"The New Weird" is supposed by its proponents to be real. If it is, then it must be a sub-genre of weird fiction. Weird fiction is a genre. Some might say that it's actually a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, in which case "the New Weird" is a sub-sub-genre. But a weird tale isn't necessarily a fantasy. It's possible for a weird tale not to include any fantastic, supernatural, or speculative elements at all. "The Basket" by Herbert J. Mangham (sic) is an example. Although there is a visit to a fortuneteller--perhaps a weird-woman--in the story, there aren't any obviously supernatural events. "The Grave" by Orville R. Emerson is another example of a non-supernatural weird tale. Both are stories of weird being visited upon a man. Both were in the first issue of Weird Tales, dated March 1923. So let's call "the New Weird" a sub-genre.
So far in this series, I have talked about the proliferation of genres that happened after World War I (during the pulp-fiction era), and then again after about 1960 (during the academic/scholarly/nostalgic era). I won't list here the more realistic genres and sub-genres of romance, Western, railroad, boxing, war, spy, suspense, crime, detective, mystery, and so on. I also won't write about mythology, legends, sagas, fables, folk tales, fairy tales, or tall tales. Instead, I'll stick to the 20th-century genres that are supposed to fall under the very broad category of fantasy.
By the way, in writing this entry, I came across a very apt explanation as to why genres have proliferated. It's not because of artistic reasons. Instead, it's because of commercial considerations in the form of niche marketing, just as I wrote the other day. In his introduction to The New Weird (2008), Jeff VanderMeer gave a lot of credit to the development of this sub-genre to his fellow Gen-Xer, China Miéville, but then noted that Mr. Miéville moved away from "the New Weird." From Mr. VanderMeer's introduction:
The passion behind Miéville's efforts made sure that the term ["the New Weird"] would live on, even after he began to disown it, claiming it had become a marketing category and was therefore of no further interest to him.
We should note here that China Miéville is a Marxist, thus disdains, I assume, the workings of what is called capitalism. I wonder what he thinks of the many brands of Marxism and socialism, of their many spin-offs and offshoots and sub-genres, as well as of all of the commercial products associated with it.
* * *
If you want to be liberal rather than conservative in your definition of what makes a genre or sub-genre, then weird fiction can include the following:
- Weird fiction
- Weird fantasy
- Weird science or science fantasy
- Heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery (such as the Conan stories)
- Weird Western
- Weird war
- Weird hero
- "The New Weird"
- Supernatural horror
- Psychological horror
- Ghost stories (ghost stories might be a genre separate from horror)
- Gothic horror or Gothic fiction (the other day I invented the word Gothics to cover this genre, Gothic being an adjective and not a noun)
- Terror, horror, or weird menace
- Lovecraftian horror or cosmic horror
- Urban horror
- Body horror
- Eco horror
- Zombie stories
- Vampire stories
- Werewolf stories
- Monster stories in general
- Kaiju
- Occult horror (devils, demons, demonic possession, cults, etc.)
- Paranormal romance
- Science fiction
- Scientific romance
- Pseudoscience, Scientifiction, and other types of proto-science fiction
- Science fantasy
- Planetary romance or swords and planets
- Space opera
- Hard science fiction
- Military science fiction
- Soft science fiction or social science fiction
- "The New Wave"
- A lot of -punks:
- Cyberpunk
- Postcyberpunk
- Steampunk
- Retropunk
- Atompunk
- Dieselpunk
- Clockpunk
- Mannerpunk
- Biopunk
- Nanopunk
- Solarpunk
- Slipstream
- Cryptozoological or cryptid fiction
- Superhero fiction
- Alternate history
- Time travel
- Parallel universe or parallel worlds
- Lost worlds
- Utopia and Dystopia
- Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse
- Cozy Apocalypse
- (There could be a parallel sub-genre, Cozy Dystopia.)
Finally, in fantasy, there are these genres and sub-genres and probably many more:
- Fantasy
- High fantasy
- Low fantasy
- Science fantasy
- Heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery (without any weird elements)
- Planetary romance or swords and planets
- Lost worlds
- Contemporary fantasy
- Urban fantasy
- Dark fantasy
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| Weird War Tales, September 1973, a comic book that crosses genres, with cover art by George Evans. |
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