Description: Descend into shadowy cities, grotesque rituals, chaotic festivals, and deadly cults. Plunge into terrifying domains, where bodies are remade into surreal monstrosities, where the desperate rage against brutal tyrants. Where everything is lethal and no one is innocent, where Peake began and Lovecraft left off--this is where you will find the New Weird.
Edgy, urban fiction with a visceral immediacy, the New Weird has descended from classic fantasy and dime-store pulp novels, from horror and detective comics, from thrillers and noir. All grown-up, it emerges from the chrysalis of nostalgia as newly literate, shocking, and utterly innovative. Here is the very best of the New Weird from some of its greatest practitioners. This canonic anthology collects the original online debates first defining the New Weird and critical writings from international editors, culminating in a ground-breaking round-robin piece, "Festival Lives," which features some of the hottest new names in New Weird fiction.Review Quotes: Praise for The New Weird
"The VanderMeers (Best American Fantasy) ably demonstrate the sheer breadth of the 'New Weird' fantasy subgenre in this powerful anthology of short fiction and critical essays. Highlights include strong fiction by authors such as M. John Harrison, Clive Barker, Kathe Koja, and Michael Moorcock, whose work pointed the way to such definitive New Weird tales as Jeffrey Ford's 'At Reparata' and K. J. Bishop's 'The Art of Dying.' Lingering somewhere between dark fantasy and supernatural horror, New Weird authors often seek to create unease rather than full-fledged terror. The subgenre's roots in the British New Wave of the 1960s and the Victorian Decadents can lend a self-consciously literary and experimental aura, as illustrated by the 'laboratory, ' where more mainstream fantasy and horror authors, including Sarah Monette and Conrad Williams, try their hands at creating New Weird stories. This extremely ambitious anthology will define the New Weird much as Bruce Sterling's landmark Mirrorshades anthology defined cyberpunk."--Publishers Weekly "This collection of 16 stories and essays, including a round-robin ('Festival Lives') in seven parts plus a conclusion available on the publisher's website, presents a select sample of previously published and new examples of the 'new weird.'... Highly recommended for all libraries interested in the latest in SF and fantasy as well as modern horror."
--Library Journal "The first comprehensive anthology of the movement...."
--The Guardian "...mix(es) elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror into a style that reaches back to Lovecraft and Jack Vance while grasping at the darker future of speculative fiction."
--The A.V. Club "If you're into 'lit-speak' and the debate over what any of this means, this is your kind of collection. If you don't care and are just interested in some cool disturbing stories set in gritty alternative worlds, this is your kind of book, too."
--Black Gate "This anthology is a must-read for lovers of literate dark fiction.... If the only way to grade an anthology is by its ability to provide fascinating dreams, then the New Weird gets an A+."
--Internet Review of Science Fiction