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Whenever I read Stephenson, I can't stop imagining a LARP guy swishing swords around and making little 'whoosh' noises with his mouth while he sits at his writing desk. Not that I dislike his writing or anything.
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Jun 21, 2013 04:34
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I've briefly met both Mieville and Stephenson (on the same day, in fact) and where Mieville was very earnest and genuine and interested in talking to people, Stephenson was a complete diva who could barely maintain eye contact and made it clear that he begrudged being there at all. He signed books with bad grace and monosyllabic grunts at the people who had actually queued up to meet him. My opinion of the man nosedived after that; it might have just been a bad day, but it was a complete contrast to every other author I met at the Edinburgh Book Festival.
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Jun 21, 2013 10:02
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How does the Embassytown audiobook handle Language, when it's written like fractions? Could somebody get a snippet of what that stuff sounds like? I'm having trouble imagining it properly. I really want to hear how Language sounds, but I don't want to buy it twice just to indulge one minor curiosity when I've already read the thing. 
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Jun 22, 2013 03:22
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Chexmix posted:How does the Embassytown audiobook handle Language, when it's written like fractions? Could somebody get a snippet of what that stuff sounds like? I'm having trouble imagining it properly.
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Jun 22, 2013 20:17
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Sir Slush posted:They record the narrator pronouncing each part of the "fraction" separately, then for the book they play them back at the same time. That's pretty cool actually
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Jun 24, 2013 22:50
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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. Gabe has terrible taste in books. His number one love in the world is the Star Wars Genre.
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Jun 25, 2013 00:42
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iron_weasel posted:Gabe has terrible taste in books. His number one love in the world is the Star Wars Genre. All ironic because Tycho's writing is similar in the D&D weird monster sense. Deep Crow? Come on, Tycho, he's like what you dream to be.
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Jun 25, 2013 01:13
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Squidbeak posted:That's pretty cool actually I wasn't able to find a copy locally so i had to get the audiobook from Audible, how is it expressed in the written text? I'd be curious to know because the audiobook does a really good job of expressing the inhumanity of the Language.
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Jun 26, 2013 11:56
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Fun with fractions!
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Jun 26, 2013 12:05
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Metonymy posted: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. See, I have the exact opposite problem. When Mieville writes like an academic writing fiction, it's wonderful. I adore Embassytown. But the Bas-Lag books (with the exception of Iron Council for obvious reasons) feel like an academic trying to write pulp adventure stories while trying to maybe work a little socialist commentary on the side; when the action starts the politics and characterization grind to a halt and when it ends they have to go double-time to catch up, which isn't great either. The Scar is better about this than PSS but only because the narrative is more homogenous overall. (As an aside, I don't know enough about the history of socialism to know what everything in Iron Council is referring to, and I'd love it if someone wanted to break it down or just point me in the direction of a good layman's overview and/or biography.)
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Jun 26, 2013 16:25
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Sir Slush posted:They record the narrator pronouncing each part of the "fraction" separately, then for the book they play them back at the same time. That would be kind of trippy. Internally, I don't think I pronounced them in my head in-tandem. I've wanted to re-read Embassytown... I might have to try the audiobook instead.
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Jul 8, 2013 19:04
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Ugh. I just finished Perdido Street Station. I think it's easily one of the most frustrating books I've ever read. It feels like two or three unfinished short stories, half a dozen half-baked ideas, and an ending like a pile of poo poo hitting concrete. The only character I had any interest in by the end of the book was the damned Weaver, only because of the insane ramblings. I read (well, listened to an audiobook) of Kraken before this, and thought it was alright. ugh. So much wasted time. I bought "The City & The City" at the same time as PSS, is that one any better or am I just better off leaving that on the shelf?
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Jul 23, 2013 09:33
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boxen posted:Ugh. I just finished Perdido Street Station. I think it's easily one of the most frustrating books I've ever read. It feels like two or three unfinished short stories, half a dozen half-baked ideas, and an ending like a pile of poo poo hitting concrete. The only character I had any interest in by the end of the book was the damned Weaver, only because of the insane ramblings. I read (well, listened to an audiobook) of Kraken before this, and thought it was alright. It is so utterly different you'd have a hard time guessing it was written by the same author. It has a tighter narrative than PSS, if that's what you're looking for. It's closer to "literature" than what is commonly called "fantasy", more Saramago than Tolkien. So give it a chance.
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Jul 23, 2013 09:48
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boxen posted:I bought "The City & The City" at the same time as PSS, is that one any better or am I just better off leaving that on the shelf? It is different, so i wouldn't be afraid try it. Most fans consider PSS his best book, and Kraken his worst, so it is hard to know whether you will like it.
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Jul 23, 2013 09:53
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Oasx posted:It is different, so i wouldn't be afraid try it. Most fans consider PSS his best book, and Kraken his worst, so it is hard to know whether you will like it. I think every fan of Mieville would give different answers to which book is his best.
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Jul 23, 2013 11:15
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I do this differently every time, but at the moment for me it'd probably be BEST The Scar Iron Council = Embassytown Railsea Perdido Street Station The City & the City Kraken Looking for Jake Un Lun Dun King Rat LEAST BEST (though looking back at the 2 other times I ranked them in this thread, The Scar's always been #1 and the bottom three have always been in that order) Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 11:29
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King Rat is his worst and I still kind of liked it. After having read his other stuff it felt very much like a "I'm not sure what I'm doing lets start with a Pied Piper fanfic. So far I like the Scar better than PSS and I kind of loved Embassytown and TC&tC Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 12:04
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I just finished reading PSS last week (first book of his that I've read) and enjoyed it overall. There were some things that bugged me -- I kind of felt like the two main female protagonists were really useless compared to the male ones, and there were a lot of plot twists that came off as deux ex machina (I didn't so much mind the Weaver saving the day several times since it usually made sense in the context of the story, but the Jack Half-a-Prayer thing really threw me for a loop and actually had me backtracking through the book to see if I'd missed something because I was so confused. That said, I could forgive those thing because I just found that the setting and world itself that he created was so imaginative and captivating. I think that the scene with the flying handlinger pairs battling the slake moths is one of the most wonderfully crazy things I've ever read. Anyways, I picked up The Scar as well, just getting started on that one now.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:40
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I finished my first China Mievile novel a few weeks ago, Kraken, and loved it. Some parts got really weird and the way he writes that inner-dialog (? not sure of the technical name) was somewhat annoying but overall it was great. I didn't know what to expect and at first it started off rather grounded in reality and seemed somewhat detective/mystery-novel based and then all of a sudden Goss and Subby pop out of a loving package, and there are people turned into radios and talking tattoos and what the gently caress everything turns weird but I got used that and really dug it. What book would be closest to Kraken? I'm thinking of starting Railsea and then perhaps The Scar.
Xaris fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 25, 2013 20:42
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Yeah, I loved the way Kraken just built and built with the weird stuff. It's a very divisive novel around here, but I enjoyed every second of it. It's like what I've always wanted from Gaiman. I don't think there's an obvious follow-up to Kraken if that was your intro to Mieville. Railsea might be closest in its playfulness. Edit: Actually, I'm guessing Unlundun or King Rat would be the nearest match to Kraken, being London Urban Fantasy and all, but I still need to get round to reading them. Junkenstein fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 00:25
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I wouldn't recommend Un Lun Dun or King Rat next. Try one of his more outlandish fantasies, like Perdido Street Station or Railsea.
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Jul 26, 2013 00:32
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China Mieville tackles every goon's favorite subject seasteading, probably because he's pissed that such a cool idea ended up so boring.quote:It is a libertarian dream. Hexagonal neighborhoods of square apartments bob sedately by tiny coiffed parks and tastefully featureless marinas, an Orange County of the soul. It is the ultimate gated community, designed not by the very rich and certainly not by the very powerful, but by the middlingly so. As a utopia, the Atlantis Project is pitiful. Beyond the single one-trick fact of its watery location, it is tragically non-ambitious, crippled with class anxiety, nostalgic not for mythic glory but for the anonymous sanctimony of an invented 1950s. This is no ruling class vision: it is the plaintive daydream of a petty bourgeoisie, whose sulky solution to perceived social problems is to run away–set sail into a tax-free sunset.
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Jul 27, 2013 20:14
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Would probably punch some babies to see China's take on The Prisoner. Number 6 1/2?
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Jul 28, 2013 07:52
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RoboCicero posted:China Mieville tackles every goon's favorite subject seasteading, probably because he's pissed that such a cool idea ended up so boring. Goons managed to write a book on the subject. Only tangential, I know, but some of it was drat good.
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Jul 28, 2013 08:07
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John Charity Spring posted:I think every fan of Mieville would give different answers to which book is his best. The Scar Embassytown Iron Council Kraken PSS Railsea <everything else> That's not saying the rest is bad. I have loved and enjoyed, and recommend, all of his works. If I have to rank them, though, this is how I would do it. EDIT: I cannot explain how much I love Scar. But gently caress me i do.
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Aug 8, 2013 04:54
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Finagle posted:The Scar The Scar is almost certainly my number one, but then my order is way different than yours. Kraken PSS The City and the City Embassytown Iron Council <everything else> I think I rank Kraken higher than anyone else I know.
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Aug 8, 2013 06:19
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I would rate them : PSS Embassytown Railsea Iron Council The Scar The City and the City Un Lun Dun <Others> Kraken
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Aug 8, 2013 07:07
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Oasx posted:I would rate them : Heresy. Iron Council (9/10) Kraken Railsea PSS Looking for Jake (esp. "the tain" and the one about Christmas) The Scar Embassytown So who plays Isaac in the inevitable movie? My bet's on Mos Def in a fatsuit. vv: Could definitely see it. He's the bad guy from Serenity, right? Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 08:23
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Grand Prize Winner posted:So who plays Isaac in the inevitable movie? My bet's on Mos Def in a fatsuit. Chiwetel Ejiofor if he eats like 40 cakes. I mean, can you not see him all dissheveled and absent-minded-scientist-y and saying things like "Yag, old fellow" or whatever Isaac says? 
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 09:56
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Can someone help me out with the ending to The Scar? I get that it's supposed to be a bit ambiguous, but I have trouble following Bellis' line of logic. She thinks that Uthor has been manipulating everything all along, that he never wanted to journey to the Scar, but didn't want to openly revolt against the lovers, so he orchestrated everything including taking her down to the little hidey-hole beforehand so that she would eventually be able to bring Tanner down there and overhear the Lovers, so that he could lead the revolt? It seems a bit convoluted.
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Aug 8, 2013 14:40
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colonel_korn posted:Can someone help me out with the ending to The Scar? I get that it's supposed to be a bit ambiguous, but I have trouble following Bellis' line of logic. She thinks that Uthor has been manipulating everything all along, that he never wanted to journey to the Scar, but didn't want to openly revolt against the lovers, so he orchestrated everything including taking her down to the little hidey-hole beforehand so that she would eventually be able to bring Tanner down there and overhear the Lovers, so that he could lead the revolt? It seems a bit convoluted. It's sort of meant to be. At the end of the day, she doesn't know what Uther's goals were, and she's pretty much just reaching for any possible explanation for what happened. Even if it's as disturbing as the thought that even her existence in this universe is Uther's making. As much as Bellis tried, even that Remade guy with the squid arms was more vital to the proceedings than she was, but her new-found humility means she's made her peace with that.
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Aug 8, 2013 15:39
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Ooh, I wanna play "favorite Mieville." FAVE The Scar Perdido Street Station The City & the City Kraken = Iron Council Embassytown Looking for Jake LEAST FAVE HAVEN'T READ Railsea Un Lun Dun King Rat That's specifically not a "best." PSS and Kraken are pretty clearly not as GOOD or polished as Iron Council, C&C, or Embassytown, but I just had such a blast with both of them. And Iron Council is politically and thematically (and, actually, plot-wise) super interesting, I just recall being pretty jolted by the less baroque style in a Bas-Lag book. I feel like I am the most common sort of Mieville reader. Embassytown was still really awesome while I was reading it, but none of the characters stuck with me.
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Aug 8, 2013 16:09
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Mieville is this beautiful author where essentially it's super hard to quantify anything beyond second best. For me, the list is easy: 1. The Scar, 9/10, it's almost written exactly for me with a depressing ending, a bunch of kick in the gut disappointing characters, and a society of beautifully weird assholes being shits at each other forever 2. Pretty much all the rest, 8/10, his biggest real problem is the over-verbosity of his text and how it makes it seem like he's just saying "I'm smarter than you" over and over 3. Un Lun Dun, 7/10, between Kraken and The City and The City, this book just felt like rehashes of familiar things. Still really good familiar things, it was still a great read, but it's just... not so much great. He just has this way about him of making constantly incredible books. And being super hunky. If I ever get the chance to meet with him, I'll spend a whole hour just saying "no, really, how are you so great."
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Aug 9, 2013 06:37
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Benson Cunningham posted:The Scar is almost certainly my number one, but then my order is way different than yours. So how many of us rate The Scar that highly because we want to see more Uther Doul, past or present?
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Aug 10, 2013 12:34
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Personally I would read a whole book of "Tanner Sack's adventures under the sea."
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Aug 11, 2013 21:35
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Personally I would read a whole book of "Tanner Sack's adventures under the sea." Now why'd you have to go and say an exciting thing like that?
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Aug 11, 2013 22:33
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With his pal Bastard John 
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Aug 12, 2013 02:55
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Hedrigall posted:With his pal Bastard John Didn't Bastard John die in the battle with the New Crobuzon navy?
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Aug 12, 2013 05:37
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Didn't Bastard John die in the battle with the New Crobuzon navy? I don't believe so. It's been a while since I read it but I remember there being distinct passages about Bastard John getting more and more antsy the further Armada went into the Hidden Ocean. I think Hedrigall (the one from the other dimension) specifically recalls Bastard John either going over the edge of the Scar or somehow being able to swim fast enough to escape when the city topples into it.
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Aug 12, 2013 17:16
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 http://www.amazon.co.uk/China-Mi%E9ville-Short-Stories-Mieville/dp/0230770185/There may be a new China Miéville short story collection published next year. Weirdly though, I don't think he's published the many new short stories since Looking For Jake. I can think of only a few recent pieces: - Covehithe - The Rope is the World - a Hellboy short story, name escapes me currently - a piece in the second Thackery T Lambshead book - one called Bugs or something that I can't track down, he only read it at an appearance AFAIK - a few pieces of flash fiction on his blog So hopefully since Railsea he's been beavering away at various new stories to fill a book 
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 25, 2013 |
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Aug 25, 2013 03:47
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