The Weird Anthology by the VanderMeers Part II- 1940-1979 (short fiction mini-reviews)
I've been reading The Weird anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, a few stories a night, and writing little brief thoughts on each story (they are only short stories). I've been especially in the mood for Weird recently, and hadn't really been in too much of a novel mood, so I ended up making my way through this set on stories fairly quickly. :) I've read another 29 now, and am just under halfway.
Smoke Ghost by Fritz Leiber (1941)- An excellent story about a man haunted by a modern, industrial ghost. 5/5
White Rabbits by Leona Carrington (1941)- A fun story about some quirky neighbours who rear rabbits (/s). I'm not sure I "got" this one--particularly >!why the reference to leprosy as a Holy Disease was there at the end!<--but I still liked it. 4/5
Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim (1942)- A shorter story about what mimics humans may have. 3.5/5
The Crowd by Ray Bradbury (1943)- An imagining of crowds as an eerie organism of their own, and a man's attempts to investigate them after an accident. 4.5/5
The Long Sheet by William Sansom (1944)- A very allegorical tale of labour told through people imprisoned and forced to wring out a sheet. Reminiscent of, though it greatly precedes, I Who Have Never Known Men. 3.5/5
The Aleph by Borges (1945)- I loved this. I thought I'd read most Borges, but I don't remember this one. A very interesting take on infinity, as is common with Borges, and a fun and wryly self-deprecating metafictional nature too. Possibly my favourite of the set. 5/5
A Child in the Bush of Ghosts by Olympe Bhely-Quenum (1949)- A story about a child confronting his fear of death (or so I think). Not sure I fully got this one, but also nice to have a non-Western story. 3/5
The Summer People by Shirley Jackson (1950)- Only Jackson can make what otherwise seems to be a relatively mundane series of events feel so creepy. 5/5
The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles by Margaret St. Clair (1951)- A fun satirical one. Plays on the earlier Dunsany one. 4.5/5
The Hungry House by Robert Bloch (1951)- An excellent ghost story about a couple unwittingly moving into a haunted house. 5/5
The Complete Gentleman by Amos Tutuola (1952)- A very weird one about a man saving a woman kidnapped by a skull that built its own body. Another one I didn't fully jive with, but it's also apparently just a section from The Palm Wine Drinkard, so maybe I'd have like it more there. 2.5/5
"It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby (1953)- An excellent story of a town subject to the whims of a terrifyingly powerful child. 5/5
Mister Taylor by Augusto Monterroso (1952)- A tale about a man who establishes a shrunken head sales business in Latin America. Nicely satirical. 4/5
Axolotl by Julio Cortazar (1956)- A nice surreal story about a man meditating on Axolotls, and the changes they invoke in him. I've been recommended Cortazar a few times, and this inclines me to try a full novel sooner rather than later-- I have The Winners on my TBR. 5/5
A Woman Seldom Found by William Sansom (1956)- A short but sweet one about a man who finds a woman who's too perfect. 5/5
The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont (1959)- An excellent story about a man who falls ill and is taken to an abbey with a creepy secret. 5/5
Same Time, Same Place by Mervyn Peake (1963)- Very well written, being Peake, but I thought this one was mostly just sad. :( 3/5
The Colomber by Dino Buzzati (1966)- A story about a foreboding fish, and fate. 4/5
The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos (1967)- An excellent story about a ship voyage turned shipwreck turned travelogue through a surreal and dangerous landscape. This is another one of my favourites-- I adored this. I think I'd want to reread it a couple of times to decide what exactly I thought its message was, but the surreal imagery and fascinating landscape was great on its own. Reminds me a lot of a more pessimistic A Voyage to Arcturus-- which is a book I still vary on, but sticks with me, and I see its influence in a lot of places. 5/5
The Salamander by Mercè Rodoreda (1967)- A story about a woman accused of witchcraft after being seduced, who transforms into a salamander when they attempt to burn her at the stake, and struggles to move on. 4.5/5
The Ghoulbird by Claud Seignolle (1967)- A story about a bird that lures victims into the marsh to die (maybe...). 4/5
The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be by Gahan Wilson (1967)- A horror retelling of Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus and The Carpenter. I might have gotten more out of it if I'd decided to read Carroll's poem first. 3/5
Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier (1971)- A story of a man whose holiday after the death of his child is derailed by two sisters' psychic visions. Excellently written. 5/5
The Hospice by Robert Aickman (1975)- A strange story of a somewhat surreal hospice, which seems to be trying to draw in a lost businessman. 4.5/5
It Only Comes Out at Night by Dennis Etchison (1976)- A good fearful story about the paranoia and dangers of monotonous, featureless long drives, with a hint of sinister events at this one part of the road. Great exploration of the "liminal space" energy of road trips/rest stops. 5/5
The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats by James Tiptree Jr. (1976)- A sad one about the horrors of animal research and the one empathetic researcher. 4.5/5
The Beak Doctor by Eric Basso (1977)- Probably the weirdest one yet, and very challenging. They describe it as Joycean, and if that's what Joyce is like, his difficulty reputation is well earned. Hard to grasp, but very oneiric and atmospheric, gothic and feverish. Makes me want to seek out the full Beak Doctor collection, which I've had on my tbr, but sadly it seems to be very out of print. 5/5
My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid (1978)- A strange series of almost little flash pieces, describing a woman and her mother, who is a god or a monster, her tormentor or her self. 4.5/5
Sandkings by GRRM (1979)- A scifi story about a cruel and vain man who acquires some "pets" to worship him and war for him, when it all goes wrong. This was excellent. It does go in the expected directions, but I thought it was extremely compelling and readable. 5/5
I also read two out of copyright things inspired by the first set of stories on Project Gutenberg on my phone, while I was on a car journey (I get carsick trying to read a book in the car, but I can read on my phone just fine?). Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M. R. James was 2/5. It was just... fine. Casting the Runes was much better. I also read The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' by William Hope Hodgson. Like The Night Land, I really thought this wasn't very well written (though I read a review saying he was putting on a style here too). The horror elements were really good and creative when he used them, but they were buried in the middle of a mediocre adventure/sailing story with a bad romance. Probably not helped by the fact that I'm reading Moby Dick right now, which is a much better nautical story.
My favourites of this set are The Aleph, The Howling Man, The Other Side of the Mountain, Don't Look Now, and Sandkings. Smoke Ghost, A Woman Seldom Found, and It's a Good Life are up there too. The Beak Doctor was by far the most challenging to read, and thus also the most interesting to read for me; but trying to grasp the story fully feels like trying to squeeze sand.
Posted Feb 22, 2026, 3:22 AM UTC