Comments on: The Weird: What Is It?…and Is It Watching You? (Give Us Your Picks)

By: “Genre Predispositions and The Weird” by John H. Stevens — A Dribble of Ink

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:16:48 +0000

[...] SF, horror and all the stuff that won’t fit neatly into slots.” In their introduction to The Weird, the VanderMeers assert that “The Weird is as much a sensation as it is a mode [...]

By: Reef

Reef — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:28:08 +0000

Philip k. Dick, Darrell Schweitzer, Alganon Blackwood, M P Shiel. All touch strongly on themes and moods of the “Weird”

By: Léon Mulder

Léon Mulder — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:58:57 +0000

Thinking of "Weird Music", the name of American composer Philip Glass comes to mind. His works include operas La Belle et la Bête (based upon Cocteau's film, after Leprince de Beaumont), In the Penal Colony (Kafka), The Witches of Venice (Montresor), Orphée (Cocteau), Fall of the House of USher (Poe); film music for Barker's Candyman, Neverwas, Dracula; theatre music for Poe's Descent into the Maëlstrom; piano pieces based upon Kafka's Metamorphosis and more.

By: Joe Pulver

Joe Pulver — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:58:12 +0000

Dear Peelsticker Toothacher, I’d heard of this, George Mangels’ Frank’s World, years ago and forgot it. Think I need it. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Joe Pulver

Joe Pulver — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:44:40 +0000

Michael Cisco, JEAN RAY, Ekaterina Sedia, Zoran Zivkovic, Marcel Bealu *The Experience of the Night*, Robert Walser to name a few…

By: jeffvandermeer

jeffvandermeer — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:28:54 +0000

Lanark is amazing–I think alas its weird effects aren’t excerptable or I’d ask Alasdair for an excerpt…still, maybe not a bad idea. Great stuff on weird music!

Yes, Jean Ray is in The Weird.

By: Jez Winship

Jez Winship — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 12:57:05 +0000

Lanark by Alasdair Gray is one of the great modern weird novels (well, half of it anyway), with many familiar elements: grotesque transformations of the human form, distortions of natural law, a large institute whose building is an enclosed world unto itself, a dark and labyrinthine city and a protagonist to whom (like the reader) everything seems strange and subtly out of balance. Gray also modestly offers a handy Index of Plagiarisms near the end, which provides a few more co-ordinates, and ranges from Borges to Blake, George Macdonald and Lewis Carroll to Edgar Allan Poe, Flann O’Brien, Kurt Vonnegut and Disney. He beautifully illustrates his own book as well.
As for music, the Ghost Box label explicitly references the weird, creating its own surrounding world as a context for the music which draws on mainly British supernatural fiction and post war TV and film. Of their groups, which specialise in a haunted analogue electronica, Belbury Poly take their name from the village in CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength and released an LP called The Willows, after Algernon Blackwood’s story. Eric Zann takes his name from HP Lovecraft’s The Music of Eric Zann, and the CD Ouroborindra does indeed provide the perfect eerie soundtrack to reading weird fiction. Mount Vernon Arts Lab’s The Séance at Hob’s Lane, meanwhile, references Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit.
Kate Bush, mentioned above, also made indirect use of weird fiction – her song Hounds of Love includes a sample from the film Night of the Demon (‘it’s in the trees – it’s coming’), based on MR James’ Casting of the Runes.

By: DC5

DC5 — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:10:45 +0000

Try Jean Ray (Raymundus Joannes de Kremer), aka "The Belgian Poe." I just got the old Berkley Medallion collection of his short stories entitled "Ghouls in My Grave." Great weird stuff.

By: s johnson

s johnson — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:45:05 +0000

Aren’t Nathaniel Hawthorne and good old Poe the US creators of the weird?

By: Thomas Parker

Thomas Parker — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:32:27 +0000

Clark Ashton Smith. Much as I love the other two musketeers (Howard and Lovecraft), I find that Smith’s stories linger longer in my mind. A true measure of his oddity may be that, compared to the other two, he has spawned far fewer imitators. (Imitators is surely the wrong word…influncees?) Jack Vance, Michael Shea…Gene Wolfe at a remove or two. Among current writers, Steve Rasnic Tem and Thomas Ligotti would make my list.