{"id":10291,"date":"2011-11-05T02:46:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T02:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=10291"},"modified":"2011-11-05T05:21:37","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T05:21:37","slug":"weird-fiction-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2011\/11\/05\/weird-fiction-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Weird Fiction Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"weird.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

weird<\/strong>, a<\/em>.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings, etc.; later, claiming the supernatural power of dealing with fate or destiny. Originally in the Weird Sisters<\/strong><\/em> = \u2020(a<\/em>) the Fates; (b<\/em>) the witches in Macbeth<\/em>.<\/p>\n

2. a.<\/strong> Partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly character; unaccountably or uncomfortably strange; uncanny.<\/p>\n

b.<\/strong> of sounds or voices.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> Of strange or unusual appearance, odd-looking.<\/p>\n

4. a.<\/strong> Out of the ordinary course, strange, unusual; hence, odd, fantastic. (Freq. in recent use.)<\/p>\n

b.<\/strong> Colloq. phr. weird and wonderful<\/strong><\/em>, marvellous in a strange or eccentric way; both remarkable and peculiar or unfathomable; exotic, outlandish. Freq. ironical<\/em> or derog<\/em>.<\/p>\n

5.<\/strong> Comb<\/em>., as weird-looking<\/strong><\/em> adj.<\/p>\n

Oxford English Dictionary<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Weird: I’ve relished the word since I was at school for the way it managed to embody or describe so many of the things I was deeply attracted to, especially in the world of fiction. Weird Tales<\/em> magazine when it was at its height in the 1930s was able to publish stories of fantasy, horror and science fiction, or hybrid stories of fantasy\/horror or horror\/sf, none of which needed to be alloted specific definitions when “weird” was there to cover everything. China Mi\u00e9ville noted the usefulness of the “weird” designation ten years or so ago, and I’ve been hoping ever since that other people might pick up the broader, more inclusive term instead of dividing the major genres into ever smaller sub-genres. “Weird” could accommodate generic work but also encompass those stories that were simply strange without possessing the usual genre trappings.<\/p>\n

So far the term hasn’t found the widespread favour I’d been hoping for but that may change thanks to the Weird Fiction Review<\/a>, a site launched this week by my friends and occasional collaborators Ann and Jeff VanderMeer whose enormous brick of an anthology, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories<\/em><\/a>, is published by Corvus this month. Weird Fiction Review states that:<\/p>\n

its primary mission over time will be to serve as an ongo\u00ading explo\u00adration into all facets of the weird, in all of its many forms\u2014a kind of \u201cnon-denominational\u201d approach that appre\u00adci\u00adates Love\u00adcraft but also writers like Franz Kafka, Angela Carter, and Shirley Jack\u00adson\u2014along with the next gen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion of weird writ\u00aders and inter\u00adna\u00adtional weird.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Already on the site is an interview with Neil Gaiman who says:<\/p>\n

I think of Hor\u00adror as a sec\u00adtion of a book\u00adshop, gothic as a type of book that ended, truly, with North\u00adhanger Abbey<\/em>, and The Weird as an attempt to unify what\u00adever it was that Robert Aick\u00adman did, that Edward Gorey did\u2014using the tools of hor\u00adror to delight and trans\u00adform.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m re-reading some of Aickman’s stories at the moment. He called them “strange” but I’d call them 100% weird. There’s one in Ann & Jeff’s anthology whose contents are an ideal introduction to this zone of literature.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The Vengeance of Nitocris<\/a>
\n\u2022 Die Andere Seite by Alfred Kubin<\/a>
\n\u2022 The King in Yellow<\/a>
\n\u2022 Hugo Steiner-Prag\u2019s Golem<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

weird, a. 1. Having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings, etc.; later, claiming the supernatural power of dealing with fate or destiny. Originally in the Weird Sisters = \u2020(a) the Fates; (b) the witches in Macbeth. 2. a. Partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly … Continue reading “Weird Fiction Review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,21,22],"tags":[1592,3053,949,1032,2313,1013,402,142,301,666,3530,2396],"class_list":["post-10291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-fantasy","category-horror","tag-alfred-kubin","tag-angela-carter","tag-ann-vandermeer","tag-china-mieville","tag-edward-gorey","tag-franz-kafka","tag-golem","tag-jeff-vandermeer","tag-neil-gaiman","tag-shirley-jackson","tag-weird-fiction-review","tag-weird-tales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2FZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}