Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Alan Moore, I Hear a New World, Joe Meek, london, long london, notting hill, The Great When

Alan Moore's Next Novel "I Hear A New World" On The Notting Hill Riots

Alan Moore's next fantasy novel, "I Hear A New World", includes Joe Meek and the Notting Hill race riots of 1958

As promotion begins for the paperback edition of Alan Moore's first Long London novel, The Great When, we also get details for the second novel. Set almost ten years after the first novel, in 1958, this sees Grace Shilling find her way into The Great When, a parallel version of London, with Dennis Knuckleyard following her… and if you've read the first novel (and you really should) you know that this is quite the thing. I Hear a New World takes its title from the album by Joe Meek, I Hear A New World, recorded in 1959. One of the most influential record producers and sound engineers who ever lived, he may be best known for the Tornado's track Telstar in 1962. He is also infamous for killing his landlady and then shooting himself in 1967. He popped up at the end of The Great When, which used real London characters such as Joe Spot, Arthur Machen, Austin Osman Spare, Jack Comer and Ras Prince Monolulu, so we can expect Meek and those around him to do the same. I Hear A New World by Alan Moore will be published on the 21st of May by Bloomsbury Archer in the USA and in the UK, and we have the solicited listing for the first time;

"A daringly inventive fantasy novel about murder, mayhem, and magic from New York Times bestselling author and legendary storyteller Alan Moore. It's 1958 and Dennis Knuckleyard has decided to leave his adventures in the Great When in the past where they belong. For nine years, he's avoided so much as thinking about the magical version of London, until he rediscovers an unpleasant reminder of his last adventure-a key that he'd secretly brought into his own world from the other for safekeeping. But while Dennis may believe he's done with the Great When, it's far from done with him. When Dennis gives the key to a friend, its magical properties reawaken, bringing creatures from the other world into Dennis's and sparking riots in Notting Hill. Even worse, Dennis's old crush Grace Shilling has been forced into the Great When to investigate strange happenings in both cities. Desperate to keep Grace safe, Dennis follows her into Long London. But once inside the other city, it will not let him go away again so easily, and Dennis and Grace must fight to set things right in the Great When and their own world, or forever lose their lives-and each other. Full of Moore's characteristically stunning world building and rollicking prose, I Hear a New World is the extraordinary second adventure in the Long London series."

The Notting Hill race riots of London took place in August and September, 1958, after a gang of white youths attacked a Swedish woman, for having a Jamiacan husband, and spread to a mob of hundreds of white people attacking the homes of West Indian residents, with many arrested, though police were criticised for not taking the issue seriously enough and denying the racial aspect of the attacks. A Caribbean Carnival, the precursor of the Notting Hill Carnival, was held in January 1959 in response to the riots. And just as the anti-fascist street battles of Cable Street became part of the fantasy narrative of The Great When, so it appears the Notting Hill riots will do the same.

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