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From Booklist *Starred Review* In the 1990s, a new kind of genre story seemed to have sprung up. It was frightening but seldom gory; either not quite as realistic as or less fantastic than it initially promised; very short on monsters no matter how monstrous it got; eerie but just about never ghostly (at least, no ghosts horned into the act); creepy even when it decided to be funny; and un-, far more than super-, natural. The VanderMeers, wife and husband editors of this doorstopper, were in the front rank of those fostering what Jeff explains in the introduction was actually a revival of a fictional manner with roots in the early twentieth century and grand masters who spent their lives ignored and unpublished while setting standards for the manner in America and Europe, respectively. Those two were, of course, H. P. Lovecraft and Franz Kafka, a classic by each of whom—“The Dunwich Horror” and “In the Penal Colony”—appears herein alongside other stellar performances by writers who have faded from top best-sellerdom into obscurity (F. Marion Crawford, Hugh Walpole); are literary stars of the highest magnitude (Rabindranath Tagore, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Jorge Luis Borges); live through only one unforgettable story; and who busily augment the worldwide catalog of weird stories as this is written (most of the contributors). No popular-fiction library should not have this treasure trove. --Ray Olson Praise for THExa0WEIRD:xa0“What is good about the majority of these stories is precisely that they leave you with many more questions than answers, the mark, in my view, of a superior kind of fiction... It does, in fact, what most of our best fiction does, irrespective of category.” —Award-winning author Michael Moorcock, from his introduction “These texts, dead and/or not, burrow, and we cannot predict everything they will infect or eat their path through. But certainly your brain, and they will eat the books you read from today on, too. That is how the Weird recruits.” —China Miéville, bestselling and award-winning author of Embassytown , from his afterword “Studded with literary gems, it’s a hefty, diligently assembled survey of a genre that manages to be at once unsettling, disorientating and bracing in its variety.” -- James Lovegrove, Financial Times “It’s a tremendous experience to go through its 1,126 pages… there are so many delights in this that any reader will find something truly memorable.” -- Scotland on Sunday “Readers eager to explore a world beyond the ordinary need look no further.” -- Time Out “ An anthology of writing so powerful it will leave your reality utterly shredded… Give yourself to the weird! Hurl your puny mortal body through the portal the VanderMeers have opened for you, join your lord the Miéville on the other side, give your heart and soul to the saints that stand at his feet, to the mad prophets that have prepared you for his coming. Open the pages of the new gospel of The Weird.” -- Guardian.co.uk “Unmissable!” – The Guardian “The definitive collection of weird fiction… its success lies in its ability to lend coherence to a great number of stories that are so remarkable different and yet share the same theme.” -- TLS THE WEIRD was compiled and edited by Hugo Award-winner Ann VanderMeer and World Fantasy Award-winner Jeff VanderMeer. They have recently co-edited such anthologies as Best American Fantasy; Best American Fantasy 2 ; Steampunk ; Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded ; The New Weird ; Last Drink Bird Head ; Fast Ships, Black Sails ; and The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities . They are the co-authors of The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues . Jeff’s latest books include Finch , a World Fantasy and Nebula Award-finalist; the short story collection The Third Bear ; the non-fiction collection Monstrous Creatures ; the coffee table book The Steampunk Bible (co-authored with S. J. Chambers); and the writing guide Booklife . Ann is the editor-in-chief of Weird Tales magazine, the oldest fantasy magazine in the world, and is a regular contributor to the popular science fiction and fantasy web-site io9 . Together, they have been profiled by National Public Radio and online at WIRED. com and the New York Times’s Arts Beat blog. Both active teachers, they have taught at the Clarion and Odyssey writing workshops and the teen summer camp Shared Worlds, where Jeff serves as the assistant director. They live in Tallahassee, Florida, with too many books and four cats. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. THExa0WEIRD:xa0TABLExa0OFxa0CONTENTS Alfred Kubin, “The Other Side” (excerpt), 1908 F. Marion Crawford, “The Screaming Skull,” 1908 Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows,” 1907 Saki, “Sredni Vashtar,” 1910 M.R. James, “Casting the Runes,” 1911 Lord Dunsany, “How Nuth Would Have Practiced his Art,” 1912 Gustav Meyrink, “The Man in the Bottle,” 1912 Georg Heym, “The Dissection,” 1913 Hanns Heinz Ewers, “The Spider,” 1915 Rabindranath Tagore, “The Hungry Stones,” 1916 Luigi Ugolini, “The Vegetable Man,” 1917 A. Merritt, “The People of the Pit,” 1918 Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “The Hell Screen,” 1918 Francis Stevens, “Unseen---Unfeared,” 1919 Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony,” 1919 Stefan Grabinski, “The White Weyrak,” 1921 H.F. Arnold, “The Night Wire,” 1926 H.P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror,” 1929 Margaret Irwin, “The Book,” 1930 Jean Ray, “The Mainz Psalter ,” 1930 Jean Ray, “The Shadowy Street,” 1931 Clark Ashton Smith, “Genius Loci,” 1933 Hagiwara Sakutoro, “The Town of Cats,” 1935 Hugh Walpole, “The Tarn,” 1936 Bruno Schulz, “Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass,” 1937 Robert Barbour Johnson, “Far Below,” 1939 Fritz Leiber, “Smoke Ghost,” 1941 Leonora Carrington, “White Rabbits,” 1941 Donald Wollheim, “Mimic,” 1942 Ray Bradbury, “The Crowd,” 1943 William Sansom, “The Long Sheet,” 1944 Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph,” 1945 Olympe Bhely-Quenum, “A Child in the Bush of Ghosts,” 1949 Shirley Jackson, “The Summer People,” 1950 Margaret St. Clair, “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles,” 1951 Robert Bloch, “The Hungry House,” 1951 Augusto Monterroso, “Mister Taylor,” 1952 Amos Tutuola, “The Complete Gentleman,” 1952 Jerome Bixby, “It's a Good Life,” 1953 Julio Cortazar, “Axolotl,” 1956 William Sansom, “A Woman Seldom Found,” 1956 Charles Beaumont, “The Howling Man,” 1959 Mervyn Peake, “Same Time, Same Place,” 1963 Dino Buzzati, “The Colomber,” 1966 Michel Bernanos, “The Other Side of the Mountain,” 1967 Merce Rodoreda, “The Salamander,” 1967 Claude Seignolle, “The Ghoulbird,” 1967 Gahan Wilson, “The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be,” 1967 Daphne Du Maurier, “Don't Look Now,” 1971 Robert Aickman, “The Hospice,” 1975 Dennis Etchison, “It Only Comes Out at Night,” 1976 James Tiptree Jr., “The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Terrible Things to Rats,” 1976 Eric Basso, “The Beak Doctor,” 1977 Jamaica Kincaid, “Mother,” 1978 George R.R. Martin, “Sandkings,” 1979 Bob Leman, “Window,” 1980 Ramsey Campbell, “The Brood,” 1980 Michael Shea, “The Autopsy,” 1980 William Gibson/John Shirley, “The Belonging Kind,” 1981 M. John Harrison, “Egnaro,” 1981 Joanna Russ, “The Little Dirty Girl,” 1982 M. John Harrison, “The New Rays,” 1982 Premendra Mitra, “The Discovery of Telenapota,” 1984 F. Paul Wilson, “Soft,” 1984 Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild,” 1984 Clive Barker, “In the Hills, the Cities,” 1984 Leena Krohn, “Tainaron,” 1985 Garry Kilworth, “Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands,” 1987 Lucius Shepard, “Shades,” 1987 Harlan Ellison, “The Function of Dream Sleep,” 1988 Ben Okri, “Worlds That Flourish,” 1988 Elizabeth Hand, “The Boy in the Tree,” 1989 Joyce Carol Oates, “Family,” 1989 Poppy Z Brite, “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood,” 1990 Michal Ajvaz, “The End of the Garden,” 1991 Karen Joy Fowler, “The Dark,” 1991 Kathe Koja, “Angels in Love,” 1991 Haruki Murakami, “The Ice Man,” 1991 (translation, Japan) Lisa Tuttle, “Replacements,” 1992 Marc Laidlaw, “The Diane Arbus Suicide Portfolio,” 1993 Steven Utley, “The Country Doctor,” 1993 William Browning Spenser, “The Ocean and All Its Devices,” 1994 Jeffrey Ford, “The Delicate,” 1994 Martin Simpson, “Last Rites and Resurrections,” 1994 Stephen King, “The Man in the Black Suit,” 1994 Angela Carter, “The Snow Pavilion,” 1995 Craig Padawer, “The Meat Garden,” 1996 Stepan Chapman, “The Stiff and the Stile,” 1997 Tanith Lee, “Yellow and Red,” 1998 Kelly Link, “The Specialist's Hat,” 1998 Caitlin R. Kiernan, “A Redress for Andromeda,” 2000 Michael Chabon, “The God of Dark Laughter,” 2001 China Mieville, “Details,” 2002 Michael Cisco, “The Genius of Assassins,” 2002 Neil Gaiman, “Feeders and Eaters,” 2002 Jeff VanderMeer, “The Cage,” 2002 Jeffrey Ford, “The Beautiful Gelreesh,” 2003 Thomas Ligotti, “The Town Manager,” 2003 Brian Evenson, “The Brotherhood of Mutilation,” 2003 Mark Samuels, “The White Hands,” 2003 Daniel Abraham, “Flat Diana,” 2004 Margo Lanagan, “Singing My Sister Down,” 2005 T.M. Wright, “The People on the Island,” 2005 Laird Barron, “The Forest,” 2007 Liz Williams, “The Hide,” 2007 Reza Negarestani, “The Dust Enforcer,” 2008 Micaela Morrissette, “The Familiars,” 2009 Steve Duffy, “In the Lion's Den,” 2009 Stephen Graham Jones, “Little Lambs,” 2009 J. Robert Lennon, “The Portal,” 2010 K.J. Bishop, “Saving the Gleeful Horse,” 2010 Read more
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