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Has anyone read either of the two Thackery T Lambshead books that Mieville's contributed to? They sound pretty interesting but I'm not sure if the concept of either of the books would hold up for 300 pages.
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Nov 6, 2012 01:31
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regularizer posted:Has anyone read either of the two Thackery T Lambshead books that Mieville's contributed to? They sound pretty interesting but I'm not sure if the concept of either of the books would hold up for 300 pages. I have the first one (the compendium of diseases) and it's pretty hilarious. The second book (cabinet of items?) just looks dull to me though. Anyway, if you get Miéville's short story collection Looking For Jake, it has the entry from the medical encyclopedia. Maybe a future collection will include the second piece.
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Nov 6, 2012 01:46
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I like the Cabinet of Curiosities a lot more personally, though I think both of them suffer if you try and read more than 2 or 3 stories a day.
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Nov 6, 2012 01:49
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BigSkillet posted:He's complaining as though he's never even heard of Kim Stanley Robinson, Gene Wolfe, or even Jeff Vandermeer -- Mieville's on the lower end of what could be considered 'pretentious literary sci-fi' if he thinks that sort of thing is really worth going all theatre-major-stereotype over. Thankee sai, just downloaded this issue through my university. And here I was with plans and dreams! This is my new favourite thread on the entire Internet btw. Have the sketches of Jack Half-a-prayer and Toro been posted yet?
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Nov 19, 2012 02:30
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Also, I personally thought IC was the worst of the three Bas-lag books, only in that his pretentiousness was more apparent. The explanation in this thread makes sense though. And of course, flesh elementals forgive all.
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Nov 19, 2012 02:34
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Homemaster posted:This is my new favourite thread on the entire Internet btw. Have the sketches of Jack Half-a-prayer and Toro been posted yet? Well cool  And no, no they haven't! 
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Nov 19, 2012 02:41
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Sah good, Toro is the best imo.
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Nov 19, 2012 03:08
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taser rates posted:I like the Cabinet of Curiosities a lot more personally, though I think both of them suffer if you try and read more than 2 or 3 stories a day. Read this thread in the morning, popped into my local bookshop this arvo, and what do I see. Looking forward to having a gander.
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Nov 19, 2012 07:01
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I read and loved Embassytown the other week. It's possibly my favourite Mieville book now - everything about it just clicked perfectly for me. It also features the best George Romero reference in anything ever. I hope he gets around to writing more (equally unique) stories in the same broad universe.
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Nov 19, 2012 12:45
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Where's the Romero reference? I must have missed it.
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Nov 20, 2012 08:43
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Where's the Romero reference? I must have missed it. At one point while the humans are holed up in Embassytown, unable to do anything about the zombalien crisis, they watch ancient movies to keep themselves occupied. One movie reminds them a lot about their situation, about survivors trapped in an "edifice for products" (shopping mall), and Avice's narration notes that the movie was some ancient Georgian or Roman film. Similar kind of in-universe factual error to that of characters in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe thinking "Neal Gagarin" was the first person to walk on the moon. edit: Found the quote from the prose: Artists plumbed our archives, digital archaeology, back millions of hours, to the antediasporan age. They pulled up corroded ancient fictions to screen. “These ones are Georgian or Roman, I gather,” one organiser told me. “They talk early Anglo, though.” Men and women bled of colour, in clumsy symbolism, fortified in a house and fighting grossly sick figures. Colour came back, and protagonists were in an edifice full of products, and sicker enemies than before relentlessly came for them. We read the story as ours, of course. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Nov 20, 2012 |
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Nov 20, 2012 09:04
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Hedrigall posted:At one point while the humans are holed up in Embassytown, unable to do anything about the zombalien crisis, they watch ancient movies to keep themselves occupied. One movie reminds them a lot about their situation, about survivors trapped in an "edifice for products" (shopping mall), and Avice's narration notes that the movie was some ancient Georgian or Roman film. Christ, the things I miss reading Mieville 
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Nov 20, 2012 09:57
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Nov 21, 2012 08:02
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Seems he has had the notion of zombification on the mind a bit recently. I really wish he'd update his blog more.
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Jan 4, 2013 16:53
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So I finally finished reading The Scar before new year's, and it was a good tale, but I just took so long to read it, partly from life-ADD, and partly because it is a detached sort of read, it's always about people going somewhere and getting ready to do... something. There were plenty of good ideas, of course, and none were really overused. The climax as such, was about as expected, really (I suppose you could say there were like 3 or 4, anyway). I like how he tries to defy normal plot convention as well, so that works. Hopefully he'll have another Bas Lag story some day. Also, anytime I visualized Bellis, this is who I saw: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931404/ On to Embassytown!
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Jan 4, 2013 21:29
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Very slow for news lately  Oh well, here's another lovely paperback cover to tide us over:  I did comment on a Tor UK blog post about upcoming books in 2013, asking if there was a Miéville novel scheduled for this year. All they said was that he's busy writing, and something about patience 
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Jan 17, 2013 07:03
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Embassytown felt like his 'deepest' work, to date. Bas-lag has more politics and monsters, but Embassytown really struck my emotional/moral chord, and felt less like pretension and more like philosophy. I hope he writes many more of this caliber.
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Feb 3, 2013 04:38
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This is the coolest loving thing ever, there is now a stage adaptation of The City & the City. It opens at the end of this month in Chicago. I would give anything to see it but I'm on the wrong continent 
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Feb 7, 2013 09:50
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Sorry for double posting. Anyway, I am reading Un Lun Dun for the second time at the moment. It's good (Miéville always is) but it may be down there with King Rat as one of the Miéville books I'm least enthusiastic about. (the following I copy/pasted from my Goodreads review) Un Lun Dun is an enjoyable book with some fun ideas and good characters, but where I think it fails is in its world-building. This is the second time I've read the book but I still can't imagine UnLondon as a cohesive place; rather, just a collection of wacky imagery that doesn't connect together into an actual setting. It may be the least effective world-building of any of Miéville's books. Bas-Lag is of course the most rich and complete world he's created, but it's spread over three books of 600 or more pages each, after all. Even so, Embassytown, The City & the City, and Railsea are all shorter standalone books that still managed to contain a fully realised invented world. UnLondon is the only creation of Miéville's to date that doesn't feel like it could be a real place, just a literary repository for puns and silly things. Miéville may have intended it that way, but it just means I can't get into this book as easily as almost any of his others. And being lost in a rich, unique world is one of the reasons I read Miéville.
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Feb 8, 2013 02:20
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Hedrigall posted:Even so, Embassytown, The City & the City, and Railsea are all shorter standalone books that still managed to contain a fully realised invented world. UnLondon is the only creation of Miéville's to date that doesn't feel like it could be a real place, just a literary repository for puns and silly things. Miéville may have intended it that way, but it just means I can't get into this book as easily as almost any of his others. And being lost in a rich, unique world is one of the reasons I read Miéville. I enjoyed all the Bas-Lag books, as well as Embassytown and The City & the City, but I just couldn't get into Railsea. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe that it just feels like "Moby Dick with steel rails."
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Feb 8, 2013 05:00
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Ah that sucks, Railsea is amazing. My ranking for the books would probably go Bas-Lag trilogy > Embassytown > Railsea > the rest.
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Feb 8, 2013 05:08
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Hedrigall posted:This is the coolest loving thing ever, there is now a stage adaptation of The City & the City. It opens at the end of this month in Chicago. I would give anything to see it but I'm on the wrong continent drat, I really want to see this too. I would love to see The City & The City realized visually somehow.
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Feb 8, 2013 22:13
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Hedrigall posted:This is the coolest loving thing ever, there is now a stage adaptation of The City & the City. It opens at the end of this month in Chicago. I would give anything to see it but I'm on the wrong continent Holy hell. I love everything about this. I work in new play development here in the states... I'll see if I can pull any strings and get a hold of a production script. If anything happens I'll make sure to let folks know.
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Feb 8, 2013 23:32
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I just want to see a video of a scene set in a heavily 'crossed' (can't remember the term used) part of the city.
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Feb 9, 2013 14:47
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Dial H has had 10 issues now — is anyone else following it? I'm loving it and really looking forward to each new issue. It's an absolute scream. Miéville's love of puns comes through with each new hero idea; and hilariously, the big baddies of the current arc are the Canadian government (who are secretly way more sinister and technologically-advanced than the US government). I don't read many comics but I can kind of sense that this series is only very loosely adhering to DC Universe canon. So it's great as a standalone, makes fun of a lot of superhero tropes, and is well worth your $3-4.50 per month (or just grab April's trade paperback which collects the first 7 or so issues, afaik). 
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Feb 12, 2013 |
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Feb 12, 2013 03:41
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Junkenstein posted:I just want to see a video of a scene set in a heavily 'crossed' (can't remember the term used) part of the city. The term you're looking for is Breach! I live in Chicago and got a flyer for this a month or so ago in the mail and immediately went "Holy poo poo!" I'll see if I can get to it (should be able to since it runs a month & a half) and give you all a trip report.
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Feb 12, 2013 16:48
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:The term you're looking for is Breach! Crosshatched!  It's not Breach until somebody screws up.
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Feb 12, 2013 22:07
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Hedrigall posted:This is the coolest loving thing ever, there is now a stage adaptation of The City & the City. It opens at the end of this month in Chicago. I would give anything to see it but I'm on the wrong continent Well, I'll be going to this!!
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Feb 13, 2013 03:47
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Hedrigall posted:Dial H has had 10 issues now — is anyone else following it? I'm loving it and really looking forward to each new issue. It's an absolute scream. Miéville's love of puns comes through with each new hero idea; and hilariously, the big baddies of the current arc are the Canadian government (who are secretly way more sinister and technologically-advanced than the US government). It feels odd going in to the shop every month just to buy one comic, but Dial H has been great so far. China's really getting a knack for humor lately. Do you have any idea if it's doing well in sales numbers? My more comic-savvy friends say DC's editorial board is somewhat spastic at the moment, and I worry it'll get axed to make room for another Batman spinoff.
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Feb 13, 2013 05:41
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I really do love Dial H. The pacing is a bit weird over the first arc, but I love the disgruntled Canadian government and the dude with time powers who decides to name himself Centipede. I'm seriously expecting them to start losing their minds, especially since Nelson is addicted to dialing but they don't have time to address it, while Roxie can't dial again without a mask. I expect right now Centipede is seeing what happens when a dial user completely loses control of their own mind? I'm not completely sure what his agenda towards the end of the most recent issue was -- one of the dangers of reading a comic once a month I suppose
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Feb 13, 2013 06:59
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Terraplane posted:Crosshatched! You are correct, sir. I would probably do well to re-read this book before I see the play, since it's been several years!
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Feb 15, 2013 19:18
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For Valentine's day my girlfriend tracked this down in a small town in Florida for me. She knew Kraken was my favourite novel. It was pretty great. 
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Feb 15, 2013 22:36
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Can you post the cover? Bet it looks cool.
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Feb 18, 2013 07:35
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BigSkillet posted:China's really getting a knack for humor lately. More like he's getting over the painfully humourless trot style that marred his Bas-Lag books. The contrast between the magical strikes in PSS and Kraken is particularly noticeable, the former is ironically much more ridiculous and impossible to take seriously because of the po-faced delivery.
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Feb 19, 2013 11:37
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Sargeant Biffalot posted:More like he's getting over the painfully humourless trot style that marred his Bas-Lag books. The contrast between the magical strikes in PSS and Kraken is particularly noticeable, the former is ironically much more ridiculous and impossible to take seriously because of the po-faced delivery. I'd rather prefer his humorless self in PSS than to his attempt at merriment in Kraken.
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Feb 19, 2013 12:34
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I don't think Bas-Lag was particularly humorless, it just wasn't of the direct bust-a-gut variety. It was quite playful with the tropes and expectations of the fantasy genre, like using an archetypical badass action hero as a secondary character instead of a protagonist in The Scar, or hiring the D&D adventuring party towards the end of Perdido. The strike scene toys with you because of course the political faction sharing the author's views would come out on top, it's fantasy right? And then their leader just gets offed. There's something inherently smirk-worthy about a fantasy universe where even with mantis-clawed assassins, iron golems, and the blessing of a stream-of-consciousness spider god on their side, the labor movement is still broken and ineffective.
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Feb 20, 2013 06:15
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BigSkillet posted:I don't think Bas-Lag was particularly humorless, it just wasn't of the direct bust-a-gut variety. It was quite playful with the tropes and expectations of the fantasy genre, like using an archetypical badass action hero as a secondary character instead of a protagonist in The Scar, or hiring the D&D adventuring party towards the end of Perdido. The strike scene toys with you because of course the political faction sharing the author's views would come out on top, it's fantasy right? And then their leader just gets offed. This, there is a ton of Clever Fun that makes me feel clever for getting it in Bas-Lag. I linked a bunch of stuff earlier in the thread. The Magus-Fin Macguffin, the Grand Easterly/Great Eastern and so on. Actually I could probably do with less, rather than more, isn't that clever I've been clever with my tropes stuff. I didn't care for Kraken, which tried to be more funner, though I'm nowhere near as in love with Magical London as the populace at large, I guess, which may not have helped.
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Feb 20, 2013 22:14
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Isn't New Crobuzon basically a magical London, though?
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Feb 21, 2013 09:05
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Isn't New Crobuzon basically a magical London, though? I think New Corbuzon is more a magical Pittsburgh. More industrial, more provincial, more on the downward slope of a curve than a Magical London ever is. There is old money, there is regional influence, there is a university, but it isn't the center of a major empire, it isn't an eternal city. I think being run by and for the exclusive benefit of political machines, gangsters and oligarchs is also not very London-y. Further, I don't think China _likes_ NC, he does like London. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Feb 21, 2013 |
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Feb 21, 2013 10:06
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Slo-Tek posted:I think New Corbuzon is more a magical Pittsburgh. More industrial, more provincial, more on the downward slope of a curve than a Magical London ever is. There is old money, there is regional influence, there is a university, but it isn't the center of a major empire, it isn't an eternal city. I always saw it more as a magical Baltimore, though for the same exact characteristics you listed.
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Feb 21, 2013 10:09
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