Weird Thoughts Archive

The Weird in Amsterdam, December 8: by Ann VanderMeer

Weird with Ann

I will be in Amsterdam soon, and as co-editor of The Weird, our 750,000-word, nearly 1,200-page anthology of weird fiction covering 100 years, will be doing an event at the American Book Center. It’s Thursday, December 8, starting at 18:30. I’ll say a few words about The Weird, answer questions, and sign books. If you’re in the city that week, consider stopping by. This is the only European event for the book, and there’s more information at the ABC site.

In other news, SF Book News has chosen The Weird as their book of the month for December. Also, it’s available for Kindle now to non-North American readers. — Ann

The Weird Compendium: Infiltrating the World

As we enter the fifth week of Weirdfictionreview.com’s existence, we’re offering the next installment of Leah Thomas’s web comic, a great essay by China Mieville, fiction from Caitlin R. Kiernan, and an interview with Liz Williams. Check it out and let us know what you think. The Kiernan story comes from our The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, which we think makes a great holiday present. (We’ll have weirdie holiday recs next week.)

Meanwhile, The Weird compendium continues to infiltrate the world – pictured above being held by Charles Tan. Irish radio interviewed us about the anthology and The Scotsman published a lovely review in which they said some very nice things:

What is truly ingenious in this volume is the way the editors have tessellated works of indisputable literary genius with stories from the pulp tradition. To move from Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony” to William Sansom’s “The Long Sheet,” and to realise their almost subliminal connections, is an unlikely and thrilling jolt…There are so many delights in this that any reader will find something truly memorable. For me, it’s the deliciously horrific “The Book” by Margaret Irwin, which is a salutary shocker for any book reviewer, about a tome so awful it even infects the way you read books that were placed next to it. The Weird manages to do something almost similar…a tremendous experience.

We also did a long interview with Gav Reads that turned out well. In addition, Des Lewis and Maureen Kincaid Speller continue with their very different readings of The Weird. And next week we’ll be posting fiction by Ramsey Campbell and a feature with this iconic author, along with lots of other goodies – including more information on the upcoming US publication of The Weird.

Dogme 2011 for Weird Fiction: One writer's manifesto for uncanny fiction...

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I swear to submit to the following set of rules:

  1. The tale must contain no stock anthropomorphic monsters: no vampires, no zombies, no werewolves, no mummies, no ghouls.
  2. Although the tale may contain noir elements, it must not contain stock figures from crime fiction such as serial killers or hard-boiled detectives.
  3. The tale must not involve a post-apocalyptic scenario, zombie or otherwise.
  4. The tale must not contain any buzzwords from Lovecraft, Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Chambers, Frank Belknap Long or any other earlier authors of weird fiction. This means no Cthulhu, Arkham, Miskatonic, Necronomicon, Tsathoggua, King in Yellow, Hounds of Tindalos, Carcosa, etc. Distinctive vocabulary associated with the Lovecraft circle, such as cyclopean, eldritch, etc., is also forbidden.
  5. The tale must not contain elements of Judeo-Christian mythology as operational tropes, e. g. a crucifix warding off evil, conventional demons and/or demonic possession, Satan, angels, etc. It is acceptable, however, for characters in the tale to embrace these concepts as part of their own belief systems.
  6. Steampunk and all its tropes are forbidden.
  7. Place is essential. Setting must be as well-developed as any other element of the tale. Scout and employ real locations whenever possible.
  8. Atmosphere must be as well-developed as any other element of the tale.
  9. Leave bright lighting and CGI to the cinema: the tale must suggest more than it describes.
  10. The tale must follow Caitlin R. Kiernan’s dictum: “dark fiction dealing with the inexplicable should, itself, present to the reader a certain inexplicability.”

Furthermore I swear as a writer that my supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings; out of the universe itself. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations. Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY.

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The preceding manifesto and VOW OF CHASTITY is not intended to harm or insult any other writers, particularly established authors more successful and accomplished than myself. Most of all, it is not intended as judgment on existing work. It is an aesthetic statement of where I myself want to go with my own weird fiction. I believe that the true “weird tale” ranks, alongside noir, as a literary field that has produced, and continues to produce, genuine art, and I hope that these constraints will keep me honest in that quest.

I found the Dogme 95 manifesto for filmmaking by Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg to be a helpful model for clarifying and presenting my own ideas regarding weird fiction. However, just as not all films by these directors have followed all 10 tenets of the Dogme 95 manifesto to the letter, I must point out that not all of my favorite authors of weird fiction follow all of my Dogme 2011 tenets either.

This Week: Dark Reverie, Strange Beauty, Visionary Transformation

Des Lewis has encountered the epi-center of The Weird, Eric Basso’s hypnotic and immersive “The Beak Doctor,” which is moving over and through him like an endless mist from which objects and people assemble, accrete, and dissipate again…

This week on WFR, we are posting all of our content today, Monday, as we will be away for the US Thanksgiving holiday. Thus, an embarrassment of riches for you to explore, including fiction, nonfiction, and comics. Our specific focus is on Michel Bernanos’ “The Other Side of the Mountain.” We have on offer a short appreciation of “The Other Side…” by Jeffrey Ford, a longer examination by Edward Gauvin, and Gio Clairval’s essay that includes her thoughts on translating “The Other Side…” for The Weird compendium.  These pieces overlap to some extent but each has it’s own unique slant.

We are also happy to have a long essay by António Monteiro that serves as a general introduction to Jean Ray’s work, and some samples of his fiction. Finally, we’re running Jeffrey Thomas’s “The Fork,” originally published in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Leviathan 3. (Leah Thomas’ “Reading the Weird” returned this weekend with episode #4, “The Aleph.”

Next week and beyond, you can expect fiction from Kathe Koja, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Tanith Lee, appreciations of Amos Tutuola and Daphne du Maurier, essays by Reza Negarestani and Mark Valentine, the work of Sarban, and much more. We will return with more content on November 29, a Tuesday.

One aspect of the Bernanos and much other weird fiction is a sense of strange beauty even in the midst of horror or unease. This is an element that we will return to again and again here at WFR.com, and the following excerpt from our introduction to The Weird compendium seems like an appropriate companion to this week’s content…    Continue reading →

Making Sense of The Weird: What Do You Think About the First Three Weeks of Weirdfictionreview.com?: by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

After three weeks rich in content here at Weirdfictionreview, we’d like to know what you’ve enjoyed the most and what you have found the most surprising. Please tell us!

We’d also like to acknowledge the Behemoth in the room once more, the book (or aircraft carrier) that has made this site possible: The Weird: A Compendium of Strange & Dark Stories (Corvus/Atlantic). At 750,000 words and almost 1,200 pages, covering a century of weird fiction, The Weird provided the space and time for us to research weird fiction to the extent that things we discovered will be popping up on this site and in future anthologies for years to come. (It’s also the subject of this really fun piece today, online at The Guardian.)

You can buy The Weird now on Amazon.co.uk and at the Book Depository (free shipping to the US – the publisher’s page for the book has information on additional sellers. We hope you’ll consider picking it up. Also check out this interview in which we talk more about The Weird compendium and read the latest real-time reviews, story-by-story, from Des Lewis and Maureen Kincaid Speller, as well as Solar Bridge. The table of contents for the antho can be found here. John H. Stevens has also written about several stories on SF Signal. The Financial Times has now posted a review as well.

Please also come back Monday, as we will be posting the entire week’s content then, due to the upcoming US Thansgiving holiday.  This will include a lot of material  on Belgian legend Jean Ray, The Other Side of the Mountain’s Michel Bernanos, a Weird manifesto, the best episode yet in Leah Thomas’s “Reading the Weird” web comic, and much more. You’ll want to check it out early and often. We’ll also begin running a “From the Archives” in case you’ve missed anything.

In future weeks, we will be running fiction from Kathe Koja, Tanith Lee, and Marc Laidlaw, as well as Japanese weird, a unique story by Michael Cisco, and much more.

Thanks very much for your support!

This Week: Content, WFR#2 in Print, New Staff

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Editorial doppelganger in a moment of quiet contemplation, as photographed by Alexander Binder, who has a portfolio in Weird Fiction Review, vol. 2.

Welcome to the Third Week of Weirdfictionreview.com!

We’re very grateful for the immensely positive and energizing responses thus far, and we plan to build on that good will going forward. This week you’ll find an emphasis on the kind of “weird” that might be called dreamlike, in a dark, disturbing, or strange way, with most of our focus on continental European authors. In addition to two features on the great Alfred Kubin–one of which previews our 101 Weird Writers project – we are running fiction from  Finnish icon Leena Krohn, fiction and an interview with the great Czech writer Michal Ajvaz, and a wonderful essay on Franz Kafka. Given that there is an element of weird ritual embodied in some of these writers’ works, we’re also running, late this week or early next, an interview with Margo Lanagan, whose classic “Singing My Sister Down” epitomizes weird ritual in our The Weird compendium. And don’t forget to check out Leah Thomas’s third installment of “Reading the Weird.” Come back every day for new content, and if you like what you read, consider a donation to the site. We’re a labor of love, devoted to bringing you the best on weird fiction.


Sample pages from WFR#2

Print Journal WFR#2 Debuts

In addition, this week marks the debut of the print journal Weird Fiction Review, volume 2, edited by S.T. Joshi. We previewed an essay from volume 2 a week ago, and now you can order the journal for yourself. They are running fiction by Caitlin R. Kiernan, a wonderful essay by Michael Cisco, and much more. You can check out the table of contents and sample pages here — go forth and order! The journal is limited to 500 copies and is yet another sumptuous Centipede Press project. (Although Weirdfictionreview.com does not share staff with the print journal, we support each other.)

Weirdfictionreview.com Now Has a Book Reviewer

I would also like to introduce our book reviewer, Maureen Kincaid Speller, whose contact information we have added to the site. We’re very much looking forward to her first column, scheduled for January.  Per her bio note, “Maureen Kincaid Speller has been a fantasy and SF critic for over 25 years, contributing reviews to Interzone, Strange Horizons, Foundation, Vector (the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association) and The Zone, among others. She also has her own blog, called Paper Knife. In 2011 the British Science Fiction Association produced a chapbook of her critical writings, And Another Thing: A Collection of Reviews and Criticism, edited by Jonathan McCalmont. She earns a living as a copy editor and proofreader, and is partway through a Ph.D on Native North American literature and ethical approaches to critical theory. She lives in Folkestone, Kent, UK, with her husband, Paul Kincaid, and spends what’s left of her spare time growing vegetables.” Yes, but are they weird vegetables?

Real-Time Reviews of The Weird

Both Des Lewis and Maureen Speller Kincaid (who started before we extended the reviewer offer to her) have been doing real-time reviews of stories from our 750,000-word The Weird compendium, with Kincaid posting, by coincidence, a review of Lord Dunsany’s famous gnoles story just as Leah Thomas’s webcomic this week takes its inspiration from that story and Margaret St. Clair’s riff off of that story (also in The Weird). It’s rather fascinating to watch it unfold, and we’re sure they’d appreciate your encouragement. (This link reveals Maureen’s older reviews of stories from the anthology.)

Gio Clairval

As we indicate in the acknowledgments to The Weird compendium, the anthology was much enriched by writer Gio Clairval’s efforts in translating fiction for us (six stories, ranging from Bernanos to Cortazar, Heym to Buzzati) and helping negotiate permissions with agents and estates. We’ll be featuring an interview with her soon, along with her posts about translating the stories in question and other topics. Anyone looking for a translator to English from Spanish, Italian, German, or French should definitely hire her. She’s posted an entry on her personal blog about her participation in this project, too.

Contest Winner

As you may have noticed, we’ve been running a little what-fictional-school-would-you-go-to contest…and the winner is…Next Friday, for breaking all the rules and entertaining us into the bargain. This lucky winner receives our Lambshead Cabinet anthology with a ton of weird things tossed into the box we send it in…“First of all, the founder of [Hunter College], Thomas Hunter was indeed an immigrant, but not from Ireland as the official history says, but from the 28th century.”

The Future

Next week, due to it being a holiday in the U.S. for Thanksgiving, we’ll post a number of exciting pieces on November 21 to tide you over for the week, including an essay on Michel Bernanos by Edward Gauvin, an essay on Jean Ray by António Monteiro, Scott Nicolay’s Dogma 2011 for Weird Fiction, classic reprints, and an exciting surprise. Going forward, you can expect the following and much more: an interview with Amos Tutuola’s estate (and excerpt of his fiction), a report from Rochita Loenen-Ruiz on Filipino Weird, our 101 Weird Writer feature, and fiction from Tanith Lee, Kathe Koja, Ramsey Campbell, among others. In addition, Edward Gauvin and Nancy Hightower are joining us as semi-regular columnists, Gauvin on the subject of translations and Hightower on the Grotesque. Larry Nolen and Paul Charles Smith will also be joining us. We’ll turn the spotlight more fully on them in future weeks.

We have other exciting developments to share, but they’ll have to wait for a future post. In the meantime, check out our great content this week, pick up a copy of Weird Fiction Review, vol. #2, and keep the feedback coming.  Thanks!

Introducing WFR’s Managing Editor, Angela Slatter

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Behind the scenes, Angela Slatter has been working as WFR’s managing editor by, among other efforts, answering queries, working with writers on solicited submissions, and helping coordinate our forthcoming 101 Weird Writers feature (organized by Adam Mills). She’s agreed to stay on while we get set-up and organized, and, going forward, as her writing schedule allows. Slatter is a sensational storyteller whose collection The Sourdough & Other Stories recently appeared on the finalist list for the World Fantasy Award. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies such as Jack Dann’s Dreaming Again, Tartarus Press’ Strange Tales II, Twelfth Planet Press’ 2012, Dirk Flinthart’s Canterbury 2100, and in journals such as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Shimmer, ONSPEC and Doorways Magazine. Slatter also runs a great blog that includes numerous interviews with writers.

We’ll have announcements about some regular columnists soon, but for now we thought we’d leave you with my afterword to Slatter’s collection, as another way to get to know her. Have a great weekend!


(Slatter photo by David Pollitt June 2010)
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The Weird: Phantasmagorical and Uncanny Paragraphs: Celebrating a Century of Weird Fiction

The Weird cover image

Today is the official The Weird compendium release date for media outlets in the United Kingdom. In honor of that, Adam Mills helped us compile a sampling of paragraphs from stories in the anthology (full table of contents here).

Come back next week when we’ll run fiction from Leena Krohn, an interview with Michal Ajvaz (and original fiction), features on Alfred Kubin and Franz Kafka, and an interview with Margo Lanagan. Enjoy! 

– Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

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No one knew at what time he had gone out, nor where he had been. He was found lying on his back above high-water mark, and an old cardboard bandbox that had belonged to his wife lay under his hand, open. The lid had fallen off. He seemed to have been carrying home a skull in the box – doctors are fond of collecting such things. It had rolled out and lay near his head, and it was a remarkably fine skull, rather small, beautifully shaped and very white, with perfect teeth. That is to say, the upper jaw was perfect, but there was no lower one at all, when I first saw it. — F. Marion Crawford, “The Screaming Skull”

 

They began their revolting work. They resembled hideous torturers, blood flowing on their hands as they dug ever more deeply into the frigid corpse and pulled out its innards, like white cooks gutting a goose. Around their arms coiled the intestines – green-yellow snakes – and faeces dripped on their coats – a warm, putrid fluid. They punctured the bladder, the cold urine in it glistening like yellow wine. They poured it in large bowls, and it reeked of pungent, acrid ammonia. But the dead man slept. He patiently let them tug at him and pull his hair. He slept. - Georg Heym, “The Dissection”  (translation by Gio Clairval)

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Miskatonic University Packet: What Weird Fictional College Would You Like to Attend?

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One of my favorite weird possessions is this Miskatonic University Graduate Kit, which I found at either ReaderCon or the Florida-based ICFA convention. I do remember Kelly Link looking rather mournfully at my find, hopeful there might be another copy.…This is the real deal, illustrated by Gahan Wilson, with all sorts of forms and bumper stickers and a full list of classes offered. It’s the kind of playful artifact that shows a loving regard for Lovecraft’s work but also an equally healthy tendency to send up the source material.

Below the cut you’ll find a few more teasers from this kit.

While you peruse the images, perhaps you’d also care to share with us what fictional college you’d most like to attend? The writer of our favorite answer will receive a signed copy of our Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring the weird fiction of Michael Moorcock, China Mieville, Amal El-Mohtar, Alan Moore,  Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Michael Cisco, with art by Mike Mignola among others. We’ll also fill the box chockful of weird and cool  extra stuff. Deadline: Sunday, Nov.13, midnight Eastern Standard Time

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The Weird: Sustained Readings by D.F. Lewis and Maureen Kincaid-Speller: by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

The Weird

The official press date for release of The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories in the UK is November 10 (Book Depository has free shipping to the US). There will be lots of coverage from then on – in fact, we’ll on Irish radio, possibly as early as November 18 – but in the meantime a couple of intrepid reviewers have already begun to tackle The Beast, story by story: D.F. Lewis and Maureen Kincaid-Speller. This is an act of extreme heroism, as far as we are concerned, no matter what their reactions to the anthology over all and we applaud them for it. The full TOC to our 116-story antho can be found here, and here are the relevant links to their read-throughs:

D.F. Lewis’s “Real-Time Reviews”
(he also coined the term “srednidipity while reading The Weird)

 –Post introducing the anthology and covering the stories by Alfred Kubin, F. Marion Crawford, Algernon Blackwood, Saki, and M.R. James.

–Post covering stories by Lord Dunsany, Gustav Meyrink, Georg Heym, Hans Heinz Ewers, Rabindranath Tagore, Luigi Ugolini, A. Merritt, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, and Francis Stevens thus far, with the post being updated as Lewis finishes each new story.

Also of interest, Lewis’s prior post on “What Is Weird Literature and Who Represents it?” (Here at WFR, we’d argue no one represents it so much as some writers embody it or explore it.) 

Maureen Kincaid-Speller at Paper Knife:

–First Thoughts on The Weird
–The Weird and Me
–“The Other Side” by Alfred Kubin (Kubin is featured next week on WFR)
–“The Screaming Skull” by F. Marion Crawford
–“The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood (which you can read on WFR)

 It would appear that Solar Bridge is also  planning to ramp up a story-by-story read shortly.

Finally, we noted these thoughtful posts about Weird Fiction Review and the anthology by John Coulthart and Sparks in Electrical Jelly.

We’ll post new links to the story-by-story reads as we have them.