The New Weird-Part Two

From December 2017, updated for 2026.

Continuing the quotes from the Wikipedia entry on "the New Weird":

Various definitions have been given of the genre. According to Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer, in their introduction to the anthology The New Weird, the genre 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."

Now who can argue with that? Not only is it authentic over-intellectualized gibberish, it expresses . . . well almost nothing at all. I'm not the only one who's confused. From Wikipedia:

According to Gardner Dozois . . . the VanderMeers' anthology "ultimately left me just as confused as to what exactly The New Weird consisted of when I went out as I'd been when I went in." [Boldface added.]

Younger writers might point out that Gardner Dozois, born in 1947, was one of an older generation, a generation against which they are rebelling, one that they are still striving to overthrow. (There will be more from Gardner Dozois in the near future.)

And what of this business of generations? Does that have anything to do with any of the "new" this and "reactionary" that? It may be significant that the four writers from part one of this sub-series were all born between 1968 and 1974. They aren't exactly spring chickens, but they're not Baby Boomers, either, or, like the late Marvin Kaye (1938-2021), members of the Silent Generation. (We won't even bring up J.R.R. Tolkien, who was born in 1892, or H.P. Lovecraft, who was born two years prior.) Maybe writers of about their age (in 2008 when The New Weird was published) were reaching the height of their powers as artists and the pinnacle of their influence as published authors, critics, reviewers, and essayists. Maybe they were simply doing what every generation does or wishes to do, for--artists or not--don't we all want for previous generations to step aside and allow us our place in the sun?

But here's something more: China Miéville, Jeff VanderMeer, K.J. Bishop, and Steph Swainston are all from what is called Generation X. You can't really generalize about a whole generation, which is, after all, a concept and not a real thing. Even if you accept that a generation is a thing, you can't say that this or that is true about a group of people who number in the millions. What is true about Generation X, though? Well, in America, they're a smaller group than the generations before and after them. Knowing that may give Gen-Xers a vague sense of inferiority, grievance, or lack of power, political or otherwise. More than that, though, members of Generation X grew up in a time when tradition seems to have broken down, perhaps the same tradition against which writers of their generation seem to be rebelling. Could Gen-Xers suffer from a special kind of confusion, loss, grief, insecurity, anxiety, depression, or despair? I'm not sure. They were stereotyped as latchkey kids in their youth and as slackers in their young adulthood. Do these things explain the negativity, nihilism, atheism, materialism, depression, despair, and drug use that seem to characterize their generation? I don't know. Again, these are generalizations that can be applied anywhere, at any time, to any sufficiently large group of people. We are all human beings, after all, and all subject to these very human failings, frailties, and more.

However, there is one thing different about the members of Generation X that has not been true of any other generation in American history, for Generation X is actually a half generation (I have called it before the Truncated Generation), the first and only to be split between those born before legalized abortion and those born after. In other words, those born after January 1973 grew up with some eventual awareness that their lives could easily--and legally--have been extinguished in utero by the person whom they supposed should have loved them more than any other. They would have known that millions out of their cohort--their potential brothers and sisters, cousins and classmates, colleagues and coworkers, friends, lovers, and spouses--were missing, and not only that they were missing, but that they had fallen like prey to a cruel and voracious predator, with no one to protect them or defend them when they needed it most. A kind of genocide had been waged upon them by older generations, people of the Silent and Baby Boom generations. (I don't think it's any coincidence that abortion was legalized as Boomer women were reaching their peak years of fertility.) What effect can that knowledge have had on the millions born in the last fifty-three years, especially of the first half-generation--Generation X--who came into the world under those conditions? Is it any wonder that they revel in or are so fascinated by violence, mutilation, dismemberment, blood, brains, guts, gore, and death? That they might hate themselves, wish to harm themselves and mutilate and mar their own bodies? Is it any wonder that they might harbor enmity against the preceding generations that wanted to kill them? (1)

One effect of growing up with the knowledge that you could have been killed when you were at your most helpless and vulnerable--and that millions of your fellows were in fact completely wiped out--might be a common plaint when terrible things happen: Where was God? people ask. Why did he not keep this from happening? I thought he is supposed to love us? In response, people very often conclude that there is and can be no God. I’ll leave you with this quote from Steph Swainston, followed by a final comment:

Evil™, as an adversary in fantasy novels, should be avoided at all costs. I have written three novels without once using the word 'evil', because the people of the Fourlands don't have the religious concept. Ironically, as a result they don't have as much conflict between cultures as we do. (2)

Ms. Swainston is an archaeologist. Presumably she has studied history. Yet she remains naïve (at best) about history, religion, and human nature. Does she not know that people slaughter each other whether they have religion or not? Does she not know that communists in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and elsewhere in the world were and are ostensibly atheistic--i.e., they have no religion--yet have killed countless millions and go on killing as we speak? Does she really believe in a perfect world in which there is no religion and nothing to kill or die for, as in John Lennon's execrable song? As Bugs Bunny would say, what a gullibull, what a nincowpoop.

Notes

(1) Abortion was legalized in 1967 in the United Kingdom and, if I interpret things correctly, in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Australia. The brain-eating, George Romero-type zombie, splatter films, death metal, and other blood-brains-guts-and-gore-related forms and genres are of about the same vintage as members of Generation X.

By the way, in old cartoon drawings a character who has died would have Xs drawn over his eyes. With that being true, maybe Generation X is an apt designation for a group of people, part of whom perished in and the rest of whom escaped from years-long mass killing. By the way, I covered some of these same points in November-December 2022.

(2) From "Dangerous Offspring: An Interview with Steph Swainston" by Jeff VanderMeer on the website of Clarkesworld, October 2007, at the following link:

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/swainston_interview/

Gardner Dozois (1947-2018) put together The Good Old Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition, which was published in 1998. He was confused by "the New Weird." That, plus his editorship of a book whose title ties "Good" to "Old," might have classified him as part of "the old" against which "the new" was rebelling. Unfortunately for them, people still like to read "the old." Cover art by Ed Emshwiller, from 1959.

In its 25th anniversary issue of October 1974, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published Philip K. Dick's story "The Pre-Persons." (He wrote it in 1973, no doubt in the aftermath of Roe vs. Wade.) I have never read this story. Only now have I discovered it. (I write this caption on Easter Sunday, 2026, a most appropriate day for today's topic.) The subject is abortion and the story is pro life. With that being the case, I'm surprised we're allowed to read it anymore. I'm surprised that Philip K. Dick's second-place Locus Poll Award (1975) has not been revoked. There are certain things, after all, that cannot be permitted in science fiction opinion in the twenty-first century, one of which is any pro-life work or words. As a radical act of rebellion against a literally ancient belief and practice--Moloch is in the Old Testament, and exposure was a common practice in ancient times--we should all read and distribute "The Pre-Persons."

Here is the author himself on the reaction to his story:

In this, the most recent of the stories in this collection, I incurred the absolute hate of Joanna Russ who wrote me the nastiest letter I've ever received; at one point she said she usually offered to beat up people (she didn't use the word "people") who expressed opinions such as this. I admit that this story amounts to special pleading, and I'm sorry to offend those who disagree with me about abortion on demand. I also got some unsigned hate mail, some of it not from individuals but from organizations promoting abortion on demand. Well, I have always managed to offend people by what I write. Drugs, communism, and now an anti-abortion stand; I really know how to get myself in hot water. Sorry, people. But for the pre-persons' sake I am not sorry. I stand where I stand: "Hier steh' Ich; Ich kann nicht anders," ["Here I stand, I can do no other"] as Martin Luther is supposed to have said. [Boldface added.]

There are of course scads of pro-abortion people who read, write, and comment on science fiction. They will necessarily object to what I have written here. I'll just say: take it up with Philip K. Dick.

Original text copyright 2017, 2026 Terence E. Hanley