It is impossible, in my eyes, to read Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy without thinking of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. It is not so much because of the similar tropes – the exploration team, the perception problems, the deep hole, etc. – but because of a deeper, darker link, which only becomes obvious once […]
This article is part of our series about the four stories not included in The Weird. See the Four Stories introduction for more information. – The Editors Where should we draw the line between the Weird and magical realism? In Stephen Graham Jones’ Flowchart of the Damned, he draws the line between weird fiction and other […]
We’re pleased to present, for the first time in English, “The Sound of the Mill” by Marcel Béalu. Permission was granted by Editions Corti. The story was translated from French by Michael Cisco. — The Editors *** I beg you, don’t come back, my sweet little girl. Leave me in my solitary decay, with the sound of the mill. I’ve […]
This article is part of our series about the four stories not included in The Weird. See the Four Stories introduction for more information. – The Editors The work of J.G. Ballard occupies a unique space that exists at the intersection of science fiction, horror, satire, and post-modern literature. All of these tendencies can be witnessed even […]
The magus moved into my building the weekend I drove to the Outer Banks. She came from Florida after a violent hurricane, during which one of her neighbors drowned. I had the impression she was now involved in social work, restoring people to a stable life, but since she never left her apartment, I wasn’t sure what she did. Music […]
Did you know that there are four stories mentioned in the introduction for The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories that the VanderMeers wanted to include but weren’t able to due to copyright permissions? They are Philip K. Dick’s “The Preserving Machine,” J. G. Ballard’s “The Drowned Giant,” Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man with […]
The following interview originally appeared on Jeff VanderMeer’s blog. – The Editors Mike Allen first made a real splash with his unique Clockwork Phoenix series, which he edited in addition to Mythic Delirium. But he’s an interesting and unsettling writer of dark, weird fiction as well, with a first collection out that’s beginning to get some buzz. […]
This year’s World Fantasy Convention in November should be especially appealing to fans of the Weird. First of all, the 2014 convention will be celebrating the centennial anniversary of weird fiction author Robert Aickman’s birth in 1914. At the WFC, there will be four panels dedicated to Aickman: Ghost Stories Without Ghosts, Ringing the Changes: Robert Aickman, Gender Issues and Sexuality in […]
Michael Kelly, editor and author, started Undertow Publications in 2009 with an anthology called Apparitions, but it was Shadows & Tall Trees, the publication that came out later that same year, for which Kelly is perhaps best known. Named after a chapter from Lord of the Flies, Shadows & Tall Trees is an annual series dedicated to publishing original weird, macabre, strange, and ghostly […]
The following story originally appeared in Postscripts #13 (Winter 2007). It is reprinted with the permission of PS Publishing. — The Editors After mentioning my upcoming flight from winter at a New Year’s party in Templeton, I was drawn aside by a young woman who, in a few breathlessly-confided sentences, told me a bizarre tale. Writers often hear confessions, and I puzzled over the encounter […]