By the end of 1966, financial problems with their distributor led Roberts & Vinter to abandon New Worlds, but with the aid of an Arts Council grant obtained by Brian Aldiss, Moorcock was able to publish the magazine independently.

The title has been revived multiple times with Moorcock's direct involvement or approval; by 2021, 22 additional issues had appeared in various formats, including several anthologies.

[5] Frances believed in the commercial possibilities of science fiction, and since Carnell still had the portfolio of stories he had put together in 1940, Pendulum agreed to make New Worlds into a professional magazine.

The magazine was saved by a group of sf fans who since 1946 had been meeting regularly on Thursday nights at the White Horse public house on New Fetter Lane, near Fleet Street.

[8] To keep costs down Nova decided to handle the distribution themselves; this was not easy but Cooper and his assistant, Les Flood, were sufficiently successful that in July the decision was taken to go ahead with the planned quarterly schedule.

[4][11] In September of that year Nova's board decided to close down both New Worlds and Science Fantasy,[4] and in preparation for the change Carnell signed a contract in December 1963 to edit an original anthology series, New Writings in SF, for publisher Dennis Dobson.

The printer who had been printing both New Worlds and Science Fantasy happened to meet Warburton in a pub, and mentioned that he was looking for additional work to fill the gaps in his schedule left by the demise of the magazines.

[4] After hearing of these plans, Moorcock and Warburton began to consider forming a separate company to continue publishing New Worlds, and Brian Aldiss contacted well-known literary figures such as J.B. Priestley, Kingsley Amis, Marghanita Laski, and Angus Wilson to gain support for an application for a grant from the British Arts Council in late 1966.

[16] A publisher still had to be found, and both Fontana and Panther Books expressed an interest, but the promise of the money and the prestige of an Arts Council grant convinced Warburton to stay involved personally.

The loss of revenue caused by the withdrawal from sale of the March 1968 issue was exacerbated by a temporary ban on the magazine in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, and by John Menzies' subsequent decision not to stock New Worlds.

The grant was eventually renewed, but by late that year Moorcock paid contributors and printing bills and severed relations with Stein and Stonehart after the July 1968 issue [15]and switched distributors to independent Moore Harness (Time Out, Private Eye).

[4][16] A regular monthly schedule was adhered to from January until July 1969, at which point came another financial blow when it was discovered that half of the print run of 20,000 was being held back by the distributors.

[22] In 2021 the magazine was revived once again by Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther at PS Publishing as an anthology series with paperback and limited signed hardcover editions.

[25] Wyndham's story, about hostility and bigotry shown by settlers on Venus to the Venusian natives, was reprinted in Other Worlds in 1950,[24] while "Inheritance" later appeared in Astounding Science Fiction.

John Brunner, later to become one of the most successful British science fiction writers, appeared regularly in the Nova magazines, starting with "Visitors' Book" in the April 1955 New Worlds.

[34] Among the best artists of this period were Brian Lewis, Gordon Hutchings, and Gerard Quinn, whose art is regarded by Ashley as comparable in style to Virgil Finlay's work.

Because of the subject matter, it took six years for Harrison to find an editor willing to accept the story; when Aldiss bought it for an anthology, Carnell agreed to print it in New Worlds, where it appeared in September 1962.

Moorcock assembled a dummy issue, and later described his intentions: "It would be on art paper, to take good quality illustrations; it would be the size of, say, Playboy so that it would get good display space on the newsstands; it would specialise in experimental work by writers like [William] Burroughs and [Eduardo] Paolozzi, but it would be 'popular', it would seek to publicise such experimenters; it would publish all those writers who had become demoralised by a lack of sympathetic publishers and by baffled critics; it would attempt a cross-fertilization of popular sf, science and the work of the literary and artistic avant garde.

"[38] Moorcock also wrote a letter to Carnell setting out his thoughts on what science fiction needed: "Editors who are willing to take a risk on a story and run it even though this may bring criticism on their heads.

Ballard also began to write some of his most controversial stories, including "You: Coma: Marilyn Monroe" in the June 1966 issue, and "The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race", in March 1967; both had been previously published in Ambit, a literary magazine, in 1966.

[42][43] Zelazny's contributions included "For a Breath I Tarry" in March 1966, and Disch published several short stories and the novel Echo Round His Bones, which was serialized starting in the December 1966 and January 1967 issues.

[42][44] In addition to the experimental material, Moorcock attempted to keep the existing readership happy by publishing more traditional science fiction; in the words of sf historian Colin Greenland, he "changed the contents of the magazine much more slowly than he pretended to".

[42] When Moorcock took over publication of New Worlds from Roberts & Vinter he changed the format from digest to a larger size with good quality paper that allowed better use of artwork.

The first issue in this format, July 1967, contained part one of Disch's Camp Concentration, written for the magazine and refused by its American publisher because of the explicit language used by the protagonist.

[21] The story is one of the best examples of the new approach Moorcock was taking with the magazine: in the words of critic Edward James, the goal was to "use science-fictional and scientific language and imagery to describe perfectly 'ordinary' scenes of life, and by doing so produce altered perceptions of reality in the reader".

Brian Aldiss, for example, wrote to Judith Merril in 1966 that he suspected the term was "a journalistic invention of yours and Mike Moorcock's", and added "I feel I am no part of the New Wave; I was here before 'em, and by God I mean to be here after they've gone (still writing bloody science fiction)!

[57] Critic Brian Attebery characterizes it as a "disruptive, existentially fraught and formally daring" style;[58] Peter Nicholls hesitates to define it but comments that "perhaps the fundamental element was the belief that sf could and should be taken seriously as literature".

Merril praised Disch and Ballard's contributions to New Worlds in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; Algis Budrys in Galaxy rebutted her viewpoint and condemned both authors.

[14] In the longer term it proved influential, despite the lack of wide acceptance at the time: in the words of sf historian Brian Stableford, "the paths beaten by the New Worlds writers are now much more generally in use".

[6][66] Carnell was unhappy with the results of this attempt to break into the US market, but in the event Great American collapsed later that year and only five issues appeared, on a monthly schedule from March to July.