THE WEIRD: A Compendium of Dark & Strange Stories
Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

Pub Date: Mid-October; Publisher: Atlantic, Corvus imprint (UK edition)

Foreword: Michael Moorcock
Introduction by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
Afterword: China Mieville

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have put together a humungous 750,000 word compendium of weird fiction covering over 100 years and 20 nationalities. More information at Jeff VanderMeer’s website, but I’ve included the table of contents below. It looks awesome, to say the least.

I’m pleased that Australian stories are identified as such. I think Australia has a funny position in the Anglosphere — English-speaking but far from the middle of things, with angles of our own from which we write, even if the material isn’t overtly Australian, and it’s nice to have one’s difference acknowledged.

Alfred Kubin is the first author in the book and I’m the last, which in itself gives me a rather weird feeling. Kubin was primarily an artist and I like his work a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a collection with dead authors before, and it gives me that good old sense of life’s brief span!

Table of Contents

Story order is chronological except for a couple of exceptions transposed for thematic reasons. Stories translated into English are largely positioned by date of first publication in their original language. Authors are North American or from the United Kingdom unless otherwise indicated.

Alfred Kubin, “The Other Side” (excerpt), 1908 (translation, Austria)

F. Marion Crawford, “The Screaming Skull,” 1908

Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows,” 1907

Saki, “Sredni Vashtar,” 1910

M.R. James, “Casting the Runes,” 1911

Lord Dunsany, “How Nuth Would Have Practiced his Art,” 1912

Gustav Meyrink, “The Man in the Bottle,” 1912 (translation, Austria)

Georg Heym, “The Dissection,” 1913 (new translation by Gio Clairval, Germany)

Hanns Heinz Ewers, “The Spider,” 1915 (translation, Germany)

Rabindranath Tagore, “The Hungry Stones,” 1916 (India)

Luigi Ugolini, “The Vegetable Man,” 1917 (new translation by Anna and Brendan Connell, Italy; first-ever translation into English)

A. Merritt, “The People of the Pit,” 1918

Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “The Hell Screen,” 1918 (new translation, Japan)

Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett), “Unseen—Unfeared,” 1919

Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony,” 1919 (translation, German/Czech)

Stefan Grabinski, “The White Weyrak,” 1921 (translation, Poland)

H.F. Arnold, “The Night Wire,” 1926

H.P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror,” 1929

Margaret Irwin, “The Book,” 1930

Jean Ray, “The Mainz Psalter,” 1930 (translation, Belgium)

Jean Ray, “The Shadowy Street,” 1931 (translation, Belgium)

Clark Ashton Smith, “Genius Loci,” 1933

Hagiwara Sakutoro, “The Town of Cats,” 1935 (translation, Japan)

Hugh Walpole, “The Tarn,” 1936

Bruno Schulz, “Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass,” 1937 (translation, Poland)

Robert Barbour Johnson, “Far Below,” 1939

Fritz Leiber, “Smoke Ghost,” 1941

Leonora Carrington, “White Rabbits,” 1941

Donald Wollheim, “Mimic,” 1942

Ray Bradbury, “The Crowd,” 1943

William Sansom, “The Long Sheet,” 1944

Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph,” 1945 (translation, Argentina)

Olympe Bhely-Quenum, “A Child in the Bush of Ghosts,” 1949 (Benin)

Shirley Jackson, “The Summer People,” 1950

Margaret St. Clair, “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles,” 1951

Robert Bloch, “The Hungry House,” 1951

Augusto Monterroso, “Mister Taylor,” 1952 (new translation by Larry Nolen, Guatemala)

Amos Tutuola, “The Complete Gentleman,” 1952 (Nigeria)

Jerome Bixby, “It’s a Good Life,” 1953

Julio Cortazar, “Axolotl,” 1956 (new translation by Gio Clairval, Argentina)

William Sansom, “A Woman Seldom Found,” 1956

Charles Beaumont, “The Howling Man,” 1959

Mervyn Peake, “Same Time, Same Place,” 1963

Dino Buzzati, “The Colomber,” 1966 (new translation by Gio Clairval, Italy)

Michel Bernanos, “The Other Side of the Mountain,” 1967 (new translation by Gio Clairval, France)

Merce Rodoreda, “The Salamander,” 1967 (translation, Catalan)

Claude Seignolle, “The Ghoulbird,” 1967 (new translation by Gio Clairval, France)

Gahan Wilson, “The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be,” 1967

Daphne Du Maurier, “Don’t Look Now,” 1971

Robert Aickman, “The Hospice,” 1975

Dennis Etchison, “It Only Comes Out at Night,” 1976

James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon), “The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Terrible Things to Rats,” 1976

Eric Basso, “The Beak Doctor,” 1977

Jamaica Kincaid, “Mother,” 1978 (Antigua and Barbuda/US)

George R.R. Martin, “Sandkings,” 1979

Bob Leman, “Window,” 1980

Ramsey Campbell, “The Brood,” 1980

Michael Shea, “The Autopsy,” 1980

William Gibson/John Shirley, “The Belonging Kind,” 1981

M. John Harrison, “Egnaro,” 1981

Joanna Russ, “The Little Dirty Girl,” 1982

M. John Harrison, “The New Rays,” 1982

Premendra Mitra, “The Discovery of Telenapota,” 1984 (translation, India)

F. Paul Wilson, “Soft,” 1984

Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild,” 1984

Clive Barker, “In the Hills, the Cities,” 1984

Leena Krohn, “Tainaron,” 1985 (translation, Finland)

Garry Kilworth, “Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands,” 1987

Lucius Shepard, “Shades,” 1987

Harlan Ellison, “The Function of Dream Sleep,” 1988

Ben Okri, “Worlds That Flourish,” 1988 (Nigeria)

Elizabeth Hand, “The Boy in the Tree,” 1989

Joyce Carol Oates, “Family,” 1989

Poppy Z Brite, “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood,” 1990

Michal Ajvaz, “The End of the Garden,” 1991 (translation, Czech)

Karen Joy Fowler, “The Dark,” 1991

Kathe Koja, “Angels in Love,” 1991

Haruki Murakami, “The Ice Man,” 1991 (translation, Japan)

Lisa Tuttle, “Replacements,” 1992

Marc Laidlaw, “The Diane Arbus Suicide Portfolio,” 1993

Steven Utley, “The Country Doctor,” 1993

William Browning Spenser, “The Ocean and All Its Devices,” 1994

Jeffrey Ford, “The Delicate,” 1994

Martin Simpson, “Last Rites and Resurrections,” 1994

Stephen King, “The Man in the Black Suit,” 1994

Angela Carter, “The Snow Pavilion,” 1995

Craig Padawer, “The Meat Garden,” 1996

Stepan Chapman, “The Stiff and the Stile,” 1997

Tanith Lee, “Yellow and Red,” 1998

Kelly Link, “The Specialist’s Hat,” 1998

Caitlin R. Kiernan, “A Redress for Andromeda,” 2000

Michael Chabon, “The God of Dark Laughter,” 2001

China Mieville, “Details,” 2002

Michael Cisco, “The Genius of Assassins,” 2002

Neil Gaiman, “Feeders and Eaters,” 2002

Jeff VanderMeer, “The Cage,” 2002

Jeffrey Ford, “The Beautiful Gelreesh,” 2003

Thomas Ligotti, “The Town Manager,” 2003

Brian Evenson, “The Brotherhood of Mutilation,” 2003

Mark Samuels, “The White Hands,” 2003

Daniel Abraham, “Flat Diana,” 2004

Margo Lanagan, “Singing My Sister Down,” 2005 (Australia)

T.M. Wright, “The People on the Island,” 2005

Laird Barron, “The Forest,” 2007

Liz Williams, “The Hide,” 2007

Reza Negarestani, “The Dust Enforcer,” 2008 (Iran)

Micaela Morrissette, “The Familiars,” 2009

Steve Duffy, “In the Lion’s Den,” 2009

Stephen Graham Jones, “Little Lambs,” 2009

K.J. Bishop, “Saving the Gleeful Horse,” 2010 (Australia)

I now have a Goodreads author page:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/217735.K_J_Bishop

I recently got my author copies of the Traditional Chinese edition of The Etched City. Fab artist Wang-Tin (Andy) Lin has posted some info on his blog about how he created the awesome cover art. (Google Translate helps a bit if you want to read the text). The sphinx’s face looks rather like me, but Andy says he’s never seen my photo, so it’s (maybe!) just a coincidence. And the crocodile fetus and lotus man are on the back! The old parchment look on the cover is reproduced on the title page of the book, and the cover has a finish I’ve never seen before, matte but kind of grainy, almost like a sort of plastic, which looks good and feels as if it might be more durable than regular cardboard. I’m grateful to Andy for the artwork and to the publishers, Fullon, for doing such a lovely all-round job.

Speaking of art, the eye candy’s been piling up in my Firefox again.

Artists:

Stacey Rozich

Tiffany Bozic (found via Wurzeltod, major love for The Silent Dredge)

Anna Lukashevsky

Sam Wolfe Connelly (interior contents not as sweet as the front page pic!)

Zhou Fan (artist’s website here.)

Jon MacNair (I like the “fine art” section)

Kristen Ferrell

Jessica Albarn

Joel Peter Witkin

Nick Sheehy

Images I hadn’t seen before by one of my always favourites, Takato Yamamoto. Lots of other good stuff at Mondobizzarro.

Individual pics/vids:

The People Tree (video) by N.A.S.A. (North America South America), thanks to Penchaft for pointing it out to me!

Madam Satan by Adrian Greenberg

A weird etching by Tommaso Gorla

After rather a long break, I’ve got a story published — The Heart of a Mouse, online at Subterranean.

Jeff VanderMeer gave me the prompt that led to this story, and he was also kind enough to critique it, as was Geoff Maloney. My thanks to them both, and to Jonathan Stephens for sage advice. Check out Subterranean’s catalogue, which includes trade paperback and limited and deluxe editions of classic and contemporary spec fic.

Or maybe I’ll call it Made in Malkuth.

Well, I’ve basically tidied up We the Enclosed, and I’ve been through all the surreal stuff like Maldoror Abroad and other bits and bobs, including some poems that I want to include, and there isn’t much left to do on all of those. Heart of a Mouse and Saving the Gleeful Horse are too new for me to see what might need doing to them, ditto the story for Baggage, Vision Splendid. I’ll probably wait for an editor’s opinion on those three.

Which means I have four stories to really work on: The Art of Dying, The Love of Beauty, Beach Rubble, and Between the Covers. I want to get them fixed by the end of the year. Yeah, I know that’s a lot of time for four stories, but I know my own sluglike pace, and Preston and I are still working on Book#2, which, I can now reveal, is called The Floating World.

I’d also like to get a couple more new stories down. I’ve only got 73k words, which doesn’t leave much room to cut material, and I think a couple of fresh, not-published-elsewhere stories would be very good to have in the mix. So I could fiddle with them this year and work properly on them next year, and hopefully have 80-90k by mid-year.

In other news, I have plants! Someone was moving house, and I acquired a whole lotta greenery at a bargain-basement 1000 baht the lot, plus ceramic pots. Some of the greenery is rather large; the biggest, a golden cane palm, reaches the ceiling and bends down to overhang the coffee table. We’ve put little paper-lantern party lights in it, which gives a bit of a tiki bar effect at night. There’s also a giant spider lily and an exuberant lady palm, and sundry smaller plants, including a badly sunburnt bird’s nest plant that I’ve put in the bathroom to convalesce (apparently it likes moisture much).

Gillian Pollack has accepted my story (title in limbo) for “Baggage”, an anthology of speculative fiction about the cultural baggage of Australians. It was a hard one to write and I still have to do some work on it. I know I wasn’t the only contributor who found the topic a challenge. I think the story has the potential to be pretty good if I don’t fuck up the rewrite.

Fantasy Magazine has accepted “Saving the Gleeful Horse”, the story I wrote for Vera Nazarian’s auction, and I’ve finished the intros for DEAD GIRLS and ELDRITCH KID.

I’m reading Walter Benjamin and wondering what he’d be writing if he were alive today. I suspect he’d be working for Lonely Planet, sending reams of rumination to baffled editors. Sometimes their red pens would skip a beat and in the middle of a hotel review or a potted history of Canada there’d be left a lonely line about the sadness of a coppery afternoon on the outskirts of a port city or the estrangement of mass instincts from life.

Valentine’s Day means love, and love comes in many forms — including the love of a boy for a girl who has been turned into a doll by a strange (and “strange” is only the tip of the iceberg) plague. By which I mean Dead Girls, by Richard Calder. Calder, who has lately been writing and illustrating a graphical story, Death and the Maiden — initially appearing in Murky Depths, then on its own — is writing a graphic novel version of Dead Girls, with artist Leonardo M. Giron illustrating. Calder has a new website here, with a page for Dead Girls (a composite of sketches at present, to which more will be added over the course of the year).

I’m looking forward to this graphic story bigtime. The novel is linguistically rich — hard to describe, but to use the Maldoror paradigm, as beautiful as the chance encounter, in a library of modern philosophy, of Madame de Pompadour, the Marquis de Sade, and, say, Nancy Spungen. I’m told that the graphic novel will be a different story, based on the book. In Death and the Maiden, Calder successfully welded ludic and brainy language and occasional diversions into history and theory with the graphical format, while moving the story apace, so I’m very eager to see what he and Giron come up with for Dead Girls. Dead Girls will be appearing in installments in Murky Depths.