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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1220102" data-attributes="member: 5171">From the writing perspective, "Weird Tales" is a magazine with a long and notable history, but that is currently run by a fairly unprofessional crank.Unfortunately, everything I've seen about the concept of weird as a genre has gone into one of two directions:1) Lovecraftian, which was, for awhile, what "weird" was taken to be a diplomatic way of saying (eg, one editor who didn't know this asked for "weird fiction" for his magazine, and was confused at being deluged with Cthulhu stuff).2) Anything that reads as a (conscious or otherwise) attempt to radically blur, bend, or break the boundaries of elf-and-dragon fantasy.  I believe -- believe, as in, this is the point where I'm delving into opinion and limited understanding rather than a professional understanding of the field, which you can take most of the part before that dash to be -- that it sticks to fantasy, although that fantasy might include science-fictional elements to break some of those boundaries.  This usually means that anything in a new and non-Tolkienian setting tries to call itself the New Weird, because it's currently cool to be that.These new and different settings can be different by virtue of having different social structures, different ethnic backgrounding (ie, a fantasy that isn't just a bunch of white guys running around with one dark-skinned hunter dude thrown in as Party Member Number Four), and especially different takes on the nature of magic.  Wands?  Not New Weird.  Eating weird food and then sweating out something that gets collected into a jar and then drunk by someone in order to make them fall in love with you?  Possibly New Weird.  Gay polyamorous scholars creating magic by using ancient mathematical symbols to elicit emotional responses from alien slug creatures that live in their hollowed-out eye sockets, and whose emotional responses affect probability on a quantum level?  Definitely New Weird, and you're guaranteed your own panel at the next WorldCon.No slam to gay or poly folks intended -- although not a member, I like a lot of the fiction coming out of those circles.  It's certainly refreshing and different, although I see it as an addition to the field, not a replacement for stuff already in it.One thing that I don't think is New Weird is taking a common cliche and reversing it.  A fantasy story told from the dragon's viewpoint?  Not New Weird.  Quest fantasy where noble king ends up being the bad guy?  Not New Weird.  These arguments against the norm only strengthen the norm as the default world of fantasy.  It's the stories that utterly ignore the norm that usually get the New Weird label.</blockquote>

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