Weird Fiction

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, both popular in the 1800s. As Lovecraft wrote in 1927, the weird tale “has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains.” Instead, it represents the pursuit of some indefinable and perhaps maddeningly unreachable understanding of the world beyond the mundane — a ‘certain atmosphere 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, both popular in the 1800s. As Lovecraft wrote in 1927, the weird tale “has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains.” Instead, it represents the pursuit of some indefinable and perhaps maddeningly unreachable understanding of the world beyond the mundane — a ‘certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread” or “malign and particular suspension or defeat of…fixed laws of Nature” — through fiction that comes from the more unsettling, shadowy side of the fantastical tradition.

Weird fiction - since its rise to prominence in the 1890s - has long been the generic depository for literature that seamlessly fits the definitions of several genres of speculative fiction. If it wasn't exactly horror or fantasy, quite possibly it could be termed weird. In fact, a basic definition of weird fiction could truthfully be a story that combines elements of fantasy and horror. A broader definition would be a story that includes and merges any number of plot devices, elements, sensibilities, and tropes of horror, science fiction, fantasy, the ghost story, supernatural fiction, mythology, mystery, or Gothic fiction. Literature that includes standards from more than one of these traditions might be considered weird.

Michael Kelly, editor of Weird Horror magazine, agrees that to properly define and categorize the term "weird fiction" could be a difficult task. He writes:
”[…] it can often be unclassifiable and hard to precisely define. […] In my view weird fiction is speculative, and often (but not always) works to explore and subvert the laws of nature, or the natural order. I like to think of it as an unceasing distortion and buckling of ambient space and time; where plot, theme, atmosphere and voice coalesce. Hence, the lens from which you view the world is askew and occluded. A feeling. A mood. A sense of dislocation. Weird fiction is a large umbrella, encompassing many modes of fiction. Before genre rules were established, weird fiction could be said to consist of the science fictional, the ghostly supernatural, the mythical, the cosmic, and the fantastic. An extensive mode of literature. In that regard it shares many properties with its Horror brethren. It’s why weird fiction is, I’d say, most commonly associated with horror fiction. [...] Weird fiction, perhaps more than any other mode, is fluid, adaptable, and ever-changing. I certainly take an expansive view of it, not constrained to the American-based strand (terror and awe) or the European-based (strange tale).”

This view finds further resonance in noted writer Simon Strantzas’ statement: “Instead, these sorts of stories exist in a liminal world of rationalities where things are not quite right. Slightly askew, their axes tilted, they are stories where the everyday is corrupted just enough that the strange can leak through.”
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Lists

Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Unsettling Fictions: Short Stories that Live Beneath the Skin

140 books — 36 voters

Harlan Ellison's Watching by Harlan Ellison

The Best of H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft

Best Weird Story Collections

62 books — 15 voters

Genre-Bending True Crime

24 books — 10 voters

The Last Guest House by Caroline Mitchell

Cult fction

361 books — 211 voters

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

No Ordinary House

82 books — 24 voters

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Crazy First Paragraph Books

7 books — 6 voters

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Quotes Tagged “Weird Fiction”

“ Šulc je svoje himne posvetio zlom demijurgu, propovedajući o preobražaju koji, kroz njega i njegove moći, treba pokrenuti: o preobražaju u prvobitnu tvar. Umalo je uspeo da se preobrazi! Na¬žalost, smrt ga je prerano stigla. Pusti to; ne treba da ti pričam o tome. Mogu da ti ispričam o pravom preobražaju – preobražaju mladog Franca K. iz Kirlinga, pokraj Beča – kojem je Jelena pri¬sustvovala. Zapravo, ne – neću da dužim priču… Ne smem da se zadržavam. Reći ću ti samo da se mladi K. smesta privik ...more ”
― Boban Trifunović, Srce lutke

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“ Krisztina played the song. It was a lament made of eight notes, repeated. It was an empty melody. It sounded elemental too; it made Krisztina think of the snow falling beyond the window and across Budapest. She wondered if it was snowing in England. Alice’s mother would be here again later, all the way from London. There was so much grief. They were mourning her little girl before she had gone. Without realising she heard these words making themselves part of the song. She played what she could, ...more ”
― Simon Avery, The Teardrop Method

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