A Taste of the New Weird
Before this topic, I don't think I'd ever heard the term "new weird". It's basically a blended subgenre that comes from old pulp magazines, where horror/scifi/fantasy and the supernatural could all be blended interchangeably to tell a unique flavor of stories. I had my first introductions to H.P. Lovecraft with What the Moon Brings, and Angela Carter, with some of her short stories. In What the Moon Brings, I was at first a little too distracted by the purple-y voice to really get into the narrative. Although I did really like the first line, "I hate the moon--I am afraid of it--for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous." That's a great hook, and it works to summarize the whole story in a way. The rest of the writing feels a little too ornate (ahem--pretentious?) for me to truly enjoy the story, but I guess it does help to enforce the dream-state of the narrative. It's about a man ...