Twist The Body, hack The City, let the mind accept the surreal and surrender to the weird. If there is any definition of what the New Weird is, then it lies somewhere inside Tachyon's The New Weird anthology, edited by Jeff & Ann VanderMeer. In 400-and-some pages there are 22 fiction pieces, plus many articles and documents that dive into the soul of the "movement", shows what it's all about and why it came to be.
The book's divided in four sections. The first one, Stimuli, brings fiction from the forefathers of the New Weird. The second part, Evidence, is dedicated to the weirdos themselves: fiction by China Miéville, Jay Lake, Steph Swainston, etc. The third, Symposium, brings the original electronic discussion that ignited the whole thing back in 2003, plus articles by Michael Cisco, K.J. Bishop and European editors' interpretations of the term. Finally, in Laboratory, seven authors on the fringe of New Weird share their visions about it in fiction form.
It all starts with an introduction by Jeff. He raises some questions, gives a really broad definition of New Weird and finally declares his reservations about the label. What great surprise I had in the Symposium section, when I read M. John Harrison´s defense of labelling as a means to preserve identity. The struggle to name is a struggle to own, he wrote, so it was necessary to say "I Am New Weird" before others did it. But the best thing of the Symposium is Darja Malcom-Clark´s article about the elements in a New Weird text. Her vision of grotesque bodies and cities in New Weird fiction is specially amazing.
Back to the beginning, Stimuli opens with a piece by M. John Harrison, whose Viriconium is the quintessential new-weirdian city. Here, he is represented by The Luck in the Head, a story-like city guide to Uruconium, the Viriconium-to-be, whose streets are as terrifying as its inhabitants. The story is a slow motion trip. Too slow sometimes, but very disturbing.
Next shot is In The Hills, The Cities, by Clive Barker. A tale about a gay couple caught in the middle of a ritual fight, and a quite literal one, between walking city-giants made of people! Here, the surreal is real and both reader and characters are forced to accept those thundering giant steps as a normal feature in the landscape. But not without consequences for everyone involved. The story has some of the best scenes in the whole anthology and takes both themes of bodies and cities to the extreme, merging everything in a pleasing, yet dreadful piece.
I must say that I didn't like Michael Moorcok's Crossing Into Cambodia. Not because it isn't a good story. It is. Very good, indeed. Only too normal for New Weird standards. A blend of alternate history, horror and war fiction that was probably included in this anthology because of its mix of genres.
The Braining of Mother Lamprey, by Simon D. Ings, is amusing. An urban fantasy with canned brains and so many cultural flavours it would be impossible to number. A very gripping story of a city populated by the dead-living (not the living-dead) with ever-pregnant seers and bizarre magicians. This one already shows what would be New Weird's aesthetics.
Kathe Koja's The Neglected Garden is surreal poetry in prose form. Delightfully absurd, it tells the story of two ex-lovers: one insists in a clearly broken relationship. The other one gives no chance of reconciliation. What follows is the slow death of hope, love and everything human, all reborn and metamorphosed into cold revenge...or complete possession of the loved one.
Thomas Ligotti is the horror in every New Weird story. A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing is about loneliness and finding a place, terrible as it may be, but ultimately yours. A great, nightmare-like piece that closes, or buries, the section.
The next part, called Evidence, brings the weirdos themselves. And who better than China Miéville to open it? Jack is a discussion on the nature of heroes, their role in society and the way they are used both in favour of freedom and as a tool to oppression. Set in the same universe as Perdido Street Station, Iron Council and The Scar, the story builds a character, a Remade Robin Hood with a mechanical mantis arm called Jack Half-a-Prayer, through the eyes of a close friend, a bio-thaumaturge. Cruel Miéville never gives Jack a voice of his own. And that means a lot.
Jeffrey Thomas was my biggest surprise. In Immolation, Thomas describes a society whose workforce is made of clones. They feed the factories and power the city. Their surnames are their roles. Their names are things' names, like Magnesium or Copyright, or even characters' or author's names. Strangely, the combination of simple, individual names, do not sound human. A very good political story of prejudice and power.
Next story, The Lizard of Ooze, by Jay Lake, is one the antho's best. In the underground, there is a city whose inhabitants consider a sin to eat in public. There is a shadow warrior with two swords called Truth and Sinister. And there is the Lizard, a mythic creature of immense size deeper underground. Full of references, the story is a quest downward in which the characters find missing pieces of their very natures and discover the truth of about their god.
Watson´s Boy, by Brian Evenson is so archetypal that one struggles to unlock every aspect of the story. It has everything: a labyrinth, keys, maps, doors, dust, long corridors, rats, but no answer whatsoever. An intriguing story of a boy raised in confinement inside an infinite maze and his never ending quest to find a way, or better yet, a door out.
The Art of Dying, by K.J. Bishop, is the closest thing to traditional fantasy one will find in the anthology. Lighter in tone, the story follows a famous sword fighter and poet in her attempt to express herself in the ultimate form of art. Or would it be just a way to keep her under the lights of fame?
At Reparata, by Jeffrey Ford is another jewel. A king with an absurd court, composed of ex-murderers turned cookers, madmen turned philosophers and whores made ministers. The king loses her beloved wife and his grief, literally, is turned into a hungry beast. The downfall of utopia with a beautiful final message.
Letters from Tainaron, by Leena Krohn, unfortunately didn´t make it. It's an excerpt of her short novel Tainaron and probably because of that it lacked elements to make it a good short piece. It is very well-written, has many strange scenes and names and an overall good concept: someone writing letters about a hellish place to someone obviously distant. But even New Weird or surreal stories need context.
The Flight of the Gabbleratchet, another excerpt, this time of The Modern World/Dangerous Offsprings, by Steph Swainston, is a breathtaking, everlasting escape from madness. It reads a nightmare: the aforementioned Gabbleratchet is some kind of multidimensional riding of zombie-horses that rot and regenerate while chasing a winged man, a girl and a humanoid made of worms who can jump between realities.
The Gutter Sees the Light that Never Shines, by Alistair Rennie, closes the Evidence section with a punch. I must say this one´s aggressive. Harsh words, harsh descriptions, visual, physical and sexual violence. Every sense (sight, smell, touch) is violated by Rennie in a non-linear, dark-humored story about a stinking killer betrayed by his own dark tastes.
The section called Laboratory should have been an experiment with authors on the verge of New Weird writing independent stories with some common elements. But those authors managed to write a single story, though made of some looser parts. It is called Festival Lives and drags much from India and Tibet. Authors Paul Di Filippo, Cat Rambo, Sarah Monette, Daniel Abraham, Felix Gilman, Hal Duncan and Conrad Williams take turns and, each one, tries to explore this scenario adding layers of weirdness in the form of terrorists, parasitic salps, monkeys, giant crustaceans, singers and gods. Pieces by Di Filippo, Abraham, Gilman and Duncan are specially good.
The book closes with some book references and bios. In the end, The New Weird is both a collection of great stories, some of them really remarkable, a clear portrait of a multi-faceted and undefinable sub-genre and a statement that good literature has no boundaries. An anthology that certainly has conquered its place in history.
illustration by Fabio Cobiaco
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