The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [170]
Even if New Weird does exist, from a publisher's standpoint, it isn't healthy in Germany. Miéville does not sell too well here, and the fact that he's published by a mass market house with no record of quality translations does not help either. He gets some recognition from fans, and there's some interest in possible predecessors like Gormenghast or Viriconium. But, all in all, editors like me still have to go out on a very long limb to publish people like VanderMeer or Duncan. Germany has a tradition of not recognizing fantastic literature as such if it is labeled high literature. Books published by major literary houses, from Garcia Marquez to Susanna Clarke, are widely praised, but not because of their opposition to realism. Right now I am ushering House of Leaves into print, and we are doing our best not to market it as horror, god forbid! This is, of course, a postmodern novel which only makes use of.you know what.
As for homegrown talent that might buy in to the New Weird tradition, there seems to be none in the German language. As much as science fiction seems to be slowly reaching the same level as in the United States of the 1960s, the writers of fantasy stick so close to Tolkien you can hear their orkish ears grind, while the darker writers still chew up Lovecraft. I may have missed someone out of the mainstream, and I do not want to be unjust; but even the better story writers ― Malte Sembten, Michael Siefener, Boris Koch ― have not yet spread their wings and left the shadow of tradition. Hopefully, someday they will. . . .
Jukka Halme, freelance editor and critic
FINLAND
Jukka Halme has been active in Finnish fandom for many years, and headed up the organization ofFinncon 2006. In addition to writing for many publications, he recently edited an anthology of primarily American and English "New Weird" writers called New Weird? Halme appears regularly in TAHTIVAELTAJA, one ofFinland's finest genre publications.
"BLURRING THE LINES"
In my 2006 anthology titled Uuskummaa? (New Weird?) published by Kirjava, I wrote the following definition of New Weird in the introduction:
New Weird is a form of speculative fiction that tries to blur the borders between various genres (science fiction, fantasy, horror, mainstream, etc.) while aiming for a more literate style of writing.. It is an idea of fresh fantasy, sharing common ideas about mixing together various genres, politics, freedom from the cliches, and with an overwhelming tendency to play with the form. It
wants to create something new, both linguistically and literally. It is not a movement per se, since when a movement takes shape it establishes itself, stops moving and thus changes into something academic ― and New Weird stands for Change. It needs constant interaction between the Reader and the Writer as well as bold, new ideas.
How would my answer change today? Not by much. I like the idea of a loose literary "movement" that isn't too formulaic and set in stone. Therefore, no manifesto, even though it might be fun to have one, but more like general guidelines. I like New Weird as a tool with which to bind together great stories that share originality and are spontaneously different from anything else before written.
I'm not sure when the idea of this whole new fantasy that is more literary inclined, more daring and/or genre-free, came about, but I do remember that in early 2001 the genre fan and writer Gabe Chouinard wrote something about a revolution that was about to happen in the field of SF and fantasy. He called it the Next Wave and I realised I had been feeling the same rumblings for a while as well. It took me a few years to gather my thoughts, but in the end I was thinking that there isn't necessarily a single next Wave hitting the field, but waves. So many interesting old and new writers were doing en masse what probably many had been doing all the time alone, thus forming something that could be construed as a movement, like New Weird. A flood of great works came out during that time: