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Weird Thoughts

The Weird Compendium Reaches North America: BEA Plus PW and Booklist Raves

 

We’re pleased this week to note that our The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories compendium, which is already being taught in some US universities, has begun to garner some rave reviews in advance of its May 8th North American publication date.  (You can find the full TOC of 116 stories here.) Both Publishers Weekly and Booklist love the anthology, which much more press to come.

In May, we will run tons of special content here at WFR to celebrate the release of the anthology, spotlighting contributors. This will include fiction by Georg Heym, an exclusive long interview with the son of Amos Tutuola along with Tutuola fiction, another interview with Kathe Koja, fiction by Stefan Grabinski and an interview with his translator, and much, much more.

We also just did an interview for Shelf Awareness, and Ann and I will be at the Book Expo of America (BEA) in New York City in June to promote the book, courtesy of our wonderful publisher, Tor. We will be participating on a BEA panel and doing a signing:

12:00pm, Tuesday June 5 
Science Fiction/Fantasy & Mainstream — Crossing Over
Uptown Stage (W/ John Scalzi and Walter Mosley; Moderated by Ryan Britt)

11:30am — 12:30pm, Wednesday June 6
Signing THE WEIRD
Table: 21; Main Autographing Area

Here’s a sampling from the two advance reviews:

Publishers Weekly, Starred, Boxed Review: “Ambitious in the extreme, the Vandermeers’ latest genre-blurring endeavor…is one of the most far-reaching and inclusive speculative anthologies to ever see print. Alongside familiar names — from Lovecraft and Kafka to Link and Kiernan — the Vandermeers unveil a menagerie of obscure authors and impressive stories from around the world….This standard-setting compilation is a deeply affectionate and respectful history of speculative fiction’s blurry edges [with] stunning diversity, excellent quality.”

Booklist, Starred Review: “[Icons Kafka and Lovecraft appear] herein alongside other stellar performances by writers who have faded from top best-sellerdom into obscurity (F. Marion Crawford, Hugh Walpole); are literary stars of the highest magnitude (Rabindranath Tagore, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Jorge Luis Borges); live through only one unforgettable story; and who busily augment the worldwide catalog of weird stories as this is written (most of the contributors). No popular-fiction library should not have this treasure trove.”