Weird Fiction

[Extollager]

Just keep in mind the importance of the editor who plays a bigger role in all this than we sometimes realize.

It's good, then, if he or she explains how "weird fiction" (or whatever) is understood in a given anthology, right?

 

[dask]

Sure, I don't see why it wouldn't. (You seem to think I have a problem I don't have. I apologize again for giving the wrong impression.) It's also good if they don't explain if they don't want to as the stories they choose should reflect their definition.

 

[nomadman]

I read somewhere editors like to save the two best stories for opening and closing their anthologies. The first to entice you in, the second to beckon you back for the next one. My favorite usually lies somewhere between in the smoking terrain of no man's land.

Thank god I'm not an editor then, as the practice never even entered my mind.

Sure, I don't see why it wouldn't. It's also good if they don't explain if they don't want to as the stories they choose should reflect their definition.

I think in more experimental anthologies some degree of explanation/justification is needed, if only to draw attention to certain connections or common themes in the stories that wouldn't otherwise be clear. Such a thing, provided it's not too heavy handed, can both deepen the reading experience and help to harmonize the work as a whole.

 

[dask]

I think in more experimental anthologies some degree of explanation/justification is needed, if only to draw attention to certain connections or common themes in the stories that wouldn't otherwise be clear. Such a thing, provided it's not too heavy handed, can both deepen the reading experience and help to harmonize the work as a whole.

Personally I look forward to introductory material in anthologies/collections and feel a little cheated if i's left out. Imagine DANGEROUS VISIONS with just stories...

 

[j d worthington]

First: In the vast majority of stories featuring the "weird", "ghostly", etc., that I have read, where there is an introduction, the editor takes some time to explain their own take on what constitutes a story in this vein. That explanation can itself sometimes be a bit obscure (e.g., Robert Aickman now and again), but it does help to give the reader some background. It is, if you will, as if the editor sets out his thesis of the weird tale, and then provides supporting examples of that theory. (Which is why even such a tale as Shirley Jackson's "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts", can be made to fit rather well in a selection of fantasy tales, for instance.)

Second: I think Extollager has a good point with HPL and fate. Lovecraft was a mechanistic materialist, who was convinced of determinism; the complexities of the mechanism involved (the universe) is what makes it appear to we limited human beings that there is an element of "free will", but in reality everything which happens is the result of everything which has gone before -- and I mean everything -- hence far beyond the scope of our abilities to even perceive, let alone being able to calculate the influence resulting from it all. This, too, is why such a thing as chaos is perceived as such an intense horror: it is a violation of all the laws of nature and introduces truly random chance, making any sort of consistency in the universe untenable and open to dissolution at any point, present, future, or (to make it truly terrifying) even past... this last making even our memories and experiences, both individual and collective, invalid as criteria for building expectations. (Which, really, is what lies at the core of that very odd little story "Watch the Whiskers Sprout", by D. F. Lewis, in Cthulhu's Heirs.)

Third: The Dangerous Visions books are fine examples of an aspect of Ellison's approach to writing (and editing) which I don't recall seeing anyone mention: "unveiling the mystery". Throughout much of his career, Ellison has made it a point to show to both readers and even the non-readers on the street (via such things as his writing stories in shop windows and the like) that writing is a job of work, not some mysterious, esoteric practice resulting from being "touched by the gods". Not that he doesn't think there's something special about writers or writing, or any genuinely creative sort of work; but that he intends to aid in people seeing that writers work at what they do, and work hard at it. "It doesn't just come" (to quote Neil Simon's Felix Ungar). There is labor in creating these things, and there are practical considerations here as much as in building a house or managing a factory. Hence he often draws attention to these aspects of the craft, including (in his introduction to No Doors, No Windows) filling in the uninitiated on word counts and using the various stories in that collection as examples by giving the count for each, etc.) This is even more true, perhaps, of Medea: Harlan's World, which includes a massive amount of prefatory matter including a transcript of portions of the conference with the various writers involved showing how they (collectively) created a world, with considerations of its various physical, biological, and philosophical factors....

 

[nomadman]

Personally I look forward to introductory material in anthologies/collections and feel a little cheated if i's left out. Imagine DANGEROUS VISIONS with just stories...

I often buy collections and anthologies with at least one eye on the introduction, especially if I've read the bulk of the work before. Stories aren't static objects, and a really excellent introduction coupled with a body of stories that gel together or even play off each other can make the whole thing very much more than the sum of its parts. I don't know how true this is as an observation, but I often feel that editors don't put as much effort into this 'gelling process' as they should, preferring perhaps to chose the most popular or critically acclaimed stories over stories that work together well.

 

[GOLLUM]

....I often feel that editors don't put as much effort into this 'gelling process' as they should, preferring perhaps to chose the most popular or critically acclaimed stories over stories that work together well.

I purchase quite a few anthologies Genre and non-Genre and have always found the choice of story and their arrangement on the whole to be very good. I don't know which Editors or associated publishers you may be referring to but I'm referring to the likes of Victor Golancz, Penguin, Norton, Library of America, NYRB, Harvill Classics etc. My point being that those publishers that have a strong reputation for publishing quality fiction also I notice generally tend to have excellent editors at the helm of their anthologies. There are always exceptions but that is the trend I have noticed, including several radio interviews I have heard where Editors have discussed their rationale in choice and arrangement of stories.