Genres
Weird fiction
Speculative fiction blending horror, fantasy and science fiction around unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces, in place of conventional monsters.
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that blends horror, fantasy and science fiction. Its signature move is to eschew or radically reinterpret the classic horror antagonists, the ghosts, vampires and werewolves: Lovecraft defined it by "a certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces". Poe, M. R. James, Machen, Blackwood, Hodgson and Lovecraft anchor the first era; the New Weird revival from the 1980s carries the mode forward through writers such as China Miéville.
The VanderMeers describe it as a mode rather than a genre, which is the practical point: weird fiction is a tonal discipline that can be layered on any plot, and its modern core is cosmic horror. The mode runs on withholding and controlled revelation, so a long serial must track exactly what has been shown, and how much.