One subgenre I enjoy reading is “weird” fiction. If you’re not familiar, it’s one of those genres that defies a “set in stone” definition. It falls under the sci-fi/fantasy realm and involves odd characters, settings and/or situations, typically has the supernatural or paranormal, sometimes has elements of science or mythology, and there’s a dark side to everything that may or may not be explained. Often the plot is not straightforward or the story itself is written in a non-standard or non-linear way. Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allen Poe are like the grandfathers of this subgenre, with H.P. Lovecraft as one of the most recognizable classic writers of the weird. 

But it’s not just a “classics” genre. There are a lot of authors around now whose entire bibliographies are weird fiction, while others have just a few stories or a novel or two among their entire collected works. A few of my favorites in this area are books by Clive Barker, Jeff Noon, China Miéville, Mark Z. Danielewski and Neil Gaiman. Some of these writers’ novels are more in the realm of horror or fantasy, but Barker’s Imajica is a brilliant work of weird, Danielewski’s House of Leaves is a real mind screw and Gaiman’s American Gods and Coraline are fantastic reads. And if you’ve ever wanted to be blown away by sentence structure and style, pick up anything by Miéville.

One of my most recent forays into weird is the works of Cory Doctorow. Ostensibly a science fiction writer, his stories have an oddness about them that often has a reader wondering just what is really going on. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is “weird light”, but really enjoyable (especially if you’re a Disney fan) and I just finished Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which is probably the weirdest of his novels. I’m not entirely sure that I actually enjoyed the book, but it kept me interested enough to read it all the way through. And that’s the effect of a lot of weird fiction – you can’t always decide if you actually enjoy the story or are simply drawn in by the weird of it all.