BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol. One: Complete Table of Contents announced!
cover art and design by Matt Blairstone
I was girding myself for more outrage, quite frankly. A little Monday morning second-guessing, at least. I'm a little disappointed: I mean, how dare y'all show such blanket enthusiasm for the selections for our inaugural anthology shining a light on the Weirdest corners of the Horror fiction world, with nary a condescending Tweet in response?!
Rather, folks are conveying exactly what we had hoped for: specifically, unbridled excitement at the chance to read some top notch Weird Horror from unexpected, unamplified voices and corners of the scene they weren't previously familiar with.
This is a previously published collection, after all, so theoretically you've had the opportunity to read every one of these 22 genre-bending Weirdos already; but the smart money says there's at least a couple stories new and unexpected to the lions' share of you. And if I might be so bold (and I usually am), BRAVE NEW WEIRD is going to reaffirm something about the Indie Horror scene that we've known all along and you've likely suspected:
It is vibrant; it is healthy; and goddamn it is thriving.
Here's the Table of Contents:
Banhus—M.E. Bronstein
User Warning—Charlotte Ariel Finn
The Bear Across the Way—Emily Rigole
En el Patio de la Casa del Callejón—Tania Chen
In Haskins—Carson Winter
The Imperfection—Mae Murray
Blame—Warren Bennedetto
Low Tide Jenny—Bitter Karella
Machine (r)Evolution—Colleen Anderson
Skin—Isha Karki
Eat Your Colors—Sonora Taylor
Paradise—Sloane Leong
There is No Easy Way Towards Earth—jonah wu
Notes on the Forum of the Simulacra—Cadwell Turnbull
Blood Calumny—Joe Koch
Lemmings—Kirstyn McDermott
Water Goes, Sand Remains—Jolie Toomajan
The Mules—Jennifer Jeanne McArdle
Stage Five Clinger—Nikki R. Leigh
The Day When the Last War is Over—Sergey Gerasimov
Mother; Microbes—H.V. Patterson
The Mythologization of Tymber Prescott in Five Selected Photos—Luciano Marano
BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol. One, is out February 6, 2023. Keep an eye on TenebrousPress.com for preorder info and upcoming interviews with some of the contributors.
More 2023 Tenebrous Titles Inbound
We mentioned Ashley Deng's Dehiscent briefly last month:
In the near future, the dregs of civilization will huddle in small communities to scrape together what they can to survive…except for the Zhu family. Youngest of the clan, Yi has lived a sheltered life in her ancestral home and has wanted for nothing. But she’s about to learn the terrible secret of just how the Zhu house provides.
Dehiscent marks our first real return to one of my favorite sub-genres since our Green Inferno anthology: Eco-Horror. Falling somewhere between Jeff VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen and 80s post-apocalyptic cult film The Quiet Earth, Dehiscent debuts in July 2023.
Next up: in Colin Hinckley's The Black Lord, vintage Algernon Blackwood/William Hope Hodgson vibes are filtered through the modern sensibilites of Adam Nevill. Buried secrets brought to light; a family’s multigenerational struggle against an otherworldly entity whose hunger threatens to swallow them whole; it's a Weird Folk Horror bonanza, and it is terrifying. You may have read Otherworldy Woodland Deity™ before, but I guarantee you haven't read anything like The Black Lord. Coming September 2023.
Coming next Halloween: Posthaste Manor was actually the first book we knew we'd be publishing in 2023, and I'm thrilled that word is finally out and we can start talking about it!
Posthaste Manor is a gleefully unsettling, unabashedly Weird take on one of the oldest, most celebrated tropes of the Horror genre: the haunted house. Two of New Weird's best creators, Jolie Toomajan & Carson Winter, unite to share their vision of this most enduring of settings with a dozen narratives weaving together through time, tone and format to present the complete Rise and Fall of Posthaste Manor. Think House of Leaves with the no-limits gonzo defiance of 70s Japanese classic Hausu.
We still have one more 2023 release we'll be announcing this week. On top of our previously announced titles—Carson's Soft Targets in March; Agony's Lodestone by Laura Keating in April; and Danger Slater's House of Rot making its debut in June—the eight books on Tenebrous' calendar run the spectrum of New Weird Horror and illuminate unseen corners of the genre. I can't wait to tell you more about all of them in the coming weeks and months.
Now Here's Alex with the (digitally created) Weather
The latest rumble on the streets is about AI taking over from real human artists, and I’ve got a couple of thoughts, some words of caution, and some positive actions for us to take.
First of all, let’s settle the terminology: “AI” isn’t “taking over”. For one thing, the programs you see churning out soulless images and chapters and narration aren’t “Intelligent” in any sense of the word; it’s machine learning, and nowhere remotely close to being artificial intelligence. It can no more create art out of what it steals than a blender can create new vegetables out of your kale smoothie, and that should be a very comforting thought. It’s limited, and it depends on us.
Second, and more importantly: machine learning isn’t taking from people—people are taking from people. Real human beings are making the decision to take money from their left hand and, instead of giving it to an artist, move it into their right pocket. It’s the human beings we need to be angry with, and they’re a hell of a lot easier to challenge and contain than a nebulous speculative concept like “AI”.
Words of caution: When talking about how machine learning is interacting with the world of art, I do urge you to demonstrate some degree of empathy. It may well be very fascinating to you, and very easy to say terrible things like “we’re all doomed”, “they’re doing the job as well as people would”, and “they’ll take over”. Please keep in mind that what you’re talking about is how many people provide their families with food and warm homes. Doomsaying on this topic is, quite literally, telling many of us, “you will starve to death”. Not only is it terrifying, but it’s also empty calorie discourse that distracts from the real, critical discussion on what we can do and how we can support each other. It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy; the more you tell people that the “AI” writer or editor or narrator is as good as a real one, the more people will believe you. (Spoiler: they aren’t. It’s still just good old human beings who are making the choice to settle for sub-par results.)
So, please, to the best of your ability, exercise empathy when having conversations on this topic and imagine it was your life and future in the balance.
All this isn’t to say that machine learning didn’t slam into artists like a bulldozer over the past year. It certainly did, and we need to figure out some strategies to help each other out. I definitely don’t have all the answers, but I’ve got a couple of thoughts that aren’t even that hard to implement.
Make a statement that “AI” art, writing, narration, and editing, are not something you support or are interested in. It seems simple, but a lot of gestures like that add up to a lot of relief for artists who are worried about their future.
Redirect your ire away from the general concept of “AI” and to individual human beings. People making bad choices are the real problem, and they’re a problem we can and should address. The existence of machine learning isn’t going back into the hat; nor should it, because as a tool, it’ll bring humanity countless benefits, as soon as we stop letting half of humanity beat the other half upside the head with it.
If you are in a position to purchase art, even just for your own enjoyment, make an informed decision not to purchase anything produced with the help of machine learning/AI.
Refrain from sharing AI art, even if to point out the problems with it. Like everything else, the more we give it attention, the worse it gets.
Have difficult conversations about this topic with your friends and professional network. Sometimes, we’ve got to let things slide, especially when we’re under contract; but if you’re not placing yourself in any danger, speak out.
If you’re an author, editor, or publisher, revise your contracts in a way that supports human artists. We’ve added this clause to Tenebrous art contracts, and will be adding similar ones to writing, narration, editing, and any other subject machine learning sneaks into. As an author, I’ll also be asking for similar clauses in my personal contracts going forward. Feel free to take this clause and adapt it for your own uses!
Example clause:
“8. The Artist warrants that the images provided will not be Machine Learning/AI-generated. If any parts, including early drafts and mockups, are Machine Learning/AI-generated, that must be disclosed and mutually agreed-upon in writing before the signing of this contract. If AI/Machine Learning programs are used during any stage of the creation of the image, the final result may not contain more than 30% pixel value of that original generation. The Artist is liable for a full refund if at any point it is discovered that this clause was not respected.”
Finally: add to this list. Talk to us, and others, about what you plan on doing to help. We’ve all got the power to move the needle a little.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that machine learning will replace human artists and editors. I believe that, just like NFTs, you’re primarily learning about it because of the outrage, which means there are far more people fighting against it than there have ever been before. I believe that a certain subset of people in power—again, the real issue always comes back to a bona-fide meatsuit-wearing asshole, and isn’t that poetic given the topic—will absolutely make the choice to line their own pockets rather than pay real artists, but I also believe that those people would have already found every single way to underpay, abuse, and devalue the artists unfortunate enough to work with them. They were never going to be a real connection, a real source of wealth for their community—they couldn’t be.
Because you’ve got to have humanity to perceive and appreciate humanity, and some people just don’t.
But don’t worry. We may not outclass them, but we sure outnumber them, and no reign lasts forever.
Patting ourselves on the back & a New Year's Resolution of sorts
I toyed with the possibility of rushing out one last newsletter before year's end so Alex and I could just go off on some of our favorite things from 2022. But honestly I don't think I've got the time; and anyway, we do our own variation of that in the back matter of BRAVE NEW WEIRD anyway (plug plug!)
I do want to comment on the slightly charmed year that Tenebrous Press has had, though. When 2022 began, Alex and I had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to accomplish as a publisher, but little clue we'd be able to impact the Horror scene, even on a small level, in the way we have.
Part of that was a case of right time/right place, and being able to elevate marginalized voices in a time of crisis via YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR BODY (oh, and one more big FUCK YOU to Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP; thanks to your scumbag attempts to criminalize Trans youth & their families, we've raised $10,000 for Equality Texas & the Trevor Project), which was obviously not a book we had scheduled ahead of time. How do you even plan for a trauma like that? Alex and I nearly killed ourselves rushing this book out the door in a handful of weeks—"rush" being the key word, as a couple Goodreaders have noted, proofing-wise:)—and set it to work raising money, but the stars of YB=/=YB are the 30-plus creators who put their hearts and souls on the line and delivered some of the most profound Horror fiction I've ever read. The immediate public reaction to YB=/=YB is probably my proudest moment of the year.
Part of it was also having the confidence, the curatorial skills and flat-out good taste (truly, we do; Alex and I are goddamn hip to good Horror) to release three of the best books of the year—yeah I'm biased, but I'll stand them up against any other publisher's output, Big Four or indie, in a heartbeat—in M.Shaw's One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve, Tim McGregor's Lure, and Valkyrie Loughcrewe's Crom Cruach. It showed that you trust our opinions too, and that the Tenebrous Cult is growing, as each book has outsold the previous one on our webstore (and you can get all three for a snazzy price right now!)
The third impact we've had is a lot less glitzy, and is anchored by my partner Alex Woodroe's tireless efforts to level the playing field for creatives in the Speculative Fiction world. I've honestly lost track of the number of stories we read in 2022 alone about Shitty Publishers Acting Shitty; be they predatory, bullying, inauthentic charlatans, or just shockingly problematic.
I could aim for a little more aw-shucks false modesty here but screw it I'm on one right now: a number of people have held Tenebrous up this year as an example of the right way to do things. That's not for me to say (though we're quite grateful); but I think I know why, and it's not only the high quality of our releases.
It's because we do a couple very specific things, and we do them very well: We give a fuck—about what we release and who from—and we avoid empty posturing; we put our money where our mouth is.
*We do not gatekeep. We do not seek praise from the big names of the Horror scene. We do not gladhand or kiss ass (and frankly, we find it pretty skeevy when we see others doing so).
*We are constantly, actively looking for new voices in the scene to give a megaphone to. Some people get excited by landing the big fish. That's cool, I'm not hating; but I gotta tell you, I get a lot more jazzed helping shepherd into existence something you've never seen before.
*We will always put the creator before the product. We're a small publisher with modest resources, but everything we have, we put into our people. We will continue to put out the best possible books—best looking, best reading, best everything—and we will never bend to artless, exploitative trends like Alex describes above, or...whatever fresh hell is lurking next around the corner.
I never thought I'd have so much fun being on this side of the publishing business.
My resolution? We'll keep on doing it.
Happy New Year, you crazy Weirdos.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Matt & Alex