A fair few people have told me they dislike my pronunciatiation of certain words because of my Yorkshire accent, and I tried to adjust some pronunciations which sounded even weirder so I decided not to force it. Enjoy!
Man I friggin love all of these authors!!! Once I found this type of esoteric folk horror, I was profoundly hooked and is mainly all I look for in fiction!!! After H.P. Lovecraft, I read Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist, that left me wanting to learn way more about the fae, and pagan history!! These classics wake something up in me primitively and spiritually... just fascinates me all together!! I believe folk horror is making a comeback in a major way!!! You should really hear, The Cairn Upon The Headland on TH-cam, tis an awesome weird tale!! For we are the watchers by the threshold!!! You rock brother!!!
You are probably already aware of this, but in case you are not .. . Check out a wonderful work of experimental music made by David Tibet of Current 93 wherein he does his own spoken word version of Thoma Ligotti's "I Have A Special Plan For This World". Extremely dark and surreal and a chillingly disturbing piece of weird fiction set to sound.
I’m enchanted by Clark Ashton Smith’s zaniness. Two of my favorites are: The Double Shadow The Geas There’s a venerable tradition of weird fiction in Japan called kaidan (ghost stories) or kaiki (strange tales). Its characteristics are largely the same, especially the “ordinary life interrupted” aspect. Lafcadio Hearn wrote much in English about it, and there’s a multivolume English-language anthology titled Kaiki, Uncanny Tales from Japan. Two of my favorites are: The Face in the Hearth by Tanaka Kōtarō “Ino Mononoke Roku” which has multiple adaptations and may also count as a folk tale.
Your taste in literature is exquisite, especially mentioning Thomas Ligotti. He is one of my main writing inspirations and I have all of his books (excluding poetry). In "Teatro Grottesco", the story "Our temporary supervisor" is the essence of "corporate horror", one of the best sub-genres of weird fiction. Keep up with good work!
Mine, too. I've read everything from his anthologies to his philosophy, and to say the man is the best modern writer of the weird is an understatement. Thank you for watching. I appreciate your comment.
This video is fantastic - just subscribed! I'm an aspiring author, and have had such a difficult time defining my own genre tendencies. I kept saying I write "soft" or "quiet" horror, but that never felt entirely accurate. I knew of weird fiction and had a loose idea of what it was, but had never really looked into it specifically. However, I kept feeling pulled to learn more about it, and I ended up finding this video. I'm sure it sounds dramatic, but I could have cried watching this! I've been writing my entire life, but after this I feel like I finally know my genre and have a better sense of identity regarding who I am as a writer. Thank you so much for the work you put into researching this.
I'm so glad I could help! I love reading comments like these. I've been writing for a long time too, and one of the goals of this channel is to be a resource for horror writers to help find their identities and break down any themes they may want explore. So I'm very pleased that these videos are reaching my target audience and they seem to be serving their purpose. Thank you for watching and subscribing!
That's so great to hear!!! I have tried to write my own weird tales on my channel if you would like to take a listen 😊 I would love to hear yours; mine is not the best quality, but I hope the story itself makes up for it!!
@@DanielJBlackwood WOW!! That is so awesome!! I would love to immerse myself into your stories, that's great you've created a community for like-minded writers of folk, atmospheric, and cosmic horror. So glad to have subscribed 😊
Wow you stepped it up for this one, huh. The quality of your editing hs got so much higher. If it takes longer to make videos at this level than take all the time you need
Great video. A fellow director Kelly Hughes just shared it with me. Probably because of my own writings and films. I was a fan of Robert E Howard as a kid in the late 1960s, Poe before him and HP Lovecraft. I was deep into sciFi before that. I've found myself in a never ending cycle that goes from SF, to fantasy (weird, horror, or otherwise), then science fact, renewing that cycle throughout my lifetime. It's been hard for some to categorize my fiction and weird fiction certainly fits. BTW I don't have a problem with your pronunciation, I just assumed it was somewhere near Scotland. I'd offer two other stories, turned onto my psych class in phenomenology (my concentration) at university (as a psych major) by my advisor Dr. Rees, which has influenced me. Even as a foundation of one of my books (Death of heaven): Secret Snow, Silent Snow by Conrad Aiken and Over The River by P. Schuyler Miller. Perhaps one of my own, Poor Lord Ritchie. Thanks for the effort and video. Cheers! Sláinte!
I hope you continue making videos! I binged the videos you have so far, and was quite disappointed to see that I got to the end. Very informative and well put together, and I actually quite like your accent.
Really appreciate the videos Daniel. I love gothic/weird fiction themes but I haven't read a huge amount of the classics so these videos are very useful. I'm also writing a psychological gothic horror DnD campaign currently.
Very interesting video. Just a little nitpick: the Romantic movement in literature (and art in general) has been around since the late 18th century and started out in Germany. German Romantic stories were then translated into English and sold both in the UK and the US. EDIT: after the translated stories had found their way to the UK and the US, writers there naturally also began to write Romantic literature.
Great analysis! You did a great job of breaking down the elements of weird fiction! I agree that the supernatural is the central aspect of weird fiction. The supernatural provides that sense that there are forces at work who's motives and actions we cannot understand or comprehend, which is a very unsettling idea to think about.
I feel like New Weird is still so underexplored. Shows like The Venture Bros and Rick & Morty dip into New Weird but theres not enough horror usually. I'm working on a New Weird short story collection because I love that intersection of scifi, fantasy and horror.
A good source of modern/revived Weird storytelling are the books by The Bizzarchives, wich are described by Arkham Reporter as "the spiritual successor to Weird Tales".
A little correction, The house on the Borderland is written by William Hope Hodgson, plus: I think the common concept all this stories came to be recognizable by all its writers own styles and themes is a subversion of the idea of Sacred, in all these universes, the forces beyond humanity have not beign contaminated by the existence of any kind of pure Goodness, by the inverse, they are the full expression of the absence of any Sacredness in the influence of any aspect of the Cosmos. They can be egoistic forces like Lovecraftian, unrecognizable by the limitless existence of humanity 'cause the ideia of Good, takes place in all humans, like a theological take on this one. So if these creatures hasn't this aspect in their own genesis, they become individuals who follow their own desires leading to every fictional cosmos where they live.
Yep, you're correct, it was written by William Hope Hodgson. It's been years since I read it and forgot who wrote it. Should have used Google to double check.
Some Classic Weird Fiction Stories you didn't mention:- 'The Moon Pool' by Abraham Merritt. 'The Music Of Erich Zann' by H.P. Lovecraft 'The Tower Of The Elephant' by Robert E Howard 'Black God's Kiss' by C.L. Moore 'Loup Garou' by R.B. Russell Enjoy!
How can you possibly have covered this subject without mentioning the absolute master of weird tales - Robert Aickman (1914-1981). "The Hospice", "The Cicerones", "Ringing the Changes", " The Trains" and so on are all classic weird tales, or as the author classified them, weird stories. One of my favourites is "The Swords", not least because it is set in my home city, Wolverhampton!
Excellent job Mr Blackwood. Btw: please consider reading "Noir" by Olivier Pauvert. I discovered it by accident. I love Thomas Ligotti/Franz Kafka/China Mieville/JL Borges...& Pauvert's book really knocked me the fxck out! Sir, would you please consider reviewing it sometime? I think you'll love it. Peace.
There are some stories that come to mind on the Internet Archive, The White People, The House on the Rock (???), and the was a sprawling story that took place in a fairyland where it turns out the protagonist is dead. 🤷 I listen to a lot of books as i fall asleep soo it gets foggy.
Good video. I’ve been building a “fantasy world” for nearly a decade. When breaking down my own work I’ve come to think of it as a sword & sorcery high fantasy pulp weird fiction hybrid lol. Look forward to more videos.
It's always fun to sit and write something that you think belongs to a specific genre, only to realise that what you're writing is actually an obscure sub-genre from the Victorian era.
I strongly believe I write weird fiction. I mix genres and often times the stories are very twisted. They don't align with the typical horror you see today but yet they do in ways. I explore the dark side of humanity a lot and also the what if this or that. I blend this in with reality at the same time.
If one can forgive the approval of establishment literary critics, I thank Franz Kafka stories like 'the Metamorphosis' and Jorge Luis Borges stories like 'the Library of Babel' could easily be considered weird fiction.
Really good description, but I disagree in your statement that every Weird Fiction piece contains the supernatural. I guess it depends on what you consider "supernatural." I do not consider Cthulhu and his pals to be supernatural, any more than Mr. Spock on Star Trek. They are to me aliens, so even as HPL may throw in elements of folk horror such as the mention of pagan holidays such as Halloween and Roodmas, it seems to me that his frightening denizens of deep space and deep history have more to do with science fiction than with said folk horror. I would also maintain that Ligotti does not always or even frequently have absolute supernatural concepts in his fiction. Ideas, anyone?
Sorry, I've only just seen this comment. The word supernatural is defined as; attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. I'd consider Cthulhu, Azathoth, Nyarlathotep etc as supernatural, as they *do* exist beyond the laws of nature. In the case of Ligotti, he is not just a weird fiction writer. The stories he has written that belong to the genre do contain the supernatural.
A fair few people have told me they dislike my pronunciatiation of certain words because of my Yorkshire accent, and I tried to adjust some pronunciations which sounded even weirder so I decided not to force it.
Enjoy!
Yet u did a brilliant video analysis so screw em lol well done man 👏
@@austinciejka611 Hah, thank you!
@@DanielJBlackwood shit you killed it man!! All the best!!
It's your accent - don't change it just to accomodate the intolerance of others. :-)
Accent is fine, mate. Don't worry about it.
Isn't the House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson? Thanks for the superb introduction to the genre!
Yes. If Ambrose Bierce wrote a story by that name as well, I am not aware of it.
Ligotti, Barron, Langan, VanderMeer and Vernon/Kingfisher are some of my favourite recent weird fiction writers.
Man I friggin love all of these authors!!! Once I found this type of esoteric folk horror, I was profoundly hooked and is mainly all I look for in fiction!!! After H.P. Lovecraft, I read Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist, that left me wanting to learn way more about the fae, and pagan history!! These classics wake something up in me primitively and spiritually... just fascinates me all together!! I believe folk horror is making a comeback in a major way!!! You should really hear, The Cairn Upon The Headland on TH-cam, tis an awesome weird tale!! For we are the watchers by the threshold!!! You rock brother!!!
You are probably already aware of this, but in case you are not .. . Check out a wonderful work of experimental music made by David Tibet of Current 93 wherein he does his own spoken word version of Thoma Ligotti's "I Have A Special Plan For This World". Extremely dark and surreal and a chillingly disturbing piece of weird fiction set to sound.
I wish you had more videos! They’re so entertaining AND informative, and that’s so difficult to find on this subject matter. Come back! :)
Great video. "The House on the Borderland" was Hodgson, not Bierce, though, right?
I’m enchanted by Clark Ashton Smith’s zaniness. Two of my favorites are:
The Double Shadow
The Geas
There’s a venerable tradition of weird fiction in Japan called kaidan (ghost stories) or kaiki (strange tales). Its characteristics are largely the same, especially the “ordinary life interrupted” aspect. Lafcadio Hearn wrote much in English about it, and there’s a multivolume English-language anthology titled Kaiki, Uncanny Tales from Japan. Two of my favorites are:
The Face in the Hearth by Tanaka Kōtarō
“Ino Mononoke Roku” which has multiple adaptations and may also count as a folk tale.
Ligotti's Teatro Grotesco is one of my all-time favorite collections of weird fiction, as well. Great video.
Reading the king in yellow: haven't gone insane yet, but it is debatable.
Your taste in literature is exquisite, especially mentioning Thomas Ligotti. He is one of my main writing inspirations and I have all of his books (excluding poetry).
In "Teatro Grottesco", the story "Our temporary supervisor" is the essence of "corporate horror", one of the best sub-genres of weird fiction.
Keep up with good work!
Mine, too. I've read everything from his anthologies to his philosophy, and to say the man is the best modern writer of the weird is an understatement.
Thank you for watching. I appreciate your comment.
Most definitely
This video is fantastic - just subscribed! I'm an aspiring author, and have had such a difficult time defining my own genre tendencies. I kept saying I write "soft" or "quiet" horror, but that never felt entirely accurate. I knew of weird fiction and had a loose idea of what it was, but had never really looked into it specifically. However, I kept feeling pulled to learn more about it, and I ended up finding this video. I'm sure it sounds dramatic, but I could have cried watching this! I've been writing my entire life, but after this I feel like I finally know my genre and have a better sense of identity regarding who I am as a writer. Thank you so much for the work you put into researching this.
I'm so glad I could help! I love reading comments like these. I've been writing for a long time too, and one of the goals of this channel is to be a resource for horror writers to help find their identities and break down any themes they may want explore. So I'm very pleased that these videos are reaching my target audience and they seem to be serving their purpose. Thank you for watching and subscribing!
That's so great to hear!!! I have tried to write my own weird tales on my channel if you would like to take a listen 😊 I would love to hear yours; mine is not the best quality, but I hope the story itself makes up for it!!
@@DanielJBlackwood WOW!! That is so awesome!! I would love to immerse myself into your stories, that's great you've created a community for like-minded writers of folk, atmospheric, and cosmic horror. So glad to have subscribed 😊
Nice video! But, The House on the Borderland is by William Hope Hodgson, not Ambrose Bierce.
You could not tell that you have only 1.5k subscribers, you got some quality videos
Thanks for coming back to watch!
Wow you stepped it up for this one, huh. The quality of your editing hs got so much higher. If it takes longer to make videos at this level than take all the time you need
Thank you! I really tried to go for a more documentary styled video on this one. I'm glad you liked it!
You bloody nailed this one. The channel should definitely have more subscribers. Thank-you!
Great video. A fellow director Kelly Hughes just shared it with me. Probably because of my own writings and films. I was a fan of Robert E Howard as a kid in the late 1960s, Poe before him and HP Lovecraft. I was deep into sciFi before that. I've found myself in a never ending cycle that goes from SF, to fantasy (weird, horror, or otherwise), then science fact, renewing that cycle throughout my lifetime.
It's been hard for some to categorize my fiction and weird fiction certainly fits. BTW I don't have a problem with your pronunciation, I just assumed it was somewhere near Scotland.
I'd offer two other stories, turned onto my psych class in phenomenology (my concentration) at university (as a psych major) by my advisor Dr. Rees, which has influenced me. Even as a foundation of one of my books (Death of heaven):
Secret Snow, Silent Snow by Conrad Aiken and
Over The River by P. Schuyler Miller.
Perhaps one of my own, Poor Lord Ritchie.
Thanks for the effort and video. Cheers! Sláinte!
Great vid! Motion graphics are top tier - I'll have to give the recommendations a read!
I hope you continue making videos! I binged the videos you have so far, and was quite disappointed to see that I got to the end. Very informative and well put together, and I actually quite like your accent.
Really appreciate the videos Daniel. I love gothic/weird fiction themes but I haven't read a huge amount of the classics so these videos are very useful. I'm also writing a psychological gothic horror DnD campaign currently.
Very interesting video. Just a little nitpick: the Romantic movement in literature (and art in general) has been around since the late 18th century and started out in Germany. German Romantic stories were then translated into English and sold both in the UK and the US.
EDIT: after the translated stories had found their way to the UK and the US, writers there naturally also began to write Romantic literature.
Well, on that note, if 'the Sandman' by E.T.A. Hoffmann does not belong in the pedigree of weird fiction, I don't know what does.
Great analysis! You did a great job of breaking down the elements of weird fiction! I agree that the supernatural is the central aspect of weird fiction. The supernatural provides that sense that there are forces at work who's motives and actions we cannot understand or comprehend, which is a very unsettling idea to think about.
Thank you! Exactly, and it's for that reason that weird fiction is my second favorite subgenre behind cosmic horror. It's just so uniquely bizarre.
Well said you guys 😊😊
Your videos are great and I truly appreciate the obvious amount of time and effort you put into these. Thank you, sir!!
I feel like New Weird is still so underexplored. Shows like The Venture Bros and Rick & Morty dip into New Weird but theres not enough horror usually. I'm working on a New Weird short story collection because I love that intersection of scifi, fantasy and horror.
A good source of modern/revived Weird storytelling are the books by The Bizzarchives, wich are described by Arkham Reporter as "the spiritual successor to Weird Tales".
If you've played the TTRPG Mage: the Ascension, you will see influences by Ligotti and his story, "The Flowers"
You make really fantastic content. Please keep it up❤
Underrated channel, amazing video.
Thank you!
TH-cam really came through for me with this recommendation. Cheers!
Thank you for taking the time to watch it!
A little correction, The house on the Borderland is written by William Hope Hodgson, plus: I think the common concept all this stories came to be recognizable by all its writers own styles and themes is a subversion of the idea of Sacred, in all these universes, the forces beyond humanity have not beign contaminated by the existence of any kind of pure Goodness, by the inverse, they are the full expression of the absence of any Sacredness in the influence of any aspect of the Cosmos. They can be egoistic forces like Lovecraftian, unrecognizable by the limitless existence of humanity 'cause the ideia of Good, takes place in all humans, like a theological take on this one. So if these creatures hasn't this aspect in their own genesis, they become individuals who follow their own desires leading to every fictional cosmos where they live.
Yep, you're correct, it was written by William Hope Hodgson. It's been years since I read it and forgot who wrote it. Should have used Google to double check.
Some Classic Weird Fiction Stories you didn't mention:-
'The Moon Pool' by Abraham Merritt.
'The Music Of Erich Zann' by H.P. Lovecraft
'The Tower Of The Elephant' by Robert E Howard
'Black God's Kiss' by C.L. Moore
'Loup Garou' by R.B. Russell
Enjoy!
Yeah, the Moon Pool haunted me as a child. I was not good at remembering authors at the time. And it took me years to find that story again.😢
Just subscribed, your videos are amazing man keep up the good work!
How can you possibly have covered this subject without mentioning the absolute master of weird tales - Robert Aickman (1914-1981). "The Hospice", "The Cicerones", "Ringing the Changes", " The Trains" and so on are all classic weird tales, or as the author classified them, weird stories. One of my favourites is "The Swords", not least because it is set in my home city, Wolverhampton!
Excellent job Mr Blackwood. Btw: please consider reading "Noir" by Olivier Pauvert. I discovered it by accident. I love Thomas Ligotti/Franz Kafka/China Mieville/JL Borges...& Pauvert's book really knocked me the fxck out! Sir, would you please consider reviewing it sometime? I think you'll love it. Peace.
Good stuff!
There are some stories that come to mind on the Internet Archive, The White People, The House on the Rock (???), and the was a sprawling story that took place in a fairyland where it turns out the protagonist is dead. 🤷
I listen to a lot of books as i fall asleep soo it gets foggy.
Good video. I’ve been building a “fantasy world” for nearly a decade. When breaking down my own work I’ve come to think of it as a sword & sorcery high fantasy pulp weird fiction hybrid lol. Look forward to more videos.
It's always fun to sit and write something that you think belongs to a specific genre, only to realise that what you're writing is actually an obscure sub-genre from the Victorian era.
Love the video.
Love the "yawk-shuh" accent.
I don’t think The House on the Borderland wasn’t written by Ambrose Bierce. I think it was written by William Hope Hodgson.
Sorry for the typo. Double negative.
Thank you so much, learner 🌳
You're back! I'm very excited for this one!
So here's a comment for the Algorithmic overlords.👻-SLD
Thank you, brother! 🖤
@@DanielJBlackwood No problem my friend! So far I'm digging your new video. Great work!
Quite instructive
Really liked it!
I strongly believe I write weird fiction. I mix genres and often times the stories are very twisted. They don't align with the typical horror you see today but yet they do in ways. I explore the dark side of humanity a lot and also the what if this or that. I blend this in with reality at the same time.
If one can forgive the approval of establishment literary critics, I thank Franz Kafka stories like 'the Metamorphosis' and Jorge Luis Borges stories like 'the Library of Babel' could easily be considered weird fiction.
Edgar Alan Puh
Please do more videos
I'm very bothered by the fact that you have such a low sub count in contrast to your production quality
Thank you for the kind words!
You stop posting, I hope you’re okay I do Love your content
Cthulhu fhtagn!
SCP?
They try to contain most kinds of horror...
Really good description, but I disagree in your statement that every Weird Fiction piece contains the supernatural. I guess it depends on what you consider "supernatural." I do not consider Cthulhu and his pals to be supernatural, any more than Mr. Spock on Star Trek. They are to me aliens, so even as HPL may throw in elements of folk horror such as the mention of pagan holidays such as Halloween and Roodmas, it seems to me that his frightening denizens of deep space and deep history have more to do with science fiction than with said folk horror. I would also maintain that Ligotti does not always or even frequently have absolute supernatural concepts in his fiction. Ideas, anyone?
Sorry, I've only just seen this comment.
The word supernatural is defined as; attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
I'd consider Cthulhu, Azathoth, Nyarlathotep etc as supernatural, as they *do* exist beyond the laws of nature.
In the case of Ligotti, he is not just a weird fiction writer. The stories he has written that belong to the genre do contain the supernatural.
🏃 Promo'SM!!!