcock's New Worlds

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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I tried to register to read what Iain Banks had to say. Sigh.
- http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
  
  Me too, since I’m on page 412 of The Hydrogen Sonata right now.
  
  Still waiting for confirmation email.
  
  Must register for any content access, with real-world street address as required fields?
  
  Update – registration email came in… still must pay for content. D’oh!
- minh mcCloy
  
  sighsigh sigh – still waiting – so annoying – Iain Banks
http://www.hisnameistimmy.com Tim in SF

It seems as if I am to pay £3 to read the article.

Is it worth it, Cory?
Ramone

I’m sorry, but unless I’m entering credit card information they have no business asking for my home address. Clearly, the site was set up by rank amateurs.
- Boundegar
  
  Or body-stealing shapeshifters.
pjcamp

Grand? It’s a bunch of half-paragraphs with bullshit demands to purchase a paper rag. That’s so sad. Moorcock is living in the 70′s. He must have fish swimming through his platforms.

Registration was flagged by gmail as spam. That seems about right. Geez, Cory, if this were Apple you’d be apoplectic.
- Tynam
  
  That’s because Apple has the know-how and resources to do it right.
  
  Yes, my standards are different for small publishers, zines and fan stuff. What of it?
  - pjcamp
    
    If it were an actual small publisher at a newsstand, I’d be able to leaf through it and see if I like it first. In any case, I regard paper zines as a waste of trees and might put down some money to look at something on line but won’t look at something that demands I buy paper.
- Dan Groom
  
  Wait, so we’re being offered a legit 70′s sci-fi zine, with content from Banks, for £3….
  
  Sold!
s2redux

Have to admit, I was tempted to pay; gems like this head/subhead shouldn’t go unrewarded:
Planet Illuminated with Four Moons Discovered
Incredibly rare discovery made by volunteers of exoplanet over 5,000 lights away

But then I realized Moorcock’s revenue stream would be best handled by refugee subs from The Daily.
Gilbert Wham

What, exactly, is the point of a website that you have to pay toread the content of as an offline download ? And asking for names, addresses etc. just to be able to look at the site is abject lunacy. I want to like the idea that New Worlds is back, really I do, but the whole thing essentially amounts to no more than an extremely overwrought banner ad…
minh mcCloy

Well shall stop waiting for rego and start waiting for word that some sense & sensibility has been achieved
minh mcCloy

Found my rego in spam filter but shall wait – even if it is Iain Banks – have just reread two of the CUlture tomes so am temporarily sated.
tempo

Here’s what it says before you have to pay the 3 pounds to read the full article:
“A Rand-t!
By Iain Banks
Lafayette Ron Hubbard and Ayn Rand; two figures from the nineteen-fifties who still loom large today. One was a proficient if not particularly gifted Science Fiction writer who founded a bizarre cult which nowadays has many famous adherents and whose continuing influence, frankly, tests one’s faith in human nature, and the other invented Scientology.
Read more”
http://vertigo25.tumblr.com/ vertigo25

Cory logic: having to pay for content and paywalls are never ever ok. Unless it’s branded as appealing to ubergeeks.
TheOven

Nice article, but it completely fails to tell me what any of this that’s being brought back to life actually is.

Is New Worlds a MMPO game? is it a Magazine? Is it a website?
Is it too much to stick to the basics when telling us something is back by informing us what it is in the first place?