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With Dial H (unfortunately) wrapping up reasonably soon, I wonder if we'll hear more about his next written project before too much longer.
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May 29, 2013 22:19
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Guys I am so loving sad that we haven't had any new book news in almost 2 years  (Railsea was announced in August 2011)Here's a cool Czech cover for Railsea by the brilliant Les Edwards:  and his previous work:  (edit: can someone re-edit that into a 5x2 grid with the newest cover in it? And possibly find a better version of the Kraken cover? Thanks  )
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Jun 1, 2013 |
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Jun 1, 2013 06:35
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What do you read in times of Mieville drought? I've been enjoying Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris books, but it's still not quite the same 
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Jun 1, 2013 09:04
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Nothing even compares so I either reread Mieville or get obsessed with other genres. Currently I'm working my way through everything Alastair Reynolds has done (he's awesome).
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Jun 1, 2013 09:41
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Hedrigall posted:Nothing even compares so I either reread Mieville or get obsessed with other genres. Currently I'm working my way through everything Alastair Reynolds has done (he's awesome). What would you recommend outside of the Revelation Space series (I read all except for the last book which is more Chasm City)?
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Jun 1, 2013 09:50
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fookolt posted:What would you recommend outside of the Revelation Space series (I read all except for the last book which is more Chasm City)? The short story collection Zima Blue (full of some excellent dark space opera stories/novellas similar to the Rev Space series), or the novel House of Suns (far-future, galaxy-spanning space opera with a slightly more optimistic tone than Rev Space). Avoid Terminal World.
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Jun 1, 2013 10:15
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Revelation Space didn't do much for me appart from the prequel "The Prefect" which I liked. House of Suns is a very interesting take on space travel, Terminal World I also liked (for me it was the "Mievillest" of the lot). Pushing Ice and Century Rain were kind of meh.
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Jun 1, 2013 10:50
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Hedrigall posted:Guys I am so loving sad that we haven't had any new book news in almost 2 years This guy never fails to loving nail the feel of Mievile. Perdido and The Scar are spot on.
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Jun 1, 2013 12:55
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I was going to read The Scar next but I'm going to have to take a break from Bas-Lag/Mieville after the ending to Perdido Street Station. Literally in tears and I don't want to read another book from the same world or author that doesn't feature Yagharek.
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Jun 1, 2013 17:24
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^^^^ Yeah don't worry, when you're ready, there's definitely replacements for him. You know who I want more of? Bastard John. Or his ilk. Which will probably never happen. As for other books that aren't anywhere near Mieville, Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is decent, even though it feels light at times, God's War is neat, Wind-Up Girl is supposed to be good (just started), and Ian McDonald's River of Gods, Brasyl, and Dervish House are all good takes on SF ideas.
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Jun 1, 2013 19:09
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Felix Gilman's "The Half-Made World" and "The Rise of Ransom City" are weird westerns that feel pretty Mievillish in the concepts they work with and their disregard for genre conventions. Also similar in that Crooked Timber has several essays about his books in the seminar series they featured China in some time ago, if you like that sort of thing.
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Jun 2, 2013 00:46
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SaviourX posted:^^^^ Ian Mcdonald is really good, maybe not as good in character building, but his description of a future world is very good. In some ways his writing feels like a mix between Gibson and Mieville, and I particularly likes his descriptions of how the cultures of today will be in the future. Mcdonalds writing also has clear connections to Gibson's cyberpunk world. I read Wind-Up Girl, and thought it was good. However, his other books are not on the same level and are quite repetitive in their storyline.
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Jun 4, 2013 12:36
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Flayer posted:I was going to read The Scar next but I'm going to have to take a break from Bas-Lag/Mieville after the ending to Perdido Street Station. Literally in tears and I don't want to read another book from the same world or author that doesn't feature Yagharek. I think you should continue on. For me the The Scar is tied with Embassytown for Mieville's best work.
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Jun 5, 2013 00:20
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BigSkillet posted:Felix Gilman's "The Half-Made World" Haha, I've been sitting at about the halfway mark on this one and totally forgot about it. It's definitely not like any of those other authors, despite fantastical things happening.
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Jun 5, 2013 05:18
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Cardiac posted:I read Wind-Up Girl, and thought it was good. However, his other books are not on the same level and are quite repetitive in their storyline. I agree with continuing on with plans to read The Scar. I think it's his best work, even though nothing really happens. Those Czech covers are fantastic. I'm going to have to find larger versions of them to add to my ebook reader's files.
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Jun 5, 2013 13:08
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Noricae posted:Are any set in the same world? I think that all Bacigalupi's novel-length books are set in the same world, which is really sort of the problem. There's only one story he can really seem to tell in his postdiluvian "post-contraction" world: the one where everything is poo poo, and everyone but the lead character(s) will stab each other in the back for a mouthful of And yeah, the plots are... formulaic. The viewpoint characters will suffer, someone important to them will die, and they'll come out the other side wounded but not quite broken, with a ray of hope for their small corner of the world. Also a genejacked sentient will do some badass poo poo at some point. I still really liked Windup Girl, though.
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Jun 5, 2013 15:39
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iron_weasel posted:I think you should continue on. For me the The Scar is tied with Embassytown for Mieville's best work. Also, for books to check out if you're feeling like you need more Mieville in your life, try the Orphan's Tales by Valente. They're not really new weird, but I think the way she writes and describes things will be at least enjoyed by fans of Mieville.
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Jun 5, 2013 18:41
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Well I had Embassytown and Railsea sitting in my big stack of books to read. Finished Embassytown in a little under a week and loved the hell out of it (maybe felt a bit rushed towards the end but it didn't ruin my enjoyment). Then I started Railsea and finished it in the same night. It's just such a fun book! And I liked Kracken but Railsea didn't have the same pacing issues so it was a lot easier to get through. I think it has some of China's best characters so far as well. Really excited to see what he'll come out with next. Seconding the recommendation for Alistair Reynolds. House of Suns is probably his best.
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Jun 11, 2013 19:30
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Ceebees posted:There's only one story he can really seem to tell in his postdiluvian "post-contraction" world: the one where everything is poo poo, and everyone but the lead character(s) will stab each other in the back for a mouthful of No need to read Alchemist then until I really run out of books to read.Seconding The Orphan's Tales. I liked Valente's Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland too. It's one of the few successful Alice in Wonderland inspired books that I can remember (Neverwhere's the other). edit: V Oh, well then! Shows you how much I've followed him. Whoops. Also, man I thought this was the scifi thread. Sorry to derail! Noricae fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 21:52
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Noricae posted:Yeah, there's only so much repetition of the same idea you can do. Either the characters need to be more interesting (and develop) or the world has to. I was hoping his newer stuff would expand on the politics and world at large, but I guess not Erm, Alchemist isn't set in the post-contraction world. It's also less that 100 pages, if i recall, and while it does hit his favorite theme of The Desperate Yet Clever, it benefits a lot for the new world's freshness. I rather liked it.
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Jun 13, 2013 22:06
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BigSkillet posted:Wow, the last quote in "Dialectic of Spontaneity and Organisation" on her Wikipedia page might as well be its dust jacket summary. Just how much am I missing out on in his books with only a cobbled-together understanding of leftist history? Iron Council is 100% About Socialism and is informed by actual socialism; basically every important character in IC save Cutter is based on actual recognizable figures from history, say, or at least a real and recognizable group of people (not very subtly either, I cracked up when I got to the whole "don't mourn organize he said... but I can't help it we're allowed to mourn" bit), and it's a lot more fun if you know guys like Ori, or maybe have been guys like Ori, and sat through those tedious loving teach-ins. But that's 'cause it's a story about socialist radicals, and beyond that... how much do you really need to know about the conditions of early industrial London, or squid/insect biology, or folk myths to get why the anophelii are cool or how much it'd suck to be a Crobuzon dockworker? All that stuff's in the background and it's neat if you can recognize where he pulled this thing from or why that thing works the way it does, but it's by no means necessary, I think I get maybe a large fraction of it and just enjoy the rest. At least, I don't think you should need a deep familiarity with historical materialism or anything to appreciate it, but then I see people getting all upset and confused because they think Judah is supposed to be the reader-insert protagonist, even though like every time he or the other Councillors are mentioned it's in a context of how everyone from capitalist society finds them sort of unrelatable and ethereal and more-than-human; even though 90% of the book is dedicated to attacking the concept of a vanguard or a great man controlling history. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jun 16, 2013 |
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Jun 16, 2013 06:58
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Re: Bacigalupi. Pump six and other stories is really good, I personally liked it even more than the windup girl which was indeed pretty good. Either way, just read PSS as my first book from China Mieville. Decent, I enjoyed the story and how different it is from other fantasy stories. Yet, I don't think I could stand reading serveral books of him one after another, instead I'll probably read them between traditional fantasy books as a way to add variation.
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Jun 16, 2013 12:07
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Folks posted:Iron Council stuff I didn't have any trouble enjoying Iron Council for its merits, literary and political, without knowing what specific theorists were being evoked. But the guy does have a penchant for well-hidden easter eggs like the previously-discovered Topham Hat anagram or the whispersmith's namesake. Not necessary at all, but just another odd level of enjoyment to get from his books until there's news of another one. Speaking of which, Nick Mamatas' Sensation is another weird and clever novel that'd probably appeal to those of you needing an outright bizarre book to tide you over.
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Jun 17, 2013 02:45
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I've enjoyed Mieville's work so far, but I don't understand that Penny-Arcade comic from like 5 pages (and a yea) ago? What do they have against him? A lot of negative reactions I've seen to him are nerds negatively reacting to his Left Wing politics.
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Jun 17, 2013 06:47
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KomradeX posted:I've enjoyed Mieville's work so far, but I don't understand that Penny-Arcade comic from like 5 pages (and a yea) ago? What do they have against him? A lot of negative reactions I've seen to him are nerds negatively reacting to his Left Wing politics. Tycho doesn't like his writing style, apparently. Tycho's blog post posted:Neal Stephenson was my favorite author for a very long time, and The Diamond Age remains my favorite book, even if I can’t read any of his newer books with so much as an approximation of enjoyment. I'm honestly much angrier at the idea that there's anyone who could not like Anathem.
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Jun 17, 2013 07:01
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Tycho's beef with him is that he feels Mieville's writing is "smug". It's a rather empty criticism when there's no elaboration behind that sentiment. Gabe, well, I'll just paste this from when he wrote about a bunch of books he recently read (this was written way before that comic): quote:The City & The City - I got about half way through this book and gave up. I just don’t understand these loving cities. His next book should be called “I’m Smarter Than You” and he can just take a poo poo inside it. e: VVVV I just wish they'd elaborate on it! I'm fine with them not liking the authors I like, but I'd like to know why! They've mentioned Mieville in several newsposts and had a comic about him. Clearly something about him really rubs them the wrong way and I'd love to see them talk about why instead of being mad about perceived lauding of intelligence or smugness or whatever. If something about a work of fiction makes you that mad then you certainly have the ability to talk about it at length. Srice fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Jun 17, 2013 |
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Jun 17, 2013 07:02
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It's perfectly fine to not like someone's work, I just don't get when people get really mad about it. Oh well, the internet I guess. I used to read penny-arcade, bought their books.. But haven't read anything of theirs in years. I forget they exist outside of PAX chat and when stuff like this comes up (ie when they're being assholes to more acclaimed writers)
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Jun 17, 2013 07:10
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Srice posted:Tycho's beef with him is that he feels Mieville's writing is "smug". It's a rather empty criticism when there's no elaboration behind that sentiment. It's not really something I get. The thing that annoyed me the most about Mieville's writing was him occasionally pulling this obscure word out of his rear end, like 'inveigled'. But even then, his really lush prose was a nice contrast to the other fantasy stuff I'd been reading at that point. Actually, I think his treatment of Lin in PSS is what annoys me the most. It's just women-in-refrigerators bullshit for no reason.
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Jun 17, 2013 07:35
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Down With People posted:Tycho doesn't like his writing style, apparently. It's entirely reasonable to not like his writing style but haha holy hell this may edge out 'eeeew there's queers in this' as the worst review of his books of all time I'm sorta reminded of how more recently the PA guys wrote about a trillion words on how an anime videogame represented a radical, visionary artform, and was therefore beyond all criticism, because its sprites exaggerated the human form to convey personality. That was it. This is a window into the thoughts of someone who has only ever read genre fiction and played RPGs for their entire adult life. Sorta funny 'cause I remember specifically having the opposite problem with Perdido Street Station, like yeah he's clearly not going for the Hemingway thing and once in a while you'll run into a word you don't recognize but I think someone summed it up upthread by asking whether seriously every thing had to be 'spattered'. He got way better in the later ones but I swear there were about seven synonyms for 'grimy' in the entire book that got appended to every noun that came along. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Jun 17, 2013 |
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Jun 17, 2013 14:44
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Smug is a really odd critique of Mieville's writing...it's certainly not to everyone's taste, but is it really smug? When I think of smug, I think first of ideologues like Cory Doctorow. Maybe that's too literal, but as far as excessive, loving-their-own-voice writing, surely near the top of the list is, and I say this despite personally enjoying his writing, Tycho of Penny Arcade. From the context he seems to actually be saying that Mieville is needlessly literary, but Tycho is an avowed Gene Wolfe fan, and Wolfe far exceeds Mieville in literary, smarter-than-thou prose.
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Jun 18, 2013 00:30
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Of course, the big irony is that I found out about Mieville through Penny Arcade. I read and completed Kraken not long after seeing that comic, and I read the whole Bas-Lag Cycle not long after that.
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Jun 18, 2013 04:31
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Yeah, it's like Tycho read it and was like 'huh, this is what it would be like if I was British and actually went to school instead of playing video games, SHUN.' Gabe pretty much only reads Star Wars novels, so that's his explanation. Meanwhile, China gets to go spar with Margaret Atwood on stage and dissect things like Gulliver's Travels, so yeah. His writing tics are annoying, but he's so damned earnest. E: The very thought that the nerdiest of genres (SFF) would elaborate on political and philosophical thought and use big or archaic words so that it incenses so many nerds just tickles me somehow. The Wolfe comparison makes it even more dissonant. SaviourX fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 05:08
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SaviourX posted:Yeah, it's like Tycho read it and was like 'huh, this is what it would be like if I was British and actually went to school instead of playing video games, SHUN.' Oh common, it's okay to dislike a writer. Even when you are an internet personality. There's nothing wrong with reading a book, not liking it and writing so in a clearly personal blogpost. It's not nice of him to give so little and vague information about why he thinks so, but he doesn't have to anyway. (I'm sorry, it just irks me when somebody seems to imply that someboy else is a bad reader/person simply because he happens to dislike some author. It's nonsense.) edit: to clarify: Tycho/Gabe might very well happen to be bad readers/persons regardless, I don't know them at all, it's just silly to assume this solely because of their opinion of one writer. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 08:45
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Mieville is an academic, and he writes like an academic. His literary style feels like Žižek meets fantasy, which works in some books, but doesn't work in others. In his Bas-Lag books, I've enjoyed the prose, even when it verges on purple. On the other hand, in The City & the City and Embassytown, I felt like I was slogging through an academic journal article about a really interesting premise rather than a novel.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:29
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Am I right in saying that The City and the City was written as if it was a translation of an Eastern European book?
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Jun 18, 2013 17:14
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Walh Hara posted:Oh common, it's okay to dislike a writer. Even when you are an internet personality. There's nothing wrong with reading a book, not liking it and writing so in a clearly personal blogpost. It's not nice of him to give so little and vague information about why he thinks so, but he doesn't have to anyway. Words exist to communicate, even on the internet, and by publishing lots of them about your personal opinions you are in fact saying something about yourself that other people are going to read and interpret; if you give dumb reasons for taking a position people will be completely justified in thinking you're kinda dumb, and that is nobody else's problem but yours. Hope that helps.
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Jun 19, 2013 20:38
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That, and Tycho's been posting the frontpage for more than a decade, and he's posted about liking some pretty dumb fantasy poo poo, so it just doesn't make sense to me other than 'argh this is academic and not Stephenson'.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:19
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Tycho comes across as pretty insecure with that hyperbolic review. Mieville just isn't smug as a writer at all. If anything he's the opposite. He treats his reader as an equal expecting us to rise to his level of prose rather than bring his writing down for accessibilities sake.
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Jun 20, 2013 00:43
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Embassytown in particular really requires you to get your brain in gear to pick up on what the hell is going on, I found. There's definitely no talking down or over-explanation, you're just dropped into this universe and have to piece together what is what. I found Stephenson's "Anathem" to be very similar. I did get a little frustrated at first but once you get the hang of what the lingo is it's a fairly rewarding read.
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Jun 20, 2013 01:30
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Walh Hara posted:Oh common, it's okay to dislike a writer. Even when you are an internet personality. There's nothing wrong with reading a book, not liking it and writing so in a clearly personal blogpost. It's not nice of him to give so little and vague information about why he thinks so, but he doesn't have to anyway. It's really confusing, given that Tycho's persona is very much someone who likes words for the sake of words (and has made numerous comics about such) and likes to convey himself as a very erudite individual, yet when confronted with something that screams it would be right up his alley, it's met not just with dislike, but straight up hate/revulsion. I find it hilarious, because he tries really hard to be something more than the Dickwolf Rape guy, but most of his sojourns into 'serious' or non-PA stuff have been huge bags of poo poo, and amusingly have many of the problems that he accuses Mieville of having. To me, it just seems like there's this guy who talks all the time about how he loves spicy food. He writes some blog posts about how he likes spicy food, makes some spicy food in the kitchen, etc. But then you present him with a nice curry dish, and dude flips out and says it is poo poo and tastes terrible. Turns out he just likes having his food drenched in Frank's Hot Sauce and doesn't actually like spicy food, he just likes Frank's Hot Sauce. Dude's totally entitled to eat whatever he wants, but he's still gonna get strange looks when he proclaims he loves spicy food, and then flips out whenever someone offers him spicy food and he hates it.
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Jun 20, 2013 11:58
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