Weird Fantasy
Weird Fantasy, also known as Weird fiction is a sub genre of speculative fiction that was originally popularised by HP Lovecraft. It has lately been adopted by China Miéville to describe his own work.
Books Reviewed
-
![The Last Adventure of Constance VerityA Lee Martinez]()
Science FictionThat one time you saved the world with stick with you for a lifetime. You may bask in the glory one day and wake up with cold sweats the next, either way, the event will be forged in your memories forever. What about two times? Three or four? Do you think that James Bond can remember one supervillai...
-
![A Palace Near the WindAi Jiang]()
FantasyHow do you like your science fiction and fantasy? I will admit to being someone who loves a simple and accessible tale, but the genres can offer so much more than this. There are few genres better equipped to take a reader to truly alien places, to worlds that feel like they were designed in a fever...
-
![SmothermossAlisa Alering]()
FantasyThere is a long tradition of Folk Horror in the UK, but plenty of other countries bring their own flavour to the genre. American Gothic has all the trappings of classic Folk Horror, but has that distinct US flavour. The woods out there seem different, ancient landscapes unused to the people that roc...
-
![VivisepultureAndy Remic]()
FantasyVivisepulture is an ebook collection of weird tales from some seriously talented authors, edited by the singular Andy Remic. (According to the online dictionary Vivisepulture is the act of burying someone alive by the way and you get some odd articles looking that one up on Google I can tell you!)....
-
![The WeirdAnn Vandermeer]()
FantasyThe Weird is a landmark tome of leviathan proportions, gathering together the best weird fiction from the last 100 years or so (beginning in 1908) from some of the most talented people that ever put pen to paper. It's difficult to convey just how much information is contained in this truly gargantua...
-
![The Midnight TimetableBora Chung]()
HorrorI have been lucky to work in some normal places in my life, but even I have been placed in spooky situations. Working late, I would walk home through the woods known as The Wilderness. Could there be a ghoul or a monster waiting for me behind a tree? I am too cynical to think so, but I could imagine...
-
![The Dead Take the A TrainCassandra Khaw]()
Science FictionCertain jobs can change you, the things that you see, the things that you must do. You may become closed off, hard, brittle, or just a little bit over the edge. Julie Crews has become all these things and more as a local Psychic Operative. Living off a diet of cocaine, regret and apprentices who onl...
-
![King RatChina Mieville]()
FantasyKing Rat is the debut of the award winning British author China Miéville. The novel begins with Saul returning from a camping trip to the top floor flat he shares with his father, deciding not to wake him he goes straight to bed. In the early hours of the following morning he is rudely awakened by t...
-
![KrakenChina Mieville]()
FantasyKraken is essentially "grown up" urban fantasy - and when I say grown up I don't mean littered with expletives but with a deal of maturity and written without compromise (as all Miéville's works are). You won't find any soppy vampires or angst ridden werewolves here, Kraken is a complicated mix of m...
-
![Perdido Street StationChina Mieville]()
FantasyPerdido Street Station is the second novel published by China Miéville, after the quite brilliant King Rat and again we are within the urban / weird fantasy world. However where King Rat was set within our own fair city of London, Perdido Street Station takes place within an alternate universe of Ba...
-
![The City & the CityChina Mieville]()
FantasyThe City & the City is an award winning and critically acclaimed novel by China Miéville. If you are a fan of science fiction or fantasy the chances are you will already be aware of this novel, not only has it won nearly every major genre award for 2010, it also received critical acclaim from almost...
-
![The ScarChina Mieville]()
FantasyThe Scar returns us to the wonderful world of Bas Lag, first encountered in the award winning novel Perdido Street Station . This time however we are far removed from the dirty, winding streets of New Crobuzon and thrust into the wider world, adrift on strange tides and weird seas. The floating metr...
-
![Lucky DayChuck Tingle]()
HorrorDo you believe in luck? Gambling sites and Casinos hope you do as you believe there is a chance that you will win big. You may just do that, but there is a reason some of the richest people in the UK own gambling websites, the house always wins. You may win big, but elsewhere someone is losing big,...
-
![Acquired TastesClay Mcleod Chapman]()
HorrorWhat do you want from a collection of horror short stories? A complex mix of different styles and authors, or a single voice? When it comes to horror, I want them to feel like a quick punch to the guts, only for you to look down and find that the punch was more of a stab. Clay McLeod Chapman knows w...
-
![Christmas and Other HorrorsEllen Datlow]()
HorrorThe Festive Period evolves over time and where you celebrate it has a major impact. Even in my lifetime we have gone from lording a jolly red man called Father Christmas to worshipping a strange soda drinking fellow on the side of a big van called Santa. He will always be the big FC in my house. The...
-
![The Country Under HeavenFrederic S Durbin]()
FantasyWho does not love a genre mash up? The industry certainly does as they ride that Romantasy train all the way to the bank. Although I do not mind a whimsical fantasy, I would not consider it my favourite genre. A mash up of genres needs a little more bite to interest me. How about Westerns with the O...
-
![Pay the PiperGeorge A Romero]()
HorrorThere are many unique and diverse names in horror making it, for me, one of the most interesting genres out there, but to the layperson they may only know a few names. Stephen King, maybe Dean Koontz. In film they may have heard of Wes Craven, or one of the newer horror auteurs. Zombie fans should h...
-
![The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird StoriesHP Lovecraft]()
To many, HP Lovecraft is seen as the father of modern horror and The Call of Cthulhu is undoubtedly his most famous work. Like many artists Lovecraft wasn't appreciated during his lifetime and his work only achieved success and literary recognition after his death. Collectively these weird tales (an...
-
![Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell ShadowsJames Lovegrove]()
I've always had a soft spot for Sherlock Holmes. The books are wonderful pieces of classic fiction (my favourite being the Hounds of the Baskervilles) and modern interpretations such as those penned by Moffat and Gattiss help to keep this Centenarian alive in the minds of millions. I've never consi...
-
![Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-DevilsJames Lovegrove]()
Sherlock Holmes and his creator may be long dead, but this has not stopped the master detective living on in the works of others. James Lovegrove has written several stories that have expanded on Arthur Conan Doyle’s legacy, but The Cthulhu Casebooks offer something very different by blending in the...
-
![Doctor Strange Dimension WarJames Lovegrove]()
Science FictionThere is a knack to adaptation, we have all seen a film made from a book. Many have read an adaptation of a film, but can you make a prose adaptation of a comic book? We see superheroes in the cinema every month, the action and colour sparks on the big screen, but bringing forth all that imagery in...
-
![The Kaiju Preservation SocietyJohn Scalzi]()
Science FictionWhat are you going to do if Godzilla arrives. You must have a plan in mind. At least one for home and one for the office. I used to have a great plan that would see me have an almost 100% chance of surviving, but then I went and started a family. Now I have no chance as their little legs are just no...
-
![The CaptiveKit Burgoyne]()
HorrorI enjoy genre books of all kinds. I love a good kidnapping story as a well-oiled plan starts to unravel. I also like a horror story about the Old Gods, of human sacrifices and bloody gore. What you don’t normally get is a story that is both. The kidnapping crew in Kit Burgoyne’s The Captive have tak...
-
![Dot Slash MagicLiz Shipton]()
FantasyI love programming because I find it the opposite of magic. I find it logic. I know that if I tackle a problem using certain rules I will finally get it to work. When I show a person the finalised product, they often comment that it seems like magic, but it is not. It is just hardwork, processing an...
-
![ExposureLouis Greenberg]()
HorrorGoing to see live theatre can be an exhilarating experience of an excruciating one, both for the same reason. This is live and in front of you. As an audience you are experiencing the magic together, or if things go wrong, the disaster. There is a power in this as if the theatre company have a hold...
-
![Infinity GateM R Carey]()
Science FictionThere is a reason that you should avoid tackling the multiverse in a story as the very nature of them means that the possibilities are infinite. Every decision ever made split off to make two different pathways and so on. A story that spans multiple Earths will have to pick which ones to visit. Do y...
-
![Bad Things Happen HereMark Morris]()
HorrorI read quite a lot of horror, to the point that it does not really affect me anymore, flesh eating clowns, aliens that tear off limbs, none of this is going to happen to me. A child being bullied at school, another joining a rough crowd, work becoming too stressful, a parent with dementia. These thi...
-
![Slaine DragontamerPat Mills]()
FantasyI love 2000AD, it is a fantastic serial comic that is filled with some of my favourite characters. Judge Dredd is omnipresent, but there are other characters that I picture when I think of opening a new issue; ABC Warriors, Rogue Trooper and of course, Slaine. Slaine felt a little different as it wa...
-
![Folk HorrorPaul Kane]()
HorrorThere is an art to the short story, and I can say from experience that Flame Tree Press have gotten it down. They have produced many excellent short story collections, and their new venture is the Beyond & Within series. In many ways these books are the same as their larger collections, handpicked,...
-
![The Butcher of the ForestPremee Mohamed]()
FantasyThere is a perfectly sensible reason why the concept of Fairy Woods exist. Back in the day, the land was covered in thick forests, any person that travelled too far from the village or well-trodden tracks could easily get lost and become victim to one of several predators from wolves to wild boars....
-
![Strange Tales VRosalie Parker]()
FantasyWorld Fantasy Award winning series Strange Tales has now reached its fifth volume, offering again a bunch of tales ranging from SF to horror, from fantasy to supernatural, sharing a "strange" or "weird" character. The present book includes sixteen brand new stories, penned by authors from both sides...
-
![A Cosmology of MonstersShaun Hamill]()
HorrorH P Lovecraft’s shadow casts a long one over the horror genre . He developed new types of horrors that reverberate today ; psychological and body horror are just two. What has changed is the way that people perceive horror. Whilst once upon a time witnessing the horrors from a different dime...
-
![Killer on the RoadStephen Graham Jones]()
HorrorLike any genre, the horror genre has shifts in style and tone. I was always a fan of the nasty horror stories of the late 70s and early 80s. Books that saw lots of terrible things happen to good people. In Killer on the Road author Stephen Graham Jones attempts to capture that Grindhouse feel and gi...
-
![The Knife and the SerpentTim Pratt]()
Science FictionAs a child you read books and imagine that you may be that child who is whisked away on an adventure. Perhaps you will be the chosen one to be taken through a magical wardrobe or told you are a wizard. By the time you are studying for a PhD such flippancy is no longer part of your character, so how...
Book of the month
