The Weird
 |
|
| Author | Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (editors) |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Weird fiction (anthology) |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
|
Publication date
|
8 May 2012 |
| Media type | Hardcover, paperback, e-book |
| Pages | 1,152 |
| ISBN | |
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories is an anthology of weird fiction edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.
Published on 8 May 2012, it contains 110 short stories, novellas and short novels. At 1,152 pages in the hardcover edition, it is probably the largest single volume of fantastic fiction ever published, according to Locus.
The editors' object in publishing The Weird was to provide, through its contents, a comprehensive definition of "the Weird", a type of fiction that their introduction describes as "as much a sensation"—one of terror and wonder—"as (...) a mode of writing", and as a type of fiction that entertains while also expressing readers' dissatisfaction with, and uncertainty about, reality. To that end, The Weird includes works that range from fantasy, science fiction and mainstream literature "with a slight twist of strange", but it also amounts, according to The Guardian, to "a history of the horror story".
The editors limited their chronologically ordered collection to fiction from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and largely avoided including stories focusing on tropes of the horror genre such as zombies, vampires, and werewolves, to highlight what they considered the Weird's innovative qualities. To cover the genre comprehensively, they commissioned original translations of, among others, works by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Michel Bernanos, Julio Cortázar and Georg Heym.
The anthology contains the following works:
The introduction notes that certain stories were not included because of problems with obtaining the reproduction rights, but that the editors considered these stories as an extension of the anthology: Philip K. Dick's The Preserving Machine, J. G. Ballard's The Drowned Giant, Gabriel García Márquez's A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and Otsuichi's The White House in the Cold Forest.
...
Wikipedia