PC trashing of Weird Fiction

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Quote Originally Posted by James

I don't really enjoy this topic of discussion and will try to avoid it in future. I always feel like I'm turning everybody against me, as I agree and disagree with both sides.

Is it really just two sides though?

[qcrisp]

I listened to it in the end. I think the bit I enjoyed most was the brief etymology at the beginning mentioning the Anglo-Saxon 'wyrd', which I already knew about.

For the rest, it largely seemed structured so as to allow the uninterested main presenter a few stale quips. But that's the BBC, whose motto might be, "Be supercilious, and if you can't be supercilious, be facile."

Weird fiction is becoming a business with a lot of people's money involved. Can anybody think of a large scale small press fiction movement with such a dedicated following? Can anybody even think of another current large scale small press fiction movement!?

The term weird fiction is practically meaningless at this point. When the New Weird happened anything with a supernatural or fantasy element was lumped in arbitrarily. I still have no idea how half of that stuff counted. Since then the tide has turned and weird fiction simply means 'cosmic horror' in the eyes of most.

The only reason I employ the term 'weird fiction' in conversation is that it saves time I could spend more accurately conveying the fiction I'm talking about in an impressionistic portmanteau expressing the nigh ineffable mood I chase in fiction – best exemplified by masters such as Aickman or Saki, including in their non-supernatural or non-horror stories.

[nihilsum]

I fail how to see that this is a "politically correct trashing" of weird fiction. The host didn't seem to be that very knowledgeable about the subject while the guests were decent. I liked how they made the distinction between the "scientific weird" and "mystical weird" at least. They simply pointed out the fact how Lovecraft was indeed racist and xenophobic (no one disputes this), and how this differs from newer, politically charged writers like Mieville. Did they discredit all of his work because of this? Not at all. Mark Samuels seems like he really wants to believe that weird fiction is a victim of leftist "SJWs" and political correctness.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

It's not perfect (and labels can't be) but the prominence of "weird fiction" means I can read more horror without so many stories about serial killers getting in the way.

I think Samuels mischaracterizes Mieville, who has always insisted he is a fan of lots of bigot writers.
What's so dangerous about a Marxist critique? And how is it similar to saying Harry Potter will endanger the souls of young people?

[Hidden X]

Quote Originally Posted by nihilsum

I fail how to see that this is a "politically correct trashing" of weird fiction. The host didn't seem to be that very knowledgeable about the subject while the guests were decent. I liked how they made the distinction between the "scientific weird" and "mystical weird" at least. They simply pointed out the fact how Lovecraft was indeed racist and xenophobic (no one disputes this), and how this differs from newer, politically charged writers like Mieville. Did they discredit all of his work because of this? Not at all. Mark Samuels seems like he really wants to believe that weird fiction is a victim of leftist "SJWs" and political correctness.

Samuels is a paranoid fundie, what he sees/hears is what he WANTS to see and hear. His version of world is filled with "marxists" and "SJWs" trying to ruin honest hard-working white christian writers like him, hence he'll see examples of that everywhere...

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

Perhaps he has been effectively blacklisted and that's why he talks about it so much?

Right, explains why his fiction keeps appearing in various anthologies. Real efficient brand of blacklisting, that.

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

And how is it similar to saying Harry Potter will endanger the souls of young people?

Cheap psychological games. You've probably noticed how some alt righters love to use "far left = religious right" analogy in order to make people more sympathetic to their anti-left, anti-"SJW", positions, as young people spending their time online are less than likely to have high opinions about religious right.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

There are lots of different venues and different circles. Does it count as a blacklist when one editor refuses to publish a certain writer on grounds other than their writing?

My preferred term is ghostly stories rather than ghost stories. It's all about the mood for me rather than the presence of spectres. I'm more interested in stories with ghostly atmospheres with no ghosts (L. P. Hartley's The Travelling Grave, for example) than stories with ghosts containing no ghostly atmosphere.

[Hidden X]

People will complain how strict genre conventions are damaging artistic freedom and creativity in one thread, and will then claim how "weird fiction" is too broad and unspecific term in another.

Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis I maintain that this term in its current sense is nothing but a marketing category that has presumably made a fair amount of money for certain anthologist/editor/promoter types I'd have thought it had very little marketing value. Outside of its fans I doubt that anyone has even heard the term, yet everybody has heard of horror or ghost stories.

You'd be wrong here. It's pretty hard to avoid it online these days, and it has been like that for some time now. Plus there are those peaks in popularity that appear every time you have new mass-popular TV show with weird fiction connection being made, like say "Strange Things": all of a sudden, "weird fiction" is the coolest thing, every other pop culture/speculative fiction/whatever blogger is mentioning it, every other guy online is into it...