The Monster of Weird Fiction

Genres.

I am always asked which genre my books are in.

Ultimately, on the back of my books, above the ISBN barcodes, just left of the price, I inevitably label "Fiction/Horror."

I have never been comfortable with labels and categories.

Truth be know, I believe my first title, The Symbiot, is in the genre of Lovecraftian Horror.

The second, The Hunt: Symbiosys, is a little more difficult to define. While the third - Necropolis - I would clearly put in the genre of Weild Fiction.

This issue has very recently came to my attention in categorizing my soon to be released novelette, UNCGSC: The Facility.

It will mark my first excursion into Sci-Fi... sort of. It goes beyond sci-fi, blending significant elements of Theology into it. I'm not sure it fits a genre.

I often times hesitate using the term Weird Fiction. You elicit strange sideway looks. It is a subgenre not commonly known or heard of. And I am not a fan of creating more and more categories just to fit one's work into. If we're going to use a genre-system then it should be relatively simple.

I like the genre Weird Fiction, more than because of what it is and what it is defined as.

Weird Fiction blends horror, fantasy, and sci-fi elements. It encompasses the ghost-story and other tales of the macabre. It crosses conventional genre boundaries. (I believe the short story Mother-Machine is something between Ghost-story and possibly Gothic Horror).

What attracts me most to Weird Fiction is the fact that it predates genres. Conventions had not yet been established and the authors within the 'genre' (Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen, Clark Aston Smith, Richard W. Chambers, F. Marion Crawford to name a few giants) were - quite literally - free to compose, create, and write as they saw fit. No labels. No categories. They did not write into a system of what was expected, but rather simply wrote.

I'm sure by now you must have at least once followed the links Weird Fiction leads to. But I think its definition may be somewhat beyond that. It supercedes definition. It came from a time before categories, and thus may defy categorization.

It is one of the reasons - as I mentioned in my hour-long interview with 'tic' of CKCU's Wednesday Special Blend interview - why I tend to write and function in a solitary capacity. I don't want to be told what I can or cannot do. I don't believe in having creativity hampered, stifled, or restrained. I fear, possibly, membership into literary groups may produce these effects.

I have no problem with a piece of writing being defined, labeled or categorized after its inception. But to begin writing/creation with these preconceived concepts before... I'd prefer not.

So I'll end with a question: What is Weird Fiction? I believe it represents a time before categories. And that's a good thing. I think we should all write this way.