Michael Moorcock Tribute

WHY THE PRISONER IS GREAT

By the mid-1960s the secret agent genre was becoming pretty tired and was already producing parodies. I myself wrote a couple of spy comedies featuring a character who would become known as Jerry Cornell. In early 1965 I completed a novel called The Final Programme, partly an homage to Beat author William Burroughs (who himself made use of the genre in his own work) and partly inspired by absurdist writers from Ronald Firbank to Boris Vian. It featured my character Jerry Cornelius, a kind of freelance agent searching out the computer programme created by his father. I featured some parts of it in New Worlds, the SF magazine I had taken over with a view to using popular elements to create new conventions for literary fiction. Meanwhile, on TV, two successful series were running: The Avengers and Danger Man (known as Secret Agent in the US). Beginning as straightforward spy thrillers, they soon included increasingly parodic elements, especially The Avengers. Elsewhere, the pop art movement was the most obvious expression of the sense amongst artists that the artificial barriers between popular and "high" art could and should be eroded.

This was the atmosphere in which Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner was conceived. When it came to our TV screens we applauded McGoohan as a genuine original. Familiar with his work on stage, I knew him to be a fine dramatic actor. I was especially impressed by his appearance in London's West End as Ibsen's Brand. It became quickly obvious to us at New Worlds that here was a fellow spirit. In fact one of our best writers, Thomas M. Disch, would soon enthusiastically take on the job of producing the first Prisoner novel. The Prisoner was attempting the same kinds of experiments directed at the same targets – us. It was as obsessed as we were with increasingly authoritarian attempts at governmental and corporate mind control, the erosion of civil liberties under a cloak of pseudo-democratic tricks, the use of computers and CCTV cameras to keep tabs on an increasingly paternalistic society. Like us, McGoohan was using popular entertainment to confront and challenge our leaders and demand that audiences become less passive in what they accepted in politics, fiction or drama. We became hugely optimistic as a result. Popular music, movies and graphic work also reached new levels of ambition and ushered in a golden age which lasted to the late '70s and set benchmarks still used today. McGoohan was the first successful TV actor with the courage and determination to place his career on the line and take the big risks reflected in his character's Prisoner persona. I continue to remember the series with a fierce fondness and to admire McGoohan as one of the leading creators of the period, along with Lennon and McCartney, Dylan, Burroughs, Paolozzi, Warhol, Scorsese, Spielberg and Coppola. He deserves to be remembered beside them.

--Michael Moorcock, Sci-fi/Fantasy author and winner of the Nebula Award and the August Derleth Fantasy Award

Moorcock's latest novels include The Stealer of Souls, To Rescue Tanelorn, and The Sleeping Sorceress

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