The New Weird

by Ann VanderMeer (Editor), Jeff Vandermeer (Editor), Jay Lake (Contributor)

This avant-garde anthology that presents and defines the New Weird—a hip, stylistic fiction that evokes the gritty exuberance of pulp novels and dime-store comic books—creates a new literature that is entirely unprecedented and utterly compelling. Assembling an array of talent, this collection includes contributions from visionaries Michael Moorcock and China Miéville, modern icon Clive Barker, and audacious new talents Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, and Sarah Monette. An essential snapshot of a vibrant movement in popular fiction, this anthology also features critical writings from authors, theorists, and international editors as well as witty selections from online debates.

Contents

Introduction: The New Weird: “It’s Alice?” by Jeff VanderMeer

“The Gutter Sees the Light That Never Shines” by Alistair Rennie
“Watson’s Boy” by Brian Evenson
“Cornflowers Beside the Unuttered” by Cat Rambo
“Jack” by China Miéville
“In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker
“Forfend the Heaven’s Rending” by Conrad Williams
“Locust-Mind” by Daniel Abraham
“Tracking Phantoms” by Darja Malcolm-Clarke
“Constable Chalch and the Ten Thousand Heroes” by Felix Gilman
“The Lizard of Ooze” by Jay Lake
“Festival Lives: Preamble: An Essay” by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer
“At Reparata” by Jeffrey Ford
“Immolation” by Jeffrey Thomas
“The Art of Dying” by Darja Malcolm-Clarke
“Whose Words You Wear” by K. J. Bishop
“The Neglected Garden” by Kathy Koja
“Letters from Tainaron” by Leena Krohn
“The Luck in the Head” by M. John Harrison
“Crossing Cambodia” by Michael Moorcock
“Death in a Dirty Dhorti” by Paul Di Filippo
“All God’s Chillun Got Wings” by Sarah Monette
“The Braining of Mother Lamprey” by Simon D. Ings
“The Ride of the Gabbleratchet” by Steph Swainston
“A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing” by Thomas Ligotti
“European Editor Perspectives on the New Weird: An Essay” by Martin Šust, Michael Haulica, Hannes Riffel, Jukka Halme, Konrad Walewski
“The New Weird: I Think We’re the Scene” by Michael Cisco
“New Weird Discussions: The Creation of a Term” by various authors

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, New Weird, Anthologies, Science Fiction

403 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Ann VanderMeer is an American publisher and editor, and the second female editor of the horror magazine Weird Tales. She is the founder of Buzzcity Press.

Her work as Fiction Editor of Weird Tales won a Hugo Award. Work from her press and related periodicals has won the British Fantasy Award, the International Rhysling Award, and appeared in several year's best anthologies. Ann was also the founder of The Silver Web magazine, a periodical devoted to experimental and avant-garde fantasy literature.

In 2009 "Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer and Stephen H. Segal" won a Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine. Though some of its individual contributors have been honored with Hugos, Nebula Awards, and even one Pulitzer Prize, the magazine itself had never before even been nominated for a Hugo. It was also nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2009.

Reviews

[Andrei(Drusca) · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title says, this was wierd.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very valuable endeavor, putting together this volume. I enjoyed it very little.
That's a matter of taste, obviously. I certainly appreciate the VanderMeers work in editing this.

There are sections. The contents are listed below.

1) Short stories. I only really liked the first one, by M. John Harrison. Every time I read Harrison, I think, "This is great! I should read more Harrison!" But then I don't. Very well written, very weird. I had read most of these authors before liked several of them better elsewhere, leaving me to conclude that I'm just not that into the New Weird, or at least that it's general nastiness and negativity doesn't work for me in these nasty and negative times.

2) Discussions, of the term, the genre, the market, variations abroad. This would have been a really interesting conversation to be part of when it happened; I'm glad it was preserved as a historical document.

3) "Labratory" is a a sort of experimental shared world round robin. I only skimmed.

4) Recommended Reading. I was familiar with all these authors, and have read most of them. But if this is a new genre for you, definitely worth a look! Especially as some authors (such as Jay Lake) passed before achieving wider fame and are this easy to miss.

I'd like to see bookshops with a Weird Shit section... --Zali Krishna

Introduction: The new weird : "It's alive?" / Jeff VanderMeer

The luck in the head / M. John Harrison
In the hills, the cities / Clive Barker
Crossing into Cambodia / Michael Moorcock
The braining of Mother Lamprey / Simon D. Ings
The neglected garden / Kathe Koja --
A soft voice whispers nothing / Thomas Ligotti --
Jack / China Miéville --
Immolation / Jeffrey Thomas --
The lizard of ooze / Jay Lake --
Watson's boy / Brian Evenson --
The art of dying / K.J. Bishop --
At Reparata / Jeffrey Ford --
Letters from Tainaron / Leena Krohn -- excerpt from a longer
The ride of the Gabbleratchet / Steph Swainston --
The gutter sees the light that never shines / Alistair Rennie

New weird discussions : the creation of a term
"New weird" : I think we're the scene / Michael Cisco
Tracking phantoms -/ Darja Malcolm-Clarke
Whose words you wear / K.J. Bishop
European editor perspectives on the new weird / Martin S̆ust ...[et al]

Festival lives : preamble / Ann and Jeff VanderMeer --
View 1: Death in a dirty dhoti / Paul Di Filippo --
View 2: Cornflowers beside the unuttered / Cat Rambo --
View 3: All God's chillun got wings / Sarah Monette --
View 4: Locust-mind / Daniel Abraham --
View 5: Constable Chalch and the ten thousand heroes / Felix Gilman --
View 6: Golden lads all must / Hal Duncan --
View 7: Forfend the heavens' rending / Conrad Williams.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the best collection I've read in a decade.

I'd been through Mieville and Vandermeer, cut my teeth on Lovecraft, a pile of slipstream, Barker, but I didn't feel as though I had much of a handle on what "New Weird" was or why I was drawn to it. Boy, I loved every story in this volume, including the oddly vulgar Rennie story at the end. Perhaps if slipstream makes you feel 'a little strange' (and the _Feeling Very Strange_ anthology would make a nice companion to this book), New Weird makes you feel EXTREMELY STRANGE, as well as dizzy, unsettled and slightly queasy. I recommend this collection to anyone with a passing fancy for any of the writers therein.

[Ross Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been reading The New Weird lately, Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s recent Tachyon collection of the sort of bizarre, visceral, urban fantasy that’s had the placard card reading “New Weird” hung about its neck for the past few years.

If anything, this collection seems a younger sibling to the 2004 Thunder’s Mouth Press anthology New Worlds. New Weird certainly owes a debt to the New Wave (the inclusion of M. John Harrison’s “The Luck in the Head” makes this undeniably clear), and it is M. John Harrison himself, in the included Web discourse “New Weird Discussions: The Creation of a Term” who suggests “New Weird” as “a better slogan than The Next Wave.” But whereas the New Wave SF that appeared in New Worlds was unified by publication in a single magazine, The New Weird draws from the wide world of SF publications, including stories that appeared in Flytrap, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Interzone, among others.

The stories included in The New Weird comprise a grand, audacious mix, as is its arrangement. The book strives wildly to create a definition for the subgenre. From the first section, “Stimuli,” which includes the aforementioned M. John Harrison story, Clive Barker’s “In the Hills, the Cities,” Simon D. Ings’ “The Braining of Mother Lampry,” and Thomas Ligotti’s “A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing,” the bar is set high, though Kathe Koja’s “The Neglected Garden” seems more lit-fic “weird” than “New Weird” and Michael Moorcock’s “Crossing into Cambodia” seems an odd choice considering its Cold War-era post-apocalyptic setting. In my opinion, Moocock’s “London Bone” would have been a far better choice to represent the postpagan sensibilities of the New Weird.

Beyond that, the next three sections, “Evidence,” “Symposium,” and “Laboratory” offer mixed results. China Méiville’s “Jack” is every bit as good as it was in Looking for Jake. Jeffrey Thomas’ “Immolation” seamlessly joins the standard SF tropes of clones and offworld colonies to the urban grotesqueries of the New Weird. And K. J. Bishop’s “The Art of Dying” connects elegantly to the fin de siècle grace of her 2004 novel, The Etched City. Any of these stories alone would be worth the price of admission. Jay Lake’s “The Lizard of Ooze,” like many of his Dark Towns stories, seems a punny and punishing one-joke punch (though that joke is a reversal of Swiftian proportions) in search of a purpose. Perhaps a tale set in his City Imperishable would have better suited the collection.

The gathering of criticism comprising the “Symposium” is perhaps the most valuable element of the The New Weird, inviting repeated readings and critical analysis for years to come. The “Laboratory,” on the other hand, is best described as forty pages of filler. Reminiscent of “The Challenge from Beyond,” a round-robin Weird tale by H. P. Lovecraft, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long, “Festival Lights” is a rambling mess with plenty of star power, but little cohesion. Missing from the collection is anything from Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergis, an editorial decision which makes me wonder if perhaps another editor could have assembled a more comprehensive collection.

For many, perhaps even most, Science Fiction is robots, rockets, and rayguns; movies and television programs with the word “Star” in the title (Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica); or conventions where comic-book caricatures of comic-book geeks run rampant in Dr. Who and Klingon costumes. But for those who dare to look a little bit deeper, Science Fiction is a literature of ideas, in fact, a continuum of ideas, blending philosophy and a sense of wonder. It is the intersection of the fantastic and the human. As Damon Knight once asserted, “Science Fiction is what we point to when we say it.” As a SF subgenre, New Weird bears the same characteristic DNA. What is New Weird? Why, it’s what we point to when we say “New Weird.”

In short, The New Weird is an attractive volume examining a burgeoning SF subset. Though it attempts to be a definitive word on the subject, it falls a bit shy of such lofty ideals by declaring the movement over, though its best may still be yet to come. “New Weird is dead,” writes Jeff VanderMeer in the introduction. “Long live the Next Weird.” Bollocks. Long live the New Weird.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, not a bad anthology, mixing elements of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Most of the stories are not original to this book, so if you're a fan of the authors, it's likely you've read them before. They tend toward the dark, extreme and often grotesque and disgusting, so if that's not your scene, you probably won't enjoy.
My main issue with the book is its tendency toward navel-gazing. It should have just stuck with presenting the work, rather than going on and on about how to define the term "new weird," reprinting online forum arguments, and asking random industry people what they think of it. The introduction is also 'weirdly' full of China-Mieville-hero-worship. Not that Mr. Mieville doesn't necessarily deserve it, but it was slightly odd. Basically, I don't care about ultra-narrow genre-defining; let's just skip to the stories, and let them speak for themselves!

Contents:

Introduction
“The New Weird: ‘It’s Alive?’ Jeff VanderMeer

Stimuli
M. John Harrison “The Luck in the Head”
Michael Moorcock “Crossing into Cambodia”
Clive Barker “In the Hills, the Cities”
Simon D. Ings “The Braining of Mother Lamprey”
Kathe Koja “The Neglected Garden”
Thomas Ligotti “A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing”

Evidence
China Mieville “Jack”
Jeffrey Thomas “Immolation”
Jay Lake “The Lizard of Ooze”
Brian Evenson “Watson’s Boy”
K .J. Bishop “The Art of Dying”
Jeffrey Ford “At Reparata”
Leena Krohn “Letters from Tainaron”
Steph Swainston “The Ride of the Gabbleratchet”
Alistair Rennie “The Gutter Sees the Light That Never Shines” (original)

Discussion
“New Weird: The Creation of a Term”
Michael Cisco “‘New Weird’: I Think We’re the Scene”
Darja Malcolm-Clarke “Tracking Phantoms”
K. J. Bishop “Whose Words You Wear”
“European Editor Perspectives on the New Weird” (featuring the views of Michael Haulica from Romania, Martin Sust from the Czech Republic, Hannes Riffel from Germany, Konrad Waleski from Poland, and Jukka Halme from Finland)

Laboratory (Original round-robin story)

“Festival Lives”

Preamble: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
View 1: “Death in a Dirty Dhoti” Paul Di Filippo
View 2: “Cornflowers Beside the Unuttered” Cat Rambo
View 3: “All God’s Chillun Got Wings” Sarah Monette
View 4: “Locust-Mind” Daniel Abraham
View 5: “Constable Chalch and the Ten Thousand Heroes” Felix Gilman
View 6: “Golden Lads All Must…” Hal Duncan
View 7: “Forfend the Heavens’ Rending” Conrad Williams

Recommended Reading
Biographical Notes

[Paul H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The VanderMeers have become deeply annoying to me. Who made these untalented people authorities on anything? Is there literally a worse genre name than "The New Weird"? Will Jeff ever manage to write a book as semi-decent as Area X again, or will he just keep publishing landfill? Can someone explain to me why Ann's fantasy anthology included stories by Tolstoy and Nabokov? Also, what is this shit?

[Merl Fluin · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. You say "new weird", I say "dreary urban fantasy", let's call the whole thing off.

[Vít · Rating 4 out of 5]

Název neklame, i když to už dávno není "new", pořád je to pořádně "weird". Ty čtyři hvězdy téhle sbírce nechám, zaslouží si je.
Otevřel jsem ji po řadě let vlastně jen proto, abych si připomněl povídku Alistaira Rennieho o Vykuchávači - chytám se totiž na jeho Chmurného válečníka. A to bude zdá se teprve maso :)

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't quite finish every piece of this but certainly enough to make a fair assessment. I consider myself a fan of the New Weird in general, though I guess in retrospect I've only read a few novels I would class as such. A surprisingly small fraction of this book is actually dedicated to presenting a wider palette in that genre beyond Mieville, Swainston, and VanderMeer.

Only one of five parts is composed of New Weird shorts, and while some of these are plenty good, I just found the selection generally underwhelming. I think Swainston has an enviably cool narrative voice, and Mieville's always a pleasure, but even those two stories feel somehow more like fragments of a novel than independent short stories. I skipped the Krohn excerpt, since I'd already read the whole thing and disliked it. And the Bishop, Thomas, and Lake stories were all to a greater or lesser degree plagued by the same problem I had with Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha (the only book I've read that would class as New Weird that wasn't mentioned in this collection). That is, they are full of punk and noir attitude and densely creative world building, but somehow fall short in the execution and end up feeling like those genre defining traits are the tail wagging the dog. They feel like standard world building dump genre fiction with a wider palette. The Rennie story is entertaining enough but not enough; it was also maybe closer to Caleb Wilson's bizarro weird than the New Weird proper.

Brian Evenson and Jeffrey Ford are both authors I've been reading up on outside of this collection around the same time, and in general I'm not sure I would even group them in this genre. At Reparata is alright but far from Ford's best. Evenson's Watson's Boy is maybe the best inclusion in this whole collection, with a compellingly sparse world in the vein of Kafka or Borges that serves as a nice palate cleanser between the exuberance of the other authors. Also not one of Evenson's best, though, in my estimation.

The second section is a good idea for a collection like this but also an even less enjoyable collection a fiction on its own merits. It represents the editors' best guess of the precursors of the New Weird genre. Some of the connections are clearer than others (I'm not sure I get why this specific Moorcock story was included) and some of the stories are better than others, including some that were new to me, like the Ing and Koja. I didn't like this Ligotti any more than I've liked most of his stories, and I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about Harrison too.

The rest of the book is something I find quite annoying, though. Both the introductory essay by Jeff VanderMeer and the forum discussion printed seemingly in its entirety are simply handwringing about the definition and validity of the genre label. As an adherent of cultural evolution, the nature of the problem seems a bit more straightforward to me, and the kinds of answers you would want to find are not really represented in this discussion. But what I really found annoying about this was simply the fact that the existence of this collection settles once and for all the very same question it spends so many pages litigating. Some people might find this candid discussion among professional authors interesting for other reasons, but I found it mostly tiresome.

The collaborative story in the final part was something I just didn't have the patience to engage with right now. Better stuff to read.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy Lovecraft, Mieville, pulp sci-fi, so I thought I would love this volume and was eagerly awaiting its publication. Alas, I am somewhat disappointed. Though I appreciate (on an intellectual level) the tortuous hand-wringing that accompanies the authors' attempts to define or simply talk about a genre that could be called "New Weird" (there is an entire section of the book devoted solely to a discussion among various authors about what New Weird is, whether it needs a name, and why), the stories are not always great. There are some gems (Clive Barker's story -- which was originally published in his Books of Blood -- is fabulous) but most read as if they are weird for weird's sake. Maybe that's the point of "New Weird," but many of these stories seem to lack the uncanny horror and political urgency that characterizes the work of other "weird" authors like Lovecraft and Mieville (who does have a previously published story in this volume). And without these elements, "weird" just doesn't seem all that meaningful.

[Tomislav · Rating 4 out of 5]

20 August 2010 - ****. The anthology is made up of four sections.

"Stimuli" contains short New Wave and New Horror fiction pieces which the anthologists consider precursors of New Weird. These are almost all quite good.

* The Luck in the Head, by M. John Harrison
* In the Hills, the Cities, by Clive Barker
* Crossing into Cambodia, by Michael Moorcock
* The Braining of Mother Lamprey, by Simon D. Ings
* The Neglected Garden, by Kathe Koja
* A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing, by Thomas Ligotti

"Evidence" contains short fiction pieces which the anthologists hold as examples of contemporary New Weird writing. The writing here varies from "Immolation" (I liked it) to "The Gutter sees The Light That Never Shines" (I didn't like it)

* Jack, by China Mieville
* Immolation, by Jeffrey Thomas
* The Lizard of OOze, by Jay Lake
* Watson's Boy, by Brian Evenson
* The Art of Dying, by K.J. Bishop
* At Reparata, by Jeffrey Ford
* Letters from Tainaron, by Leena Krohn
* The Ride of the Gabbleratchet, by Steph Swainston
* The Gutter Sees the Light That Never Shines, by Alistair Rennie

"Symposium" contains the text of discussions and essays towards a definition of the nature and role of New Weird writing. There is a lot of verbiage here that seems to boil down to New Weird being a "new" category of speculative fiction, that crosses between science fiction, fantasy, and horror - with an emphasis on the grotesque. There are some historical writings - such as that of H.P.Lovecraft, and H.G.Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau that contain elements of New Weird - which makes me doubt that this is actually a "new" subgenre. Nonetheless, China Mieville and Jeff VanderMeer and others are definitely doing something noteworthy under the label of New Weird.

* New Weird Discussions: The Creation of a Term
* New Weird: I think We're the Scene, Michael Cisco
* Tracking Phantoms, Darja Malcolm-Clarke
* Whose Words You Wear, K.J. Bishop
* European Editor Perspectives on the New Weird, Martin Sust, Michael Haulica, Hannes Riffel, Jukka Halme, and Konrad Walewski

"Laboratory" contains a single story, written round-robin by a number of additional writers attempting to demonstrate what they feel New Weird is. The result fails as a story miserably.

* Festival Lives, by Paul Di Filippo, Cat Rambo, Sarah Monette, Daniel Abraham, Felix Gilman, Hal Duncan, and Conrad Williams

So I do not feel that this book does a very good job of putting a clear definition on New Weird. But it did expose me to some new and good writers who are experimenting in literary sf.

[Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to read this, Interfictions, and Feeling Very Strange back-to-back and write a longer review for all three, but I will say about this one that it seems to focus on genre stories that have eccentricities that tilt them into the literary realm. Yes, the characters and plots are very odd, often with no connection to any human reality, but the prose itself is very pulpy, intentionally and self-consciously so. Most of these are not much more capital-w Weird than the stories I grew up with in Dozois's and Datlow's anthologies. For instance, one of my old favorites "A Hypothetical Lizard" by Alan Moore would seamlessly fit right in here.

My biggest gripe about this book is that 300 pages of it are short stories and about 120 pages of it are hand-wringing about what does or doesn't constitute "New Weird." I really couldn't care less, and I think the importance of this book was that it inspired a new generation of speculative authors (Sofia Samatar for instance) going forward, rather than--as the content seems to have been intended--to define something that had already happened.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

I've never cared much for the horror genre*, and perhaps that's why I started reading each of the first four stories in this book and gave up and skipped to the next one before deciding to abandon the volume entirely. The intro informed me that one of the things that distinguishes New Weird from slipstream and interstitial fiction is influence from the horror genre, along with an eschewing of "postmodern techniques that undermine the surface reality of the text (or point out its artificiality)."

*I make an exception for zombies, though I tend to think of that as SF.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best anthology collections I've come across for some time. This is almost Dangerous Visions level for me with the sheer number of excellent writers in here. This is an attempt to revamp HP Lovecraft's Weird Tales for the current century.

While not "Outsider Art", these are often literate pulp stories or at least bizarro fiction. It's got throughlines back to Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Mervyn Peake, New Wave Scifi and Horror. It can be traditional and avant garde (Lynchean but with books). It's a cross-pollination of genres, the basically line being that it's got to be weird.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rate the thirty items in this anthology a total of 93 points to give the book a 3.1 GR rating which rounds to a three. If I rated only the fiction stories, it still comes out at 2.7, which also rounds to a three.

There were two great stories in the collection: Michael Moorcock's “Crossing into Cambodia”, and Clive Barker's “In the Hills, the Cities." There were only three more stories I liked: Kathe Koja's “The Neglected Garden,” Thomas Ligotti's “A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing,” and China Mieville's “Jack.” For the other seventeen stories, the challenge was figuring out the degree of suck.

What went so horribly wrong, generally speaking? I certainly wanted to like all of these stories. Was their lack of plot, character, theme, and meaningful story structure a function of the fact that most of them were excerpts taken from longer works? This is a possibility. To know for certain I will probably need to read the entire book or novel that some of these stories were excerpted from.

I suspect I would not like the full length novels much if any more than I appreciated the excerpts. This is because an anthologist could take out a piece of an Edith Wharton novel, a Tolstoy novel, an H.G. Wells, and a Victor Hugo novel, and in such a way choose that excerpt well enough that it would make itself into a pleasurable short story reading experience, one with a beginning, middle, end, a theme for the excerpted part, and interesting characters. If it could be done for them, why couldn't it be done for the authors the Vandermeers excerpted?

The Vandermeers see themselves as providing the logical extension of the growth of Weird Fiction from the new direction China Mieville took. And that may be. I think the Vandermeers' work represents only one direction Weird took after 1990, but that it's not the only one. The Vandermeers and their many correspondents banded together to call this particular direction "New Weird."

What I prefer to read is something I call "Modern Weird." I consider Modern Weird to be the logical extension of what Weird Tales would be publishing if it were still publishing regularly today. Modern Weird encompasses New Weird, but New Weird only as a subgenre, one that values world-building and creative language use, while devaluing story structure. Modern Weird writing, by contrast, values not only world-building, good writing, and genre bending, but also plots, characters, interesting situations, having themes for audiences to ponder greater meanings, etc.

Good examples of Modern Weird (in my opinion) are the Moorcock and Barker stories, Koja, Ligotti, and even Mieville--the Vandermeers can't claim him exclusively for New Weird!

The first section of the book is from a section of the book the VanderMeers title "Stimuli". In other words, they don't consider it New Weird proper. To borrow a term from science fiction, it must then be proto-New Weird. Proto-New Weird stories are definitely Weird, but they're starting to lean towards, to look like, what will become New Weird.

Here's a list with my ratings.

Introduction
“The New Weird: ‘It’s Alive?’ Jeff VanderMeer - 5

Stimuli
M. John Harrison “The Luck in the Head” - 2
Michael Moorcock “Crossing into Cambodia” - 5
Clive Barker “In the Hills, the Cities” - 5
Simon D. Ings “The Braining of Mother Lamprey” - 3
Kathe Koja “The Neglected Garden” - 4
Thomas Ligotti “A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing” - 4

Evidence
China Mieville “Jack” - 4
Jeffrey Thomas “Immolation” - 3
Jay Lake “The Lizard of Ooze” - 3
Brian Evenson “Watson’s Boy” - 2
K .J. Bishop “The Art of Dying” - 1
Jeffrey Ford “At Reparata” - 2
Leena Krohn “Letters from Tainaron” - 2
Steph Swainston “The Ride of the Gabbleratchet” - 2
Alistair Rennie “The Gutter Sees the Light That Never Shines” (original) - 1

Discussion
“New Weird: The Creation of a Term” - 4
Michael Cisco “‘New Weird’: I Think We’re the Scene” - 4
Darja Malcolm-Clarke “Tracking Phantoms” - 4
K. J. Bishop “Whose Words You Wear” - 4
“European Editor Perspectives on the New Weird” (featuring the views of Michael Haulica from Romania, Martin Sust from the Czech Republic, Hannes Riffel from Germany, Konrad Waleski from Poland, and Jukka Halme from Finland) - 3

Laboratory (Original round-robin story)
“Festival Lives” - Not rated

Preamble: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
View 1: “Death in a Dirty Dhoti” Paul Di Filippo - 3
View 2: “Cornflowers Beside the Unuttered” Cat Rambo - 2
View 3: “All God’s Chillun Got Wings” Sarah Monette - 3
View 4: “Locust-Mind” Daniel Abraham - 2
View 5: “Constable Chalch and the Ten Thousand Heroes” Felix Gilman - 2
View 6: “Golden Lads All Must…” Hal Duncan - 2
View 7: “Forfend the Heavens’ Rending” Conrad Williams - 3

Recommended Reading - 5
Biographical Notes - 4
China Mieville “Jack” - 4

The first story in the anthology is M. John Harrison's "The Luck in the Head." It's 24 pages long and hard for me to understand. The protagonist, a poet, has a recurring dream and then gets an assassination assignment. I had the feeling I was walking in during a longer story and leaving before the end. Harrison has wonderful command of the English language and uses many obscure words in a beautifully artistic manner. The characters in the story have startlingly original names. I researched the story a little online and see that it was taken out of a volume of stories of a similar setting and probably the same characters called Virconium Nights. Maybe with more context I'd enjoy the story more, but it was presented as an isolate. It doesn't work at all that way, at least not for me.

The second story is 33 pages long. "In the Hills, the Cities" by Clive Barker is one of his Books of Blood that came out in the mid-1980s. Barker's fiction is normally very difficult for me to read and I don't know why that is. I'd be embarrassed to say how many times I had to read "Twilight at the Towers", a werewolf story from Book 6, before I got a handle on what even literally happened, much less try to ferret out a meaning.

Barker's identification by the VanderMeers as someone who was writing an early form of New Weird starts me to thinking. Was Barker ahead of his time? Was he writing New Weird type literature before an audience for it really existed? Is this what tanked his popularity after the 1980s just as it was starting?

On the story itself, it is a real surprise to me. Given the civil wars that broke out in the Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s which came down to neighboring cities fighting one another, Barker's setting here is incredibly prescient. Barker's choice of Yugoslavia, Serbia actually, to set the story in was brilliant. Nowhere does conflict better break down to city vs city more than in that part of the world. We in the West live as individuals with rights, and try to make the world better individually, or at most for our families. Our responsibilities to any wider community are vague and nebulous, shrouded in vague ideals. In a communist (or more accurately totalitarian) system, the state was supposed to be supreme. Individuals were expected to devote their lives not for themselves, but to the state. Therefore, the state is of more central importance than the individual. I think Barker is having some fun with that concept here by making it literal. I've never read a story quite like this one. I love the way Barker assumes something that's impossible and then just writes like it not only is possible, but happening, figuring he needs offer no explicit explanation. He is really stretching the metaphor.

The third story in the collection is "Crossing into Cambodia" by Michael Moorcock. What an odd choice the VanderMeers made in choosing this story. It's in the proto-New Weird section, but even still I see little in it I would characterize as Weird. It's more like straight science fiction. It's unfortunate the VanderMeers offer nothing in terms of what their thought processes were for including it, not even an introduction in italics to the author before the story begins, as is customary in an anthology.

The story reads as though it were written in the 1970s when the Cold War was still on, but is set in the near future, one where the Soviet Union, United States, and Australia are allies and needing to occupy the southeast Asian peninsula for some reason. The story quickly focuses on a Soviet division that's in Vietnam and is preparing to cross a river to invade Cambodia. The Soviet division is actually a Cossack division that rides on horseback but uses modern weapons including tanks and helicopters. They are attempting to get actionable intelligence out of Vietnamese locals and employ brutal tactics to do so. The protagonist is a liaison officer attached to the division, not a Cossack but a communist party functionary, there to ensure party loyalty and adherence to government goals. The liaison officer is an outsider trying to fit in, educated, and supposedly above (too humane for) the brutal methods of the Cossacks, yet he acts in ways that are ethically complicated, shall we say.

This story was an excellent study in character. Trying to figure out what type of person the protagonist was and what his ethical boundaries were from the actions described was the heart of the story. That might sound dull, but the way Moorcock writes and portrays the characters was so real, so in keeping with our understanding of the way the Soviet military actually worked and interacted with one another, that it becomes fascinating. The events that test the protagonist's character are riveting as well.

The story reads well and stands on its own, unlike the earlier Harrison story. Nevertheless, it's fairly obvious that there's more to it. Moorcock did not create this rich background for the story to exist in if it were not at one time a part of a longer work. The protagonist, who wasn't named in this story, and would like to read the three (I think) other stories Moorcock wrote that feature him: "Casablanca", "Going to Canada", and "Leaving Pasadena." All of the characters are amazing and complex. A very interesting situation set in a part of the world (southeast Asia) that frankly has heretofore been of little interest to me was related here.

The next story in The New Weird is by Simon Ings, titled "The Braining of Mother Lamprey" (1990). It is early urban fantasy. The protagonist is an apprentice who seeks to become a warlock. The world is a London-sized city called Godsgate in which magic has come back because the Age of Science is over and something of God's power revealed itself on Earth, especially in Godsgate. What we're presented starts out as "A Day in the Life of..." story, in which we are introduced to the protagonist, his friends, his enemy, and we get an idea of what he is trying to accomplish. Suddenly we realize there is much more at stake and we transition into a coming of age story for the apprentice.

All of this is well and good, except the setting is absolutely disgusting. A lot of the magic works through collecting piles of excrement and smearing it over oneself, gouging eyeballs, removing body limbs and allowing them to fester, etc. It's the seamiest imaginable urban decay type Weird where the ooze never stops dripping in gangrenous technicolor. Yuck! Just yuck! The setting of the story and the lens it was told through was unique and imaginative, however disgusting, but the overall plot was nothing special.

Next came Kathe Koja's "The Neglected Garden." It was about a man wanting to break up with a woman. She preferred to work on the relationship and to wait until the man came around to her point of view. She took being hard to get rid of to a new, horrifying level. This story was cute, in its way, and as short as it needed to be to get the point across.

Next up was Thomas Ligotti's "A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing." Unlike with Kathe Koja, I have heard of Thomas Ligotti. He is a horror writer, who also featured in Weird Tales often in the 1980s and 90s, especially his wonderful art. He is a polarizing writer, like Lovecraft. Those with an opinion of him have a very positive or very negative one. This was nevertheless the first time I took the time to read one of his stories. I had to read it twice because I failed to pick up the symbolism (on the first read) I knew had to be there for the story to make sense.

Despite starting to grow tired of lately having to read stories more than once to understand them, I liked the story and would give it four stars even though some would say little to nothing happened in the events depicted. Read the title of the story again for an indication of just how action-packed it is. I believe the story is about a terminally ill boy dying. Ligotti is trying to put a positive spin on this sad event by writing about an afterlife and rebirth cycle--that's my interpretation, and I could be wrong. It's a dense, highly philosophical read, okay for a short story, but I'm not sure I would want to spend novel length time with this kind of writing.

And this finishes the first quarter of the book, the stimuli section, what the VanderMeers seem to consider proto-New Weird. Next comes the "Evidence" section, the true New Weird material kicked off by China Mieville's "Jack." I've tried on two occasions to read Perdido Street Station, but never gotten far before getting confused and giving up. I wonder if this smaller dose of Mieville will prove more palatable.

In many story collections there are some great stories. Other stories are average, and a few are usually just downright bad. The average ones are in the middle of this collection.

Reviews I read say this story makes little sense shorn of its Perdido Street Station origin. I didn't find that to be the case at all and think this stands up well on its own. I like the prejudice against remade concept, the narrator's voice, and would be interested in reading more of the world depicted. This is the first time in years I've found a desire to try Perdido Street Station again.

Jeffrey Thomas “Immolation” - 3
Expansion on Mieville's concept, only this time about prejudice against and poor treatment of clones, but not as crisply written.

Jay Lake “The Lizard of Ooze” - 3
Another, let's create a strange world that operates on different principles story. The main problem I have with it is that the parameters are barely explained and the scientific justifications for them aren't dealt with at all. People in a strange world are given a mission or quest, encounter some small problem, overcome problem, the end. It's not enough.

Brian Evenson “Watson’s Boy” - 2
I could write the same paragraph for this story as I did for the last story. This one was even worse for its focus on ashes, dust, rats, and fishing line. The protagonist has daddy issues, but we have no reason to care. This story could have been a meh, like the above one, but was so vague with goals poorly defined it ended up with a 2 like the first one (Harrison's).

I am astonished just how bad the "evidence" section is. I can see how some people might think this great writing. There is nice paragraph formatting and some clever and unusual word choices, but that's all I can say that's positive about these stories.

The authors depict worlds that are very different from ours, but that difference is for the sake of difference, not to make a point, or show a reader anything meaningful by that difference. The stories have little to no plot, no protagonist whose struggles we care anything about, no purpose for having been written, and sometimes are offensive (waxing on positively about death in one case, pointlessly profane in another). These gems got a 1 from me for actually being negative reading experiences, instead of 2's for being utterly pointless and therefore merely boring. Unlike bizarro, these stories are as humorless as a maggot-ridden corpse falling apart before our eyes. The authors take themselves and the drivel they write very, very seriously.

And that concludes my review, cadged together from messages I wrote about the anthology as I read it. Many library systems have this book. I recommend checking out a copy just to get a good feel of what New Weird was. My review might help you figure out where to spend your time. You can read the five stories word for word that I indicate are worth reading. The others, you might want to start reading, see if our tastes allign, and then if they do just skim them. That might be the most efficient use of your reading time.

[Lindsey R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read bits and pieces of this book over the past few years, but I finally finished it today.
The critical theory and essays in the middle of this anthology are quite interesting and valuable to readers and authors wanting to know how to define New Weird as a genre.
My first exposure to some prolific authors in here, so I'm grateful for this anthology's existence!

Some of my favorite stories/selections:
"In The Hills, The Cities" by Clive Barker
"The Neglected Garden" by Kathe Koja
"At Reparata" by Jeffrey Ford
"Letters from Tainaron" by Leena Krohn

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's difficult to assign a point value to this book, because the stories were hit 'n miss. On the other hand it did what I wanted by showing me authors to look out for and others to avoid. That being said none of the stories really excited me the way that Chine Mieville has. I don't think Mieville's own story in the collection would have interested me as much as it did if I hadn't read his other works.

The poorer stories were:

The M. John Harrison story was intended to unsettling and did so in the most heavy handed way possible. In any given scene characters do or say things strange things, motivated only by the need to be weird. I gave it up when one character talks at a second character who is busy shoving a napkin in his mouth.

Jay Lake features a ninja duel wielding daggers named "Truth" and "Sinister." And Alistair Rennie features a supernatural warrior-rapist, Whorefrost, who maims his victims and then rapes them to death.

The more interesting ones were

Simon D. Ings who wrote about a world in which science no longer works and magic has taken over. Brian Evenson created an interesting world and though there isn't any closure he showed potential. Jeffery Ford and Steph Swainston both created interesting worlds.

[Wizzard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the book as a project but the stories in the book were not always very memorable. I liked them while I read them and I am glad that I read them but they were a mixed bag. Again, not mixed in terms of uneven quality because they all were very well-written. Just some of the stories didn't do much for me. I am changing my rating from three stars to four stars.

I liked the two new features of the book-- the selection of essays that ask "What is the New Weird" and includes authors and editors from the Western sci-fi world chiming in in various dialogue and response. Great! Thought provoking! Clear! I also liked the story that was jointly written, "Festival Lives" where 8 or so hot authors wrote a chapter each in a fun on-going story that I wish were a full novel.

From the book I discovered a few authors I had not heard of including China Meillville who I've already enjoyed his Perdido Street Station. The book did what anthologies should do-- help you find more authors that you enjoy and want to read further.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far this anthology has some very interesting and disturbing stories in it. But here's the most disturbing thing: there are no significant women characters. None. There's even a story of a pair of lovers traveling through eastern Europe but, guess what? They are both MEN. What is up with that?

=============

Finished reading. This collection of stories is unique in my experience. Bizarre. Strange. Weird. New. It takes some getting used to but is well worth it. There are even a couple of stories at the end that have women in them. And the collection of "stuff" that follows the stories is actually an interesting discussion of what this genre, New Weird, really is and how it came/is coming about.

Turns out New Weird is a conglomeration of SF, Fantasy, Literary and Horror. I think the literary aspect and the overall sense of decay are what struck me the most. It's not for everyone but you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't check it out and see if it is for you.

[Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since reading Perdido Street Station, I've been a sucker for anything described as New Weirdish. Sometimes my enthusiasm for the sub-genre/style/movement/whatever-the-hell-you-call-it has been more fervent than my appreciation for the examples of it I read. So it was nice to find that even the stories by authors whose novels I disliked (ah screw it, I'm referring to K.J.Bishop and The Etched City) I liked in this anthology. That said, none of the stories really quite reached the levels that the New Weird novels I've enjoyed reached. What really sets the anthology apart is its mix of fiction, criticism, and experimentation and the hybrid state The New Weird achieves somewhere between story anthology and textbook.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any collection, the stories are somewhat hit or miss. The precursor stories were actually weaker than the current examples; Watson's Boy was my favorite, though At Reparata was the most emotional. New Weird as a style is the fever dream of Fantasy and Science Fiction, focused on grotesque organics and oppressive places. A large section of the book is devoted to defining the style, which devolves to arguments about whether or not it's worth it to even try, but getting past that and you get some very interesting and unique stories.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tried to read the whole anthology, I really did. However, I found the introduction to be less educational than condecending. I attempted to start several stories, but could finish none but China Mieville's Jack [which was the story that drew my attention to the anthology in the first place]. Perhaps I don't "get" the sub-genre, but I just couldn't engage with this material.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is split into sections and this review focuses solely on the sections containing the short stories. What I can tell about this "genre" from the sampling here is that it gorges itself on bizarre details. These authors are shaping worlds and introduce so many new ideas often in so rapid a succession it all comes as much too much. Silly, futuristic sounding words and names are almost mandatory in these stories and become comical and predictable, like some sort of random generator was being used too liberally. Otherwise it is anachronistic or techno garble that serves the set dressing for the tales.
"The Luck in the Head" is a moderate in its approach with silly names but its recognizable desolate future rings true and there is a good measure of body horror splashed in 3/5.
"In the Hills, the Cities" a grotesque, surreal story that slowly engages the reader is the most grounded in reality but delivers a potent punch 4/5.
"Crossing into Cambodia" is simply a fictional account of WW3 and was boring and unpleasant 1/5.
"The Braining of Mother Lamprey" was a story going crazy with the wordplay but is wildly creative and actually manages to be funny, in fact being the only story in this entire collection with that honor 5/5.
"The Neglected Garden" is another body horror story about a scorned woman turning herself into a plant. It's actually way creepier and much better written than it has any right to be 4/5.
"A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing" is a fantastic existential yarn with lasting imagery and a cold philosophical punch 4/5.
"Jack" possibly the best example of slowly mixing in the weird with the normal is told in a clever way and feels to me, one of the most soundly complete of these stories 3/5.
"Immolation" was a bit dull but nonetheless uses scifi as a means of examining that moral implications of yadda yadda 2/5.
"The Lizard of Ooze" was a too much story that I found embarrasing and un-creative 1/5.
"Watson's Boy" a rehash of one of my favorite Borges' stories manages to tease out the horror and inject a potent dose of David Lynch in for good measure 4/5.
"The Art of Dying" is not very good 1/5.
"At Reparata" was very entertaining and really left me wanting more even though the story itself ends satisfactorily 5/5.
"Letters from Tainaron" was an excerpt so I am skipping it.
"The Ride of the Gabbleratchet" suffered the most from the much too much syndrome and I found my eyes rolling even though a lot of clever ideas were presented 3/5.
"The Gutter Sees the Light That Never Shines" is hiding behind a lot of symbolism to appear deep here and yet struggles to appear like it's not trying to appear deep? Either way, annoying 2/5.

[Vít Kotačka · Rating 3 out of 5]

New Weird je asi hlavně škatulka a marketingový pojem. Což může být někdy dobře - člověk si přečte to, co by si normálně nepřečetl. K téhle knížce mě přitáhly dvě věci - jednak jméno Jeffa VanderMeera, coby editora a jednak jsem to koupil ve slevě za 39,- Kč.

Tím, že je to sbírka od různých autorů je nevyhnutelně dáno to, že kvalita je velmi proměnlivá a vzhledem k nejednoznačné podstatě pojmu new weird je i rozstřel témat a stylů velmi široký. Já jsem si z knihy vybral čtyři autory, které chci dále číst. Jednak obligátní (a nejslavnější) China Miéville, od kterého už mám nakoupenou řádku knih v originále (a ještě jsem nic nečetl).

Dále mě zaujal Clive Barker se svými "hellraiserovskými" tématy, brutalita Alistaira Rennieho, kterou dále rozvinul v knize BleakWarrior a zejména Jeffrey Thomas se svojí sérií Punktown.

Četl jsem jenom povídky, eseje (vyjma úvodní od VanderMeera) jsem přeskočil.

------------

Hodnocení jednotlivých povídek:

Štěstí v hlavě, M. John Harrison. Divný město, nesmyslný příběh, zajímavá zbraň. Nebavilo. ⭐⭐

Města v horách, Clive Barker. "Hellraiseirový" Clive Barker jak bych ho nečekal. Silná atmosféra, která přebije i málo uvěřitelný konstrukt. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Přechod do Kambodže, Michael Moorcock. Skica ze 3. světové války, sovětští kozáci v kambodžské džungli. ⭐⭐⭐

Hlava Matky Lampreyové, Simon D. Ings. Nechutná fantasmagorie, příliš mnoho exkrementů. Magie zajímavá. ⭐⭐

Nepěstěná zahrada, Kathe Koja. Metamorfóza, trošku připomínající Annihilation. Situace s policií a sousedy nevěrohodná. ⭐⭐⭐

Tichý hlas nic nešeptá, Thomas Ligotti. Podivné město s podivným rituálem a spousta nudných metafyzických řečí. ⭐⭐

Jack, China Miéville. První ochutnávka Nového Krobuzonu, dobrý závěr, překvapivý. ⭐⭐⭐

Oběť, Jeffrey Thomas. Punktown! 👍 To si dám líbit, sem se ještě vrátím. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ještěr ze Sklůzu, Jay Lake. Taková divná upířina, co nebyla o upírech. A k tomu pradávný temný Ještěr. ⭐⭐⭐

Watsonův chlapec, Brian Evenson. Divné podzemní bludiště plné klíčů a dveří. Dlouho očekávané krysy, které nakonec přijdou. Otec a syn. Nedává to moc smysl, ale atmosféru to má. ⭐⭐⭐

Umění umírat, K. J. Bishop. Romantické melodrama, nůďo s duelisty v alternativním světě. ⭐⭐

Reparata, Jeffrey Ford. Podivná pohádka o podivném královském dvoře. A estetická, všepožírající, gigantická můra. ⭐⭐

Příběh mistra mlynáře, Ian R. MacLeod. Krásný příběh technické revoluce v Anglii, úpadek starých řemesel a jen malinkatá špetka magie. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Vykuchávač potkává Světlo, Jež Nikdy Nesvítí, Alistair Rennie. Makabrózní Vykuchávač. Zajímavý svět, kde by mě zajímalo pokračování. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite stories in here:
“At Reparata” by Jeffrey Ford - A self-declared royal, rich from inherited pirate treasure creates a court of misfit wanders. Everyone has bizarre titles and plays castle until their leader loses the love of his life and falls into a deep depression. The healer they employ to cure the king takes them down a bizarre pathway that pulls in elements of Gormenghast and Perdido Street Station. But the tone is still dark comedy?

“The Lizard of Ooze” by Jay Lake - Trippy and doesn't even pretend like it's going to bother explaining the backstory behind the savage inversions of the dark alternative United States, which is now full or dark cities that seem to consist of scary towns in vertical mineshafts.

“Jack” by China Miéville - A clever extension of a minor character backstory from Perdido.

I also really liked the seven-part experiment where different authors continued the same loosely connected story in a new New Weird city.

Perhaps best of all, this collection actually achieves what it sets out to do: engage in the literary history and argument about what the "New Weird" is or might be, or why. It even reprints a long discussion board argument with some of the writers who worked in the genre, and their back-and-forth really shapes the smokey lenses through which to read all the stories, as well as the Miéville books I've read.

If you're wondering what the New Weird is, exactly, well, this excerpt from that mid-00s discussion is illuminating:

Stephanie Swainston: The New Weird is a wonderful development in literary fantasy fiction. I would have called it Bright Fantasy, because it is vivid and because it is clever. The New Weird is a kickback against jaded heroic fantasy which has been the only staple for far too long. Instead of stemming from Tolkien, it is influenced by Gormenghast and Viriconium. It is incredibly eclectic, and takes ideas from any source. It borrows from American Indian and Far Eastern mythology rather than European or Norse traditions, but the main influence is modern culture ― street culture ― mixing with ancient mythologies. The text isn’t experimental, but the creatures are. It is amazingly empathic....

The details are jewel-bright, hallucinatory, carefully described. Today’s Tolkienesque fantasy is lazy and broad-brush. Today’s Michael Marshall thrillers rely lazily on brand names. The New Weird attempts to place the reader in a world they do not expect, a world that surprises them ― the reader stares around and sees a vivid world through the detail. These details ― clothing, behaviour, scales and teeth ― are what makes New Weird worlds so much like ours, as recognisable and as well-described. It is visual, and every scene is packed with baroque detail. Nouveau-goths use neon and tinsel as well as black clothes. The New Weird is more multi-spectral than gothic.

[Sassa Margot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology of short stories was recommended to me in a creative writing workshop on speculative fiction (upscale science fiction and fantasy). I'm really glad I followed through and read the book. I'm now reading other works by the authors collected here, from China Mieville who I knew from Perdido Street Station to Clive Barker, who seems to be famous for horror, which I don't generally read, but whose story in here I loved, so...I'm going to venture into new reading waters. And isn't that the purpose of a great short story anthology?

Starting with the introduction by co-editor Jeff Vandermeer, who I know of through my interest in steampunk, I found the collection to be a thoughtful and wide-ranging survey of the New Weird. The introduction is a great recap of the development of the New Weird, offering a look back to the "Old Weird" of Lovecraft and Poe and then tracing the more recent predecessors to the stories and writers collected here. If you are a student of weird fiction, meaning you want to write some and understand the movement and its antecedents and adjacent movements, then you need this book for the introduction alone. Although Vandermeer acknowledges "the pivotal 'moment' is behind us," he also notes that this moment has "already lasted much longer than generally believed, had definite precursors, and continues to spread an Effect, even as it dissipates or becomes something else." As he ends his essay: "New Weird is dead. Long live Next Weird."

With fifteen stories, the collection covers the range from horror to fantastical to punk-inflected, like a chocolate box with something for every taste. Even the stories that were not personal favorites were worthy examples, with distinctive voices, memorable characters, and original weirdnesses, standout weirdnesses in a genre dedicated to the twisted and strange. The editors also included further discussion of the genre partway through the book, with a Symposium section that included four individual essays on the movement capped by a round-table discussion by European editors on their views on the genre. The editors ended the book with a "round robin" of selected "views" by non-New Weird authors of note in the fantasy realm, who were asked to co-develop a story, through their individual "views" of the genre. I'm of a scholarly bent, and the stories plus the literary discussions made for a feast.

And yeah. You have got to read that Clive Barker story in here, "In the Hills, the Cities."

[Cheyenne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting examination of the New Weird as a genre movement (or potential movement?) The first two sections of the anthology included a variety of short stories, which of course are the main draw to the book. The stories were hit or miss for me; I liked most of them to some degree, although one of them (unfortunately the first story in the book, which made me hesitant initially) my brain just repeatedly rejected and I eventually had to DNF. That said, a few of these stories I'd have given 5 stars, and the majority fell somewhere in the 3 or 4-star range of enjoyment. I'd imagine that there's something in here for everyone (unless you're really not into the idea of weird fiction, in which case, what are you doing reading this review in the first place, silly?)

The next section included and excerpt from an internet message board conversation that initially sparked the idea for the anthology as well as several non-fiction essays written by a various authors and editors discussing whether or not they believe in the New Weird as a movement in general and, in the case of a series from foreign editors, what their perception is of the New World's presence in their country. This I found interesting from the perspective of a writer, but if I didn't write I probably would have skipped it.

The last section is actually a "round robin"-style story where seven authors got together and took turns adding onto a New World story, telling their own mini-narratives within a world of their shared creation. I did not try to internally rate this section because it was more experimental, but the story was an interesting read, if unique in its structure.

In general, I think this book makes a good introduction to weird fiction (at least as it stood in the 2000's) and could also serve as a text of sorts for a writer interested in expanding their writing in that direction (keeping in mind that part of the argument of the non-fiction part of this book in the first place is that an over-emphasis on labels can be dangerous because writers shouldn't be writing to fill a specific genre but rather to tell a specific story).

[Bara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 - 4*
Jsou to povídky, tak některé jsou lepší a některé jsou podle mě horší, i když vyloženě slabé kousky tu nejsou. Na druhou stranu mě ale ani nic nechytlo tak, abych tomu dala 5*.

New weird je divný žánr. Slepenec toho zvláštního z žánrů jako jsou sci-fi, fantasy (urban i jiné podžánry), krimi a v jedné z povídek je dokonce něco jako steampunk říznutý magickým realismem. Ovšem bizarnosti, absurdnosti a podobné fantasknosti jsou tu opentleny vysokým stylem. Pár povídek vybízí svou divností k zamyšlení. Co je člověk? Jak se má člověk chovat ke klonům? A podobně.

Antologie je vhodná pro seznámení se s žánrem. 1) Je plná příběhů od různých spisovatelů, takže po přečtení jedné knihy od jednoho autora nejste kontaminováni jen jednostranným pohledem na věc, když je jich možných hodně. 2) Antologie obsahuje i diskuzi, které se zúčastnily přední osobnosti tohoto hnutí a věcí okolo žánrové literatury a také slovo redaktorů z několika zemí. Pro zajímavost, je tam i názor českého redaktora.

[Shotgun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tato kniha trošku připomíná představení Divadla Járy Cimmrmana. Je zde několik povídek z tohoto žánru a pak také různé odborné osvětové články, přepis diskuzí na internetu či seznam doporučené literatury.
Nádraží Perdido mne hodně oslovilo a tak jsem si říkal, zda i jiní autoři z tohoto žánru / nežánru píší tak dobře. A v této knize jsem na to nenašel odpověď. Některé příběhy byly takové hodně vyprázdněné a formalistické (podobný problém jsem měl i s výběrem povídek z nové vlny steam punku) ale jiné byly opravdu povedené. Nejvíc mne zaujala ta mlynářská povídka. ta měla dobrou atmosféru, uvěřitelná svět a dobře namíchaný poměr akce, úvah a fantastických prvků.
Uvidíme, kam se žánr vyvine. Možnosti tu jsou.

[Erin]

Made it about 100 pages. I hated the first 4 stories so decided that it just wasn't for me. A City of Saints and Madmen lured me into thinking I would like New Weird, but I guess not.

A lot of it was just the super casual violence and rape; I'm just not in the mood for that kind of stuff any more. Maybe it was the book being frontloaded with male authors and I'd enjoy female authors more, but then does it really count as me having read the book?