Michael Moorcock is one of the most famed writers and editors in science fiction and fantasy history, a key figure in the British New Wave movement in the 60s and 70s, which itself held a strong influence on modern weird fiction. Moorcock is famed for his stories detailing the adventures of Jerry Cornelius and Elric of Melnibone, […]
We have before us a book with a peculiar name. It is called The Palm-Wine Drinkard and his dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead’s Town, by Amos Tutuola. Let us gather around this object and poke it with a stick — but gingerly, because at any moment it may transform itself into a bird, or a lizard, or a canoe, or the air […]
All editors have key concepts or ideas about the approach to creating an anthology. Here are a few of the ideas and foci that occurred to us during the preliminary steps of creating The Weird anthology and during the process of research and selection. — Ann & Jeff Edited in the context of: Avoid the Great Certainty (certainty and making […]
(Image by Jeremy Zerfoss) Buy The Weird compendium here… A “weird tale,” as defined by H.P. Lovecraft in his nonfiction writings and given early sanctuary within the pages of magazines like Weird Tales (est. 1923) is a story that has a supernatural element but does not fall into the category of traditional ghost story or Gothic tale, […]
I seem to be working recently on a number of comics that won awards in France (which often, despite purportedly heightened visibility, signifies squat abroad). What can it mean? A syncing up of American and continental tastes when it comes to comics? A realization of the European riches out there and still to be brought over? Expect more […]
(A shot from Julie Taymor’s Titus Adronicus) Over the course of his career, William Shakespeare made many a foray into the darker regions of drama. Beginning with Titus Andronicus, the playwright experimented with different ways in which he could show humanity at its worst. These visions depended on depictions of cruelty, agony and alterity. As his […]
This is not for you — the novel’s dedication page House of Leaves (Pantheon Books, 2000) is a cluster of stories told more in their metatext than text, a book that took ten years to write and has given rise to another book (The Whalestoe Letters), an album (Haunted, by Danielewski’s sister, Anne – known as Poe), and […]
As part of our Favorite Monsters feature that we ran for our “12 Days of Monsters,” we polled various writers to see who their favorite monsters were and why. One of those writers is Livia Llewellyn. She has had her stories published in Subterranean, Sybil’s Garage, Apex Magazine, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, Postscripts, and […]
Earlier in the month, just before the 12 Days of Monsters started proper here at Weirdfictionreview.com, we contacted various writers to ask them something: who, or what, was their favorite monster, and why? The writers we contacted are themselves well acquainted with all sorts of things that go bump in the night, prominently featuring monsters […]
I grew up amidst the fields and forests of central Pennsylvania. I grew up obsessed with werewolves. It may not come as a shock, then, that I took an interest in a werewolf novel set in the acne-riddled T‑zone of the state’s face known as Pennsyltucky. That I just described Tristan Egolf’s Kornwolf as a “werewolf novel” is telling as […]