: Re: What is the most important characteristic of New Weird as a genre? Recently I've stumbled across China Miéville's novels. Apparently, they fit in a genre called Weird Fiction, or to be even

@Radia543

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I believe your first two definitions are essentially in agreement. The most important characteristic of the "New Weird" is a fantasy story set in a fantasy world, where traditional fantasy tropes and ideas are subverted and replaced with something less neat and tidy and more complicated and unsettling. This new weird approach to fantasy might also be used for things that aren't fantasy, like sci-fi -- the genre is certainly a loosely defined one.

This is expressed by these specific parts of the definitions you give:
"subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping-off point"
"subvert cliches of the fantastic in order to put them to discomfiting, rather than consoling ends"

Here's another supporting quote:
"New Weird exists to overturn cliches and twist the traditional."

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