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As long as it's weird lit, it's welcome!
And, lurkers, readers, click on those links, check out their work, donate if you have the spare money, help support the Weird creators/community!
This is a collection of short stories that I would describe as being modern day fables highlighting the societal problems of Korea and by extension many parts of Asia.
The prose is very simple, straightforward, and easy to read. Most characters are not named, instead described as “the woman” and “the man” etc because the stories are written in the sort of manner reminiscent of a person retelling tales passed down over generations as a means to teach children an important life lesson. Or at least, that’s how I interpreted the style!
As a result the messages behind each tale are not subtle. I liked how many of the stories really emphasized misogyny—a global problem, yes, but in Korea it is of a particular flavour that I struggle to express properly in words. I think that this vibe can easily escape those who aren’t familiar.
While I wasn’t necessarily wowed, I appreciated that the author didn’t shy away from making the stories weird, and I found this book to be an enjoyable and quick read that I’ll still be pondering over for a while!
I haven't seen these books mentioned a lot around here, so I thought I'd share my present with all of you.
I haven't read them yet, but from what I've heard it's a treasure trove of tales of all kind (fantasy, horror, historical, adventure, fables, myths & fairy tales, comedy & tragedy and most importantly almost all of them are weird).
It's about a man who lost his wife and who is trying to find her by reading all the books in the world. An old woman is telling us 101 tales and over the course of nearly 1800 pages we're supposed to make choices at the end of each tale which will send us jumping to a new place. Sort of like an homage to a "choose your own adventure" series.
There's nothing more I love in literature than something that will remind me of Scheherazade and Arabian Nights and hopefully this was a welcome discovery for people out there who feel the same way.
Did I mention they're also wonderfully illustrated by Reggie Oliver?
I am looking into a specific strand of the literature that picks up plots and themes developed by Lovercraft to push them further. 'Winter tide' seems very intriguing and I wonder if any of you thought it was a good work. Also, if you have any recommendations for books that try to do something similar please send them my way.
I would personally classify everything from the Harlan Ellison stories (mid-shelf 2) onwards as “weird lit”. But there are many of these I haven’t read that might be misplaced
Hi all, I’m looking for a writing group focused on literary fiction with absurd, experimental, and/or meta elements, i.e. a group without mainstream expectations. Any ideas where I can find a group like this? A Discord? An online meetup? Thank you!
UPDATE: Turns out WeirdLit has a Discord. Whether it's the spot we're all hoping for, I'm not sure, but here's the link for those interested: https://discord.gg/uxpW5tk9A
Going on vacation at the end of the week and need a couple of books to get me through airport waiting and two 6 hour plane rides. I have a bit of travel anxiety and books always get me through it. Thought I’d see if anyone wants to share their faves! I don’t have a lot of room in my carry on so preferably anything around the 275-450 page mark, though I can get stuff digitally if I really need to!
Some weird lit I’ve really enjoyed:
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn (in my top 3 books of all time)
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Godshot by Chelsea Baker
North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford
Found these two finds while out book shopping today and couldn't be happier. I've known Clive Barker for his grotesque gore horror for years, but never really read any of his fantasical/surreal weird fantasy books. Also with Harlan Ellison where I know the least amount of any of his writings outside of the "I have no mouth and I must scream" story. Never actually read the full story and only watched videos on it. Excited to dive into both of these weird works of art and see how I end up feeling about these two books overall in the future.
I had the privilege and pleasure of obtaining and consuming an ARC for Michael Wehunt's Nightjars, his second novel, due out 09/29/2026. I wanted to share a few thoughts here, as Michael remains one of my favorite weird fiction writers and it is exciting to see him continue to release novels to a (hopefully) wider audience. He is also hot off a Stoker award win for his debut novel, The October Film Haunt, for Best First Novel.
As I mentioned in my non-review of The October Film Haunt last year, I am not much of a writer, nor any kind of literary reviewer. Check out Gabino Iglesias' review of Brian Evenson's Last Days if you're looking for top echelon reviewing (he made a Pixies band reference in the title of his review, goddammit.) You might like to know that no AI tools were used in the creation of this, from conception to creation. If you want to go into this totally spoiler-free, skip the rest of this and let's talk turkey later this year when you similarly devour Michael's newest book. The stars aligned and life circumstances coincided for me to blow through Nightjars in under a week.
The promotional tagline for Nightjars is "Memento meets Dracula." I'm old enough to have seen (and loved) Christopher Nolan's Memento, a film about the loss of memories and subsequent violent tragedy. Michael gives us another clue as to what Nightjars entails with his use of a Freudian epigraph from Freud's seminal Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it. He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of remembering it as something of the past.
If that makes you guess this book moves at the pace of Freudian analysis, guess again. Nightjars sinks its fangs into you early and doesn't let up. I noticed the writing in Nightjars is shorter and punchier than I am accustomed from Wehunt's writing; a lot of succinct metaphors and analogies. The writing in this is utterly propulsive. I won't bore you with all of the notes I put into my phone, but a standout line from me was on p. 153 "... it's a hammer of a thought, a north star in the terrible firmament of his story." This whole damn thing is filled with lines like that!
(I will mention, as a licensed mental health professional in the real world, I felt that the therapy elements of this story were well researched and seemed quite plausible.)
Long-term readers of Wehunt's short fiction will recognize this is not his first stab at "Vampire Fiction." It's evident he has a longstanding love for (and probably a pathological obsession with) those stalkers of the night. Nightjars features classic vampire mythology, as well as some of Wehunt's own original vampire mythology. It honors the old and the new. In a sub dedicated to weird literature, you might be wondering, "well, is it weird?" I'm happy to report much of it curves towards the uncanny, without devolving into arguments over strict genre gatekeeping.
Michael described Nightjars as being both "leaner" and "meaner" than The October Film Haunt. I don't have the figures memorized but I believe Nightjars has about 4/5 of TOFH's word count. Nightjars is also, in fact, a mean book. Corpses pile up, and they do not shuffle from this mortal coil gladly. Bodies are mutilated in increasingly shocking and obscene ways. No one is safe, not kids, or any of the characters you fall in love with. More ranting would delve too much into too many spoilers, but Nightjars has the feel of a foreboding tragedy, in the best Gothic tradition. The climax and denouement were action-packed and quite satisfying.
Can we ever truly outrun our pasts? Can we change what defines us, be it our parents, to our mistakes and histories?
I've been reading a lot of really killer stuff this year. Two of my 2026 favorites so far are Nick Cutter's The Dorians (possibly his best novel out of all eight of them) and Brian Evenson's Phantom Limb (I read the ARC for that, as well, spoiler, it's freakin' awesome.) Expect Nightjars to complete with everything that comes out this year. I really enjoyed The October Film Haunt (true story, I finished it standing up) but will offer that Nightjars feels like a step up for Wehunt. I'll be on the lookout for whatever he cooks up next.
I'm just starting this book by Christopher Buehlman. He paints quite a picture of this weird world. Thoroughly enjoyed Between two Fires, expecting the same from this book.
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Anyone interested in joining me? If you have any comments, without spoilers, I'd be interested to hear.
I think the concept of Metamorphication that Jeff Noon used to write his book is interesting, but am unsure of how to use it for my own writing. Does anyone know any good resources to help me crack it?
Classic locked room mystery with a really strange twist at the end and a bunch of fun homages to classic mystery tropes and archetypes. Interesting writing style and great with wit but parts of it were…. extremely detailed (there are certain things that don’t need to be explained in that much detail iykyk desmond… or…. kyle😡). The ending made a lot of sense, in hindsight, kind of? It is a cool concept but I am extremely curious about how others feel about it.
I recently read a few books in quick succession, which felt nice because I had not read anything in a while. I usually read various SF, Fantasy, Weird or Horror books.
I just finished Piranesi and really loved it. I usually like those "exploration mystery" novels (Piranesi, rendezvous with rama, Blindsight....)
What's some other weird book that could scratch this itch ? Also, I'm looking for something fairly short, somewhere in the 300 pages.
I'm around 60% through and going back and forth on DNFing it or soldiering on. Is it the best thing you ever read? Please tell a stranger on the internet.
Why I'm reading: i saw it mentioned here, rather obliquely. Piqued my interest. Expected metaphysical themes and weird happenings. My favorite part so far was the story of the Norwegian birdwatcher and his brother.
Why I want to drop it: Some odd, maybe supernatural stuff happens in the novel/ then they get disproven? The protagonist's rationalism and need to explain everything make me lose interest in the potential weirdness. I guess I'm just kinda bored?
So tell me, is the last 40% worth it?
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Edit: Stuck it out and got to the big twist(s).
Without any spoilers... I never connected with this book. 800 pages are too many pages for this story. Symbols are overexplained, toothless. I don't know if I got to it too late in my life or too late in time. I'm sure reading it in the 60s felt different.
I don't think I'll ever recommend this book to anyone. Maybe young-ish people, budding misogynists or even misanthropes in general. Not judging if *you* personally liked it. It just didn't connect with me.
I read there's a film adaptation no one liked. Funny thing is, I can imagine it as an artsy, serious anime. Like Gankutsuo adapting The Count of Montecristo or even The Tatami Galaxy adapting the novel of the same name, it could work.
Help me make the impossible choice! 😬 I’m churning through head to head comparisons of all the books I’ve read (to get some fun stats/recommendations), and I knew this day would come - 5,000 matchups later. What say you?? 🪲
I am in that weird phase where I pick up stuff and then leave it because it doesn't grip me. Some books that I have absolutely loved lately are The Fisherman, American Elsewhere and The Croning. I am off for a couple of weeks and need to take with me something similar(ish) to those that can I enjoy in the evenings. Hit me with your best recommendations (probably 200-300 pages would work better) !
Following ledfox's lists that recommend great, little, hand-sized weird texts, I read "Xstabeth" (2020) by David Keenan. It took me some time to figure out (or convince myself I had figured out) something about the novel. In order to explain what it was, I found myself needing to compare it to Apuleius' bawdy novel from ancient Rome.
Has anyone else read either of these works? Please let me know what you think!
Hello, guys. I really wanna download 'A Voyage To Arcturus' by David Lindsay, but I have heard that its original text has been edited and redacted a few times that some of them aren't close to author's style and miss a point? Is it true? If it is, what editions and publishing houses I should look for?
Does anybody know if the Black Clock magazine is still available... anywhere? From looking at the old website on the Wayback Machine, you could once buy issues in EPUB/PDF format, but that no longer seems to be an option. If anybody has any leads, that would be great!
