We live in a context where the boundaries of reality are constantly tested by scientific discoveries, new technologies, and attempts to describe our world. Weird fiction is a genre-spanning tendency with a long history that attests to this shifting sense of the real. On this episode, we survey weird fiction from Lovecraft and Kafka to the present, focusing on contemporary innovators and trends in speculative writing that keep our minds focused on the weird. Along the way, we consider talking animals, how cockroaches might inspire dancing, and the pervasive weirdness in TV, movies, and video games.
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