This Ain't Kansas Anymore

(I'm waiting to post a picture but can't since it's trapped in my cellphone. Anyone know how to download from cell to PC, aside from via texting to e-mail? In any case, here's something else I came up with instead while waiting...)

Noted fantasist Jeffrey Ford commented on the weird fantasy stuff thats been coming out appropriately entitled New Weird and it's interesting to see such analysis especially after my recent post on another kind of fantasy story, slipstream.

So what is New Weird anyway? Well, Ford cites Kathryn Cramer's New Weird discussions and they're pretty informative. However, Ford puts it nicely:

I believe the term was coined by China Mieville to describe his own fiction. And I know that one of its precepts is the refusal to “break the fourth wall.” What I’ve taken this to mean (and here I may already be in over my head) is that it refuses metafictional devices, self-referential devices, a certain inherent cynicism about the fictional world. In other words, Mieville’s writing is not hedging its bets, but forthrightly presenting a fictional world that the reader can, for at least the time it takes to read the work, put full stock in. I think the desired effect is that it would allow the fiction to retain its vitality and not have it mitigated by an authorial wink or smirk or misdirection that might allow reality to poke holes in it and let that energy seep out.

Of course, as always, definitions don't mean shit when one has a hard time trying to find the commonality in the writings of authors tagged as such, whether slipstream or New Weird. But in the New Weird's case, it's a relatively new field so-- unlike slipstream-- there's no definitive list of books that can be called as such involved***. I also think that New Weird is easier to describe as such, given its horror antecedents (especially H.P. Lovecraft). Another commenter quotes Steph Swainton in that it's the anti-fantasy fantasy.*

The way I understand it though, it does seem like that the New Weird is the opposite of any such fantasy writings that play with the tropes, styles, etc. of fiction-- whether these be slipstream, interstitial, or surrealism. It's the giant leap from genre to the bigger, wider world.** (Ironically, is it also me or are those who are regarded as slipstream writers primarily short fictionists whereas New Weird people are novelists?)

What do you think?

(And this is what I'm strongly recommending you try out if you want to see what the New Weird is all about: The New Weird anthology, edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer. Of course, you can also try out Mieville's books, which is chockfull of the stuff.)

*For those who can't be bothered trawling the discussions and are still asking, the New Weird are stories set on imagined worlds that are neither science-fiction nor fantasy-- or maybe a combination of both. Actually, like slipstream, the New Weird uses a lot of recognizable genre tropes and tries to spin them or break them apart to make new ideas. However, as Ford says, the New Weird assumes the strangeness is the part and parcel of the world, unlike slipstream.

**I read the above statement and thought, would people think that jumping from genre to the wider world means shifting to literary? Not necessarily. It's more like thinking out of the box and making something new out of the genre's tropes, which, given the meaning of the word "genre", says a lot.

***Because someone was persnickety about it.