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The New Weird

New Weird is a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy. New Weird has a visceral, in-the-moment quality that often uses elements of surreal or transgressive horror for its tone, style, and effects — in combination with the stimulus of influence from New Wave writers or their proxies (including also such forebears as Mervyn Peake and the French/English Decadents). New Weird fictions are acutely aware of the modern world, even if in disguise, but not always overtly political. As part of this awareness of the modern world, New Weird relies for its visionary power on a "surrender to the weird" that isn't, for example, hermetically sealed in a haunted house on the moors or in a cave in Antarctica. The "surrender" (or "belief") of the writer can take many forms, some of them even involving the use of postmodern techniques that do not undermine the surface reality of the text.

Related Genres

Authors & Titles

• Bishop, K.J.: The Etched City
  
• Chapman, Stepan: The Troika
  
• Harrison, M. John: Viriconium series
  
  1. The Pastel City
     
  2. A Storm of Wings
     
  3. The Floating Gods
     
  4. Viriconium Nights
     (omnibus volume) Viriconium (contains all four titles)
     
• MacLeod, Ian R.: The Light Ages
  
• Miéville, China: King Rat
  
• Miéville, China: Looking for Jake
  
• Miéville, China: New Crobuzon series
  
  1. Perdido Street Station
     
  2. The Scar
     
  3. Iron Council
     
• Miéville, China: The Tain
  
• The New Weird (edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer)
  
• Swainston, Steph: Fourlands series
  
  1. The Year of Our War
     
  2. No Present Like Time
     
  3. Dangerous Offspring
     
• Thomas, Jeffrey: Punktown series
  (in order of publication)
  
  1. Punktown (short story collection)
     
  2. Punktown: Third Eye (anthology)
     
  3. Everybody Scream!
     
  4. Punktown: Shades of Grey (short story collection)
     
  5. Deadstock
     
  6. Blue War
     
• VanderMeer, Jeff: Ambergris series
  
  1. City of Saints & Madmen
     
  2. Shriek
     
  3. Finch
     
• Vandermeer, Jeff: Secret Life
  
• Vandermeer, Jeff: Veniss Underground