Notable authors include K. J. Bishop, Paul Di Filippo, M. John Harrison, Jeffrey Ford, Storm Constantine, China Miéville, Alastair Reynolds, Justina Robson, Steph Swainston, Mary Gentle, Michael Cisco, Jeff VanderMeer and Conrad Williams.
[4] The 2000 release of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station marked the entry of what would later be called New Weird fiction into mainstream consciousness with its critical and commercial success.
Weinstock's summary of Steph Swainston's response to the 2003 forum discussion sparked by M. John Harrison as "exercises in worldbuilding characterized by a heterogeneity of sources, genres, and details" and "particularly eclectic; mixing modern street culture with ancient mythology.
"[8] According to Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, in their introduction to the anthology The New Weird, the genre is "a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping-off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy.
In The 3rd Alternative forum debate, Miéville emphasized this fluidity in his post stating that "New Weird – like most literary categories – is a moment, a suggestion, a tease, an intervention, an attitude, above all an argument.
"[11] Robin Anne Reid notes that while the definition of the new weird is disputed, "a general consensus uses the term" to describe fictions that "subvert cliches of the fantastic in order to put them to discomfiting, rather than consoling ends".
Movies that have been recognized as fitting into the new weird descriptions include Pan's Labyrinth, The City of Lost Children and the adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's novel Annihilation.