From December 2017, updated for 2026. I may have intended this four-part sub-series to have preceded the last one, but you can read them all however you would like.
Weird fiction and fantasy still offer a way out of the materialist dilemma. It is still possible in these genres to tell a story not informed in any way by politics. It looks, though, like the sands are running out. The revolutionaries are on the march, and it looks like they are laying siege to the various genres of fantasy in an attempt to make them into something more nearly Marxist, materialistic, atheistic, or nihilistic. Is or was the so-called "New Weird" such an attempt? I'm not sure. No one seems to know what "the New Weird" is or was or to be able to define it clearly and concisely. That might be the point for those promoting it as something "new." Jeff VanderMeer was one of the theorizers of '"the New Weird," just as his sometime bugaboo H.P. Lovecraft was a leading theorizer of weird fiction--or what we might call "the Old Weird"--in his own time. In any case, in this part of my series of series, I'll quote piece by piece from the Wikipedia article on "the New Weird," with notations omitted.
To begin:
To begin:
The new weird is a literary genre that began in the 1990s and developed in a series of novels and stories published from 2001 to 2005. The writers involved are mostly novelists who are considered to be parts of the horror or speculative fiction genres but who often cross genre boundaries. Notable authors include China Miéville, Jeff VanderMeer, K.J. Bishop[,] and Steph Swainston.
You might not know or be familiar with these writers. I know I’m not, for I have read only a little non-fiction (essays and interviews) from them and none of their fiction. I’ll go through them first:
- China Miéville (b. 1972) is an accomplished and award-winning British author of science fiction, fantasy, etc. He is also a Marxist and an adherent to one kind of critical theory or another. I point these things out not to harp on the topic of Marxism but because Mr. Miéville's political beliefs are part of a thread running through "the New Weird" as a theoretical concept. Here is a revealing quote and a quote within a quote from the Wikipedia article on him: "Miéville works to move fantasy away from J.R.R. Tolkien's influence, which for him is stultifying and reactionary. He once described Tolkien as 'the wen on the arse of fantasy literature.'" (The link to the original source of that quote is broken, or the website on which it appeared is gone.) In any case, I'll have more on Mr. Miéville later. Remember that word reactionary, though.
- Jeff VanderMeer (b. 1968) is not only an author of fiction but also an editor, reviewer, essayist, and critic. His wife, Ann VanderMeer, was the editor of Weird Tales from 2007 to 2012. She resigned her position shortly after Nth Dimension Media under editor Marvin Kaye took over the magazine. I have not read anything Ms. VanderMeer herself has written on the tussle she had with Marvin Kaye, but her husband sure wasn't happy with the situation. You can read about the whole thing in my series called "The Weird Tales Controversy" from 2015 (link to part one here). In any case, by appearances, Jeff VanderMeer is at the very least left-leaning. Some of what he has written on the Internet can be taken as anti-human. I can't say for sure what he believes or where he falls on any political spectrum. (Most political spectrums are pretty well useless anyway.) You'll have to puzzle all of that out for yourself. Here is a quote on him, though, again from Wikipedia: "[Mr.] VanderMeer's fiction is noted for eluding genre classifications even as his works bring in themes and elements from genres such as postmodernism, ecofiction, the New Weird[,] and post-apocalyptic fiction." Note, as in the Wikipedia article on "the New Weird," the attempt to separate genres into discrete and discontinuous piles: this goes here, that goes there, but where do we put "the New Weird"? As we have seen, though, the idea of discontinuity among genres isn't very useful and may be illusory--except for perhaps in science fiction.
- K(irsten) J. Bishop (b. 1972) is an Australian author, artist, and blogger. I haven't found an awful lot about her on the Internet except for what she herself has written. One primary source is from the website Strange Horizons, on which she was interviewed by David Lynton in 2004. (1) In that interview, Ms. Bishop refers to China Miéville. Jeff VanderMeer interviewed her for another website, Clarkesworld (2). In none of that do I detect any particular political opinion, belief, or stance. It's worth noting that she does not (or did not in 2008) consider herself a writer of "the New Weird."
- Steph Swainston (b. 1974) is a British author, archaeologist, and scientist. Here is a quote about her, once again, from Wikipedia: "While characterised [sic] by others as a member of the New Weird fantasy literary genre, which aims to reform fantasy literature by transcending its traditional boundaries, Swainston has argued against labeling writers--including herself--within genres, arguing that good fantasy and mainstream literature instead form a continuum." [Emphasis added.]
I have emphasized that last word--continuum--because, like continuity, it gets to a point I have made before and that I want to go on making, namely that the different genres of fantasy are in fact continuous (except for perhaps science fiction)--they can't be separated from each other--moreover that there probably isn't any such thing as a discrete, recognizable, and definable genre or sub-genre or sub-sub-genre of "the New Weird." Here again is a quote from the Wikipedia article of that subject: "The writers involved [in "the New Weird"] are mostly novelists who are considered to be parts of the horror or speculative fiction genres but who often cross genre boundaries."
Of the four writers mentioned here, only Jeff VanderMeer seems to fit into the category of "the New Weird" writer, a category that he seems to have created, perhaps in concert with others. The other writers listed here would seem to defy attempts to categorize them as of "the New Weird." That bears saying again: "the New Weird" appears to be a theoretical, academic, or critical concept--a supposedly new sub-genre (or like I said before, an attempt at a supergenre) that its practitioners say crosses categories and defies labeling, and yet "the New Weird" is a category, a branded product, neatly poured into a container designed, made, and labeled, seemingly by Jeff VanderMeer and his fellow theorizers of the so-called "New Weird."
So why this push for "the New Weird"? I can't say for sure, but I can speculate. (I'm always up for speculation.) One reason for the push is probably just boosterism. "Here I am, everybody, a new writer in a new genre. Please read my books, which subvert all of the conventions of fantasy and all of your expectations of what fantasy is or should be." Never mind that there is, as Ecclesiastes says, nothing new under the sun. Never mind that subversion is just a buzzword and not a serious idea. It's actually pretty sophomoric.
More to the point is, I think, the burning desire of the radical or revolutionary (real or self-imagined) to overthrow the past--to burn down all tradition, convention, and authority, including or especially the authority figures of the past. One writer of "the New Weird" after another expresses his or her dislike or disdain for those authorities. Those writers especially don't like J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft. Again and again, they use certain words--conservative, reactionary--to describe conventional fantasy. They want to create something new, not realizing, perhaps, that everything has already been tried and there cannot be anything new, except--significantly for the writers of the one genre, science fiction, which is perhaps discontinuous with other genres of fantasy--what is brought about in the real world by science and technology.
One last point: the radical or revolutionary in the arts, including literature, is often related to the radical or revolutionary in political terms. China Miéville may be the most conventionally radical or revolutionary among the four writers listed above. And yet he still lives and thrives by free-market institutions. I would argue that socialism and Marxism, being means of oppressing and enslaving humanity, are in fact extremely reactionary and as old as time. Human freedom and unalienable rights are actually far more radical ideas.
One last point: the radical or revolutionary in the arts, including literature, is often related to the radical or revolutionary in political terms. China Miéville may be the most conventionally radical or revolutionary among the four writers listed above. And yet he still lives and thrives by free-market institutions. I would argue that socialism and Marxism, being means of oppressing and enslaving humanity, are in fact extremely reactionary and as old as time. Human freedom and unalienable rights are actually far more radical ideas.
To be continued . . .
Notes
(1) Here is the URL: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/interview-k-j-bishop/.
(2) And here is this one: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kjbishop_interview/
Original text copyright 2017, 2026 Terence E. Hanley
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