She probably used proxies and a cleaner-upper online too, because there was bugger-all of interest in her cache." "You have no idea what you're sayin… - China Miéville

A classic unspoken agreement among escapees from a small town: don’t look back, don’t be each other’s anchors, no nostalgia. I wasn’t expecting any of them to return.

The rotting buildings lean against each other, exhausted. The river smears slime on its brick banks, city walls risen from the depths to hold the water at bay. There is a vile stink here. (I wonder how this looks from above, no chance for the city to hide then, if you came at it on the wind you would see it from miles and miles away like a dirty smear, like a slab of carrion thronging with maggots, I should not think like this but I cannot stop now, I could ride the updrafts that the chimneys vent, sail high over the proud towers and shit on the earthbound, ride the chaos, alight where I choose, I must not think like this, I must not do this now, I must stop, not now, not this, not yet.)

New Weird—along with the other mo(ve)ments of which it’s some kind of cousin, the Ratbastards, the Interstitial Arts, the New Space Opera and others—reflected a major cultural shake-up. Soon, though, if not already, those groups will have their epigones, and will probably be the very fantasy mainstream they were railing against. At which point, doubtless, some new punkass radicals will come along and subvert us all, by writing about hobbits.