It's new and kindof weird. . .

According to Tachyon Publication:

New Weird 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. New Weird has a visceral, in-the-moment quality that often uses elements of surreal or transgressive horror for its tone, style, and effects-- in combination with the stimulus of influence from New Wave writers or their proxies (including also such forebears as Mervyn Peake and the French/English Decadents). New Weird fictions are acutely aware of the modern world, even if in disguise, but not always overtly political. As part of this awareness of the modern world, New Weird relies for its visionary power on a "surrender to the weird" that isn't, for example, hermetically sealed in a haunted house on the moors or in a cave in Antarctica. The "surrender" (or "belief") of the writer can take many forms, some of them even involving the use of postmodern techniques that do not undermine the surface reality of the text.

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This is the first I've heard of "New Weird" and I've been reading Moorcock and Lovecraft for ages. I'm not sure what that definition is saying. But fantasy has many genres these days, the high or epic fantasy of Tolkien, the heroic fantasy of Robert E. Howard, Urban Fantasy of Laurel K. Hamilton and Jim Butcher, Paranormal Romance. But New Weird?

This is me mouthing off without knowing much, and my ideas may all be wrong. That said:

China Mieville is who I'd think of for New Weird, and Jeff Vandermeer.

There's plenty of fantasy that subverts classic high-fantasy notions of place, though, that has nothing to do with New Weird. The old Bordertown books. Urban fantasy in general. War for the Oaks is an excellent example of this.

I think it's really important to see the influence the surrealists had on the New Weird folks, whereas normal Urban Fantasy is influenced more by standard fantasy and horror and myth, and by living in an urban environment. And... you don't have to have a "normal" setting to be New Weird, at all. It's more a flavor, a choice of things to look at and ways of looking at those things, than a choice of Setting and Character and Plot Type.

I think those things are incompatible with with a standard-quest-fantasy scaffolding, but I wouldn't be hugely surprised to be wrong.

Ageless Stranger said:

Could anyone give me a precise definition of new weird?

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Britney Spears.

caw

I first heard of New Weird after reading China Meiville's works. After looking into a bit of information on it, it just seemed more and more appealing, it's definately a genre I'd like to get into.

If you want a definition, I'd suggest reading some interviews with Meiville, or even just his work. Also, I'd strongly recommend and information you can find on Mervyn Peake.

Hi,

I'm a bit surprised to see Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft mentioned in relation to New Weird. "New Weird" has little or no meaning, if you view it as a literary genre (although you could describe things they have in common, I suppose).

As far as I'm concerned, the story of "New Weird" starts in the sixties when Michael Moorcock takes over editorship of a genre mag called "New Worlds". This collects a couple of writers around a single mag: Moorcock, Ballard, Aldiss, Harrison (both M. John and Harry), Sladek... Soon, you hear the term "New Wave". I'm not sure when and where this originated. Generally, the term tended to be used more often in America (Judith Merrill, Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions anthology). I think the New Worlds crowd themselves didn't use the term consistently, but I'd have to look more deeply into this.

The basic tenet of New Worlds was to marry "genre" with "the literary mainstream" and not to let genre borders determine the story. You'll have to realise that Lord of the Rings only became really popular in the sixties; the "New Worlds" crowd's father figure was Mervyn Peake (and to a lesser extent, Lieber). Two genre streams emerged, basically, and they're in competition - sometimes playful, sometimes fierce - until today.

In the 90ies, the "New Worlds" mag was revived as an original anthology series, with Dave Garnett as editor. Moorcock was involved. So was Aldiss. Among the newer authors that regularly appeared were Paul diFilippo, Ian MacDonald. (If you can find those, they're well worth reading.)

Of the original New Wave authors, the most glaring omission was J.G. Ballard, who's pretty much gone mainstream these days (without changing his style too much - quite a feat!). Another author you didn't find in the new New Worlds was M. John Harrison.

In this decade, M. John Harrison published Viriconium, a collection of stories, some of which were originally published in the old New Worlds. Around this time, I think, people started talking about "New Weird". M. John Harrison was the veteran, Mieville the "new blood". And as always, they played around a bit with the term, until everybody started using it and it became too restrictive, at which point they start to distance themselves from it.

"New Weird" may be a lot of things, but it isn't new. New Worlds, New Wave, New Weird, Now What? It's basically a couple of people, historically linked, who care about style as well as story, tend to have socialist tendencies, and prefer Peake to Tolkien. None of this is obligatory. Sometimes they play around, and sometimes they are politicking. They all emphasise creativity over convention, though.

Shweta said:

China Mieville is who I'd think of for New Weird, and Jeff Vandermeer.

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I never heard of either author. Any recommendations on which books to start with either?

Meiville's "Perdido Street Station" would be a good start. That's how I started reading his stuff anyway, and it is the chronologically first of his Bas Lag novels.

Otherwise, he has a selection of short stories, called "looking for jake" which give a good look at his style, though not set in the bas lag universe (mainly).

Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen or his collection of short stories, Secret Lives.

Actually, possibly Veniss Underground is a better place to start, being an actual novel, though I haven't actually so much as picked that one up. City of Saints and Madmen is technically a collection of short stories and actually a... thing. An artifact. He's playing with the notion of what it is to make a book.

His stuff is well outside my comfort zone. It breaks my brain. But it's so well done that it pulls me along anyway, and breaks my brain in a good way, and all the while I'm going "whaa?"

He's also edited The New Weird anthology with his wife, Ann Vandermeer (Editor of Weird Tales). ETA: Do zoom in on the cover image. Just do. It's wonderful.