Recommended: Weird Tales

Last winter I picked up a subscription to the venerable magazine, Weird Tales. So now, having read three issues, I figured it was time to provide some commentary.

The masthead provides some of the mag’s rich history before stating:

“Today, O wondrous reader of the 21st Century, we continue to seek out that which is most weird and unsettling, for your own edification and alarm.”

Sounds about right. This is Wildside Press relaunching/rebranding the title, which had frankly begun to flounder in recent years. They have a new look an attitude. They have a strong web presence. They have new editors who’ve allied with the New Weird. All very promising, but what it comes down to is what’s between the covers.

Start with the fiction–because a mag like Weird Tales is only as good as its stories. Three issues in and I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of them. There are shorter works and longer offerings, a mix of styles and themes and settings. Only a couple I didn’t like enough to finish and that’s a pretty good percentage for me. While I’ve yet to read a story that truly kicked my ass (something that is more rare these days), I get the sense an ass-kicking could be forthcoming.

What I’m enjoying about the stories is, well, the weirdness. You get creepy-scary weird, wondrous weird, funny weird, gotcha weird. Not so much weird-for-the-sake-of-weird pomo style, and that’s more than fine with me. These are well-written conventional narratives, many of which dig at the roots of mythology and folklore to good effect. As for the writers: a few of them I recognize, but many I do not. Again, fine with me. It’s good to see some folks breaking in. And it really does come down to the quality of the stories, which has been high so far.

The magazine has the usual editorial, book reviews, and non-fiction essays. They have a featured essay called Weirdism, focused on the weird/strange/bizarre manifested in real life, which I’ve enjoyed as a good warm-up for the stories. The book and media reviews focus on dark fantasy, horror, and ( occasionally) sci-fi from a Weird Tales perspective; they are brief and informative. There are interviews with interesting folks connected to the New Weird scene. They even had a sequential art (comic book) excerpt from Jamie Tanner’s ‘The Aviary’–definitely cool, definitely weird.

One series of articles I’ve particularly enjoyed is an ongoing feature on Setting and Location in Lovecraft’s fiction called ‘Lost in Lovecraft’. Written by Kenneth Hite, they read very much like a literary comparison/criticism–but not in the lame way. I found myself wondering if this was Ken’s master’s thesis or something; if not it should have been. So far he’s had a section on ‘The Woods’ and ‘Arabia’. I’ll be looking forward to ensuing essays and hoping the editorial staff can continue to offer this kind of smart and incisive content. Content that not only draws on the unique Weird Tales tradition but also speaks to contemporary perspectives.

So the new Weird Tales gets the official Beemsville stamp of approval. It’s great to see one of the grand old mags moving forward in vibrant fashion. Their webpage header reads: The Original Magazine of the Unique, Fantastic, & Bizarre. If this sounds like your kind of reading, head over to the website (where much archived content is available) and pick a copy at your local newsstand or bookstore.