Miéville writes at length on the distinction between two modes of horror: the hauntological and the Weird.83 The former, epitomized by the figure of the ghost (which Miéville adamantly separates from the monster as a category), is linked to the Gothic tradition. The threat is dead, buried, or repressed, and calls into question the integrity of the present, revealing it to be eaten or succumbing to the awful inescapability of the past. The Weird, on the other hand, is not old so much as ancient—not buried but lost, forgotten, or, ideally, never really knowable in the first place. Its true
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