New Weird, Week of Sept 18

New Weird is a very general genre. I don’t know how to describe it. I feel like every book I read was wrong in some way. Wrong for the genre. This week I read Slapstick and John Dies at the End. Both are novels from the last few years. Which is a pretty small amount of time when you look at the history of horror. It’s about the crossing of classical boundaries between troupes and mixing horror, sci-fi, fantasy and everything that will mix. Shape of Water may even end up being a romantic horror movie. I am not sure yet.
The feel of New Weird may be lost on me because I grew up with it already known as a fully realized genre. My first horror novels were not the classics but, new weird. I felt like there was no difference between new weird and other works. I started with the one work that I knew was a horror written in a different light. Kurt Vonnegut’s Lonesome No More or Slapstick. Slapstick is a monster story but, told by the monster and how they become more human.

John Dies at the End by David Wong is a modern cosmic horror novel. It creates monster like Love before him. David Wong updates the concept to the modern era which is hard because of our current need to example our monsters. Instead of explaining the math and science behind creatures and powers he lets the events happen and lets some things be so unknowing strange.

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