The New Weird

In April 2003, M. John Harrison created or appropriated a new genre category called "The New Weird" and tried to kick-start discussion on the internet. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer bring that discussion into the real world where we generalists can join in. But if this book is anything to judge by, "The New Weird" is a make-work label designed to give C-list writers something to talk about, and to sell books to gullible japes like me.

Jeff VanderMeer, in his introduction, spews a lot of post-grad lit major gibberish to persuade us not only that this new category exists, but that it's already dead and he has the right to perform the post-mortem. He claims it's the rightful inheritor of sci-fi's New Wave and the innovative grotesque horror/fantasy of the 1980's. But he never says what New Weird is. And the main text of the book probably shows why.

The editors start with what they call "Stimuli," a selection of stories that nourished the New Weird ethos. But for the most part I can't tell the difference between them and the Old Weird. These authors, including Michael Moorcock, Kathe Koja, and Clive Barker, appear to channel Lovecraft, Poe, and Shirley Jackson. This reads like the Old Weird's Greatest Hits.

But these stories are masterful compared to the section labeled "Evidence." I beg, implore, and defy anyone to explain what makes these stories either New or Weird. Jeffrey Thomas' "Immolation" is bog-standard sci-fi. K.J. Bishop's "The Art of Dying" and Jeffrey Ford's "At Reparata" are fantasies. Apart from a playful attitude toward events, there's little innovative or Weird about these stories

The tales by Brian Evenson, Steph Swainton, Leena Krohn, and Alistair Rennie are--not to generalize--crap. If New Weird means rejecting clear characters, plot, or momentum, then I need to dig out the stories I wrote in junior high, because I'll make a mint. The only remotely inventive story is China Mièville's "Jack." No wonder VanderMeer disparages Mièville in the intro: we can't have schlubs like me reading or caring about our proud subgenre, can we?

The next "Symposium" section attempts to critically parse this subgenre. In addition to several windy, jargon-rich essays by authors from this book, it reproduces the early entries in Harrison's web discussion on what New Weird is and if it exists. Reading this bunch of half-baked cranks justifying their opacity, I am reminded why I dislike criticism as a whole and pop-culture criticism in particular.

I couldn't even finish the "Symposium," much less the "Laboratory" section, in which the VanderMeers prompt writers to add a new round-robin story to a genre they've already declared dead. I found myself steadily losing the will to live. In Harrison's web discussion, Jonathan Strahan describes the New Weird moniker as "a load of old cobblers," and I couldn't agree more.

Hundreds of pages into this tedious exercise, I knew I'd wasted precious reading time. The editors have been given a taxonomic category and felt the need to fill it, although the category has no parameters and the putative genre doesn't exist. Some individual stories are interesting, but the collection is gormless, without any clear unifying ethos. I'm sorry to say, there is no New Weird, and this would-be manifesto is a vulgar attempt to part you from your money.

Okay, here goes:

The New Weird: three-quarters anthology, one quarter manifesto.

There are a few good stories in here, like Clive Barker's much reprinted, "In the Hills, the Cities," Koja's (whose work I always love) "The Neglected Garden." I was pleasantly surprised by Brian Evenson's "Watson's Boy," and really enjoyed the psychological truth of Jeffrey Ford's "At Reparata." Jeffrey Thomas's "Immolation," and China Miéville's "Jack" were also very satisfying. Last, but not least though, is Ligotti's "A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing," which was very finely done.

The other stories, even the one by grand master Michael Moorcock, aren't so great; in fact, they're pretty bad. Their main problem: their bloat. Their unnecessary lengths are mostly due to self-indulgence, a relishing in a "weirdness" that screams of gimmickry--an ersatz "weirdness" that bulges, bottlenecks, and outright chokes their narratives in the most irritating of places. It's as if they were all saying, "Look, ma'! I can write WEIRD!" Please.

Just for the record, no one did the "new" weird like that old (now deceased) giant, J.G. Ballard. It may seem unfair to compare any of these artists with a virtuoso like Ballard, but, let's face it. Sometimes what's "new" isn't always better. Why would the editors print a much reprinted tale like Barker's, but not a one by Ballard? It's not like Barker's story came out yesterday. (And this is why the whole "New Weird" manifesto strikes me as being self-inflated and outright dishonest: it's not "new" at all! And how long has steampunk been around?) In my humble opinion, J.G. Ballard is the gold standard when it comes to this "new" genre, but, then again, he's so sui generis, I don't know.

Buy this one used or check it from the library.

A very uneven collection. There were several stories that really stood out which made me want to see more of the authors' work - the ones by Miéville, Swainston, Lake and Rennie in particular - but the rest were largely forgettable.

The forgettable ones usually tended to veer between being strange to the point of plotless (say, "Watson's Boy" by Evenson) or just plotless description ("The Art of Dying" by Bishop").

I'm also not entirely certain that the discussion of "What IS the 'New Weird'?" as a genre really added anything to the tome, as there was no clear cut definition nor concurrence as to if 'New Weird' can be classified, if it has past us by already, or if it is ongoing. A nudge in the direction to the archived discussion in the foreward would have sufficed vice reprinting it as an entire chapter.

On the plus side, I now have more promising authors' short story collections to look for.

I randomly bought this book at an event where the VanderMeers were promoting their newer "Steampunk" collection. I perused both books and found the "New Weird" stories much more captivating. Maybe this isn't fair as by chance I had opened it to Mieville's story and the long winded Victorian/Dickinson-ian writing on the other side never was my taste; even if I do like steampunk! So I bought this book for a friend, read a few stories and got hooked.

The first half is good (not great) and basically serves to wet your appetite for the second half. In fairness I would expect this as the first half was supposed to be a kind of "inspiration" section that lead to the newer works of the psuedo-genre they would ask you to call "New Wierd." 4~5 of the stories where truly amazing and made it all worth while, even if some of the others felt a little hollow or seemed incomplete.

I too am unsure why the cover art for such a genre would be so mild and steampunk-y (a mechanical geared beetle...) and have to agree with the other reviews that a few of the stories and excerpts didn't fit that well within the "genre/project." I also felt the symposium was a lot of hot wind, but overall was happy to be introduced to many new authors, and was surprised to find myself enjoying reading a book for the first time since college... wow!

In speculative fiction there are many anthologies claiming to define a hot new sub-genre, with editors explaining why the selected stories fit the label, and why that label should be embraced by readers in the know. Such genre boosterism is usually a non-issue if the collected stories are memorable. But this particular anthology falls all over itself trying to define the supposedly groundbreaking new style to be called "The New Weird," and fails to come up with a believable definition or even a working collection of stories to fit the label. The book even contains a non-fiction section featuring various writers and editors trying to define "The New Weird" and to promote their own inclusion in it, while simultaneously whining about how harmful categorizations can be and how the unknowing mainstream is diluting their uniqueness.

The basic, loose definition of "The New Weird" is an edgy mix of dark fantasy and horror, with maybe a dash of sci-fi, and a kinship with the classic old "Weird Tales" and affiliated pulps. That's true of most of the stories here, but knowledgeable readers will know that such creative exercises are hardly new. (The sub-genre has claimed its own groundbreaking superstar, China Mieville, whose bodacious talents are worshipped by everyone else in this book nearly to the point of jealousy.) But the editors and commentators unnecessarily attempt to flesh out the underwhelming basic definition with some English-major gibberish like urban politicization and grotesque transformations of the body. But these attributes don't even appear in many of the stories here, proving that categorizations really are as problematic as these correspondents say they are.

As for the stories themselves, the editors could come up with just nine entries that directly qualify for the working definition of "The New Weird." A few of these are intriguing and memorable, but novel excerpts from Leena Krohn and Steph Swainston are nonfunctional as stand-alone stories, and the tales by Jeffrey Thomas and Jeffrey Ford (Gibson-esque cyberpunk and medieval fantasy, respectively) don't even conform to the sub-genre definition. The same pattern applies to the six other pre-definitional stories that start the book, selected as supposedly early influences on the new sub-genre. Here we have two more tales, by Michael Moorcock and Kathe Koja (alternate military history and psychological horror, respectively), that also don't fit the definition of "The New Weird." Though at least this section of the book is made worthwhile by Clive Barker's stupendous "In the Hills, the Cities" which is just as terrifying and disturbing as when it first dropped back in 1984.

And finally, the book ends nonsensically with a round-robin story by a series of authors, whom the editors admit are not even part of "The New Weird" movement. The story is a directionless and disordered collection of subplots, and it doesn't even have an ending, as for some incomprehensible reason the editors left the conclusion on an outside website. When all is said and done, one of the few commendable things about this book is the selective but far-reaching "Recommended Reading" section, which will launch interested and adventurous readers toward much more fulfilling experiences. [~doomsdayer520~]