As we’ve mentioned before, the short story is by far the most popular form of weird but that doesn’t mean that novels are completely nonexistent in weird fiction. In fact, despite the overwhelming majority of shorter works, there are a number of extremely well written novels that fit the weird fiction label. Moreover, thanks to authors like China Miéville, there […]
Some of you may be familiar with my Women to Read: Where to Start series over at SF Signal. Basically, I point out women whose work you should be reading, and recommend a starting place for their work. I was delighted when Weird Fiction Review invited me to contribute a special edition of my column to their site, focusing […]
Though the lines connecting Decadent and Weird fiction are many, resembling something of a tangled web whose only certain common ancestor is the Gothic novel, one of the primary concerns of both these traditions within fiction is a preoccupation with limits — the limits of bodily experience, the limits of the world’s possibilities, the limits of the physically possible. […]
The following story comes from D. P. Watt’s recently reprinted short story collection, An Emporium of Automata, available from Eibonvale Press. Watt also has a new collection out this year from Egaeus Press called The Phantasmagorical Imperative and Other Fabrications. Watt’s fiction is a unique blend of magical realism à la Jorge Luis Borges with disquieting settings that recall the works of Robert Aickman. To learn more about Watt, […]
I WE had been put in the mood for ghosts, that evening, after an excellent dinner at our old friend Culwin’s, by a tale of Fred Murchard’s — the narrative of a strange personal visitation. Seen through the haze of our cigars, and by the drowsy gleam of a coal fire, Culwin’s library, with its oak walls and dark old […]
The short story is by far the most popular form of weird fiction — after all, when an idea or situation becomes familiar, it ceases to be weird. Thus, we find the landscape of strange literature littered with short story after short story — some good, others bad. With thousands of potential new short stories being written each year, it’s nothing […]
One of our favorite anthologies this year has been The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron (Word Horde). Edited by Ross E. Lockhart and Justin Steele, The Children of the Old Leech features all new stories created with elements straight out of the weird fiction of author Laird Barron. It’s an exquisite collection of […]
This year has seen a lot of anniversaries in weird fiction. First, there was the centennial anniversary of Robert Aickman, then the bicentennial of Sheridan Le Fanu, and now we’re celebrating the 100th year anniversary of Julio Cortázar (whose birthday was actually before Le Fanu’s birthday last month). Today though, Tor.com is featuring an all new translation […]
Do you know who coined the term “weird fiction”? H. P. Lovecraft popularized the term in his 1927 essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature” but Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu is credited with its inception. Today marks the bicentennial anniversary of Le Fanu’s birth in 1814. He was an author of dark tales who is mostly known for his novel Uncle […]
Falling. Falling. Am I no more than some goldfish to be plopped back into the cold water when the sun runs so warm over my scales? Does the eater of the dead deserve no more ceremony than this? Oh, but all of a sudden I am ravenous for so much more than the dead. It is life I would […]