New Weird
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The New Weird is a literary genre that began in the 1990s and developed in a series of novels and stories published from 2001 to 2005. The writers involved are mostly novelists who are considered to be parts of the horror and/or speculative fiction genres but who often cross genre boundaries. Notable authors include China Miéville, Jeff VanderMeer, K. J. Bishop and Steph Swainston.[1]
Influences
Works which have been cited as influencing the New Weird include H.P. Lovecraft's stories, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels, and M. John Harrison's Viriconium series.[1]
Definition
Various definitions have been given of the genre. According to Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer, in their introduction to the anthology The New Weird, the genre is "a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy."[2] According to Gardner Dozois, however, the VanderMeers' anthology "ultimately left me just as confused as to what exactly The New Weird consisted of when I went out as I'd been when I went in."[3] Robin Anne Reid notes that while the definition of the New Weird is disputed, "a general consensus uses the term" to describe fictions that "subvert cliches of the fantastic in order to put them to discomfiting, rather than consoling ends". [1] Reid also notes the genre tends to break down the barriers between fantasy, science fiction and supernatural horror.[1] In comparing The New Weird to Bizarro fiction, Rose O'Keefe of Eraserhead Press claims that "People buy New Weird because they want cutting edge speculative fiction with a literary slant. It’s kind of like slipstream with a side of weirdness."[4]
Part of this genre's roots derive from pulp horror authors, whose stories were sometimes described as "weird fiction". The "weird tale" label also evolved from the magazine Weird Tales; the stories therein often combined fantasy elements, existential and physical terror, and science fiction devices.[5]
See also
References
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