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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Weird Fiction Review!

Just launched, what may become my favorite stop on the web...The Weird Fiction Review.  From their about page:

This web­blog is the brain­child of Ann Van­der­Meer and Jeff Van­der­Meer. Ann has served as edi­tor of Weird Tales and with Jeff co-edited such antholo­gies as The New Weird, the ebook antho series ODD?, and the just-released The Weird: A Com­pendium of Strange & Dark Sto­ries (Atlantic/Corvus). Jeff is an award-winning writer of weird fic­tion whose last novel, Finch, was a final­ist for the World Fan­tasy Award and the Neb­ula Award. 
This site is meant to be an ongo­ing explo­ration into all facets of the weird, in all of its many forms — a kind of non-denominational approach that appre­ci­ates Love­craft but also Kafka, Angela Carter and Clark Ash­ton Smith, Shirley Jack­son and Fritz Leiber — along with the next gen­er­a­tion of weird writ­ers and inter­na­tional weird. The empha­sis will be on non­fic­tion on writ­ers and par­tic­u­lar books, but we will also run fea­tures on weird art, music, and film, as well as occa­sional fiction.

I feel like they read my mind.  "Weird" really gets at the heart of why I liked the books that I do.  To help get things kicked off, The Weird Fiction Review interviewed the king of "weird," Neil Gaiman.  Here is a direct link to the interview and below is an excerpt from the interview where Gaiman talks about why people are drawn to weird stories:

WFR: What do you think is the appeal of weird fic­tion generally?
Gaiman: For me it’s like a visit to a strange place — a hol­i­day in unearthly beauty and odd­ness, from which you may not always safely return.
WFR: Do you see a dif­fer­ence between “hor­ror” and “the weird” and “the gothic”, and does it mat­ter to you as either a writer or reader?
Gaiman: I think of Hor­ror as a sec­tion of a book­shop, gothic as a type of book that ended, truly, with North­hanger Abbey, and The Weird as an attempt to unify what­ever it was that Robert Aick­man did, that Edward Gorey did — using the tools of hor­ror to delight and trans­form. But I could be full of it. And no, it doesn’t matter.
Other authors who I think really go a great job of writing weird, but accessible stories are Steven Millhauser, Kevin Brockmeier, and Keith Donohue.  In fact, here is a link to a post where I talked about all three in more detail.  Also here is a link to my review of Donohue's newest novel, Centuries of June, in which I provide more "weird" fiction links.

Feel free to add your favorite "weird" authors or stories in the comments.  Also, check out the books I have marked "not quite horror" over at RA for All: Horror.  These are also good "weird" reading suggestions.

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