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Embassytown has a grotesque setting much like New Crobuzon, while Railsea has all the monsters and adventure of The Scar, but on land. Both excellent choices for next book.
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Oct 14, 2013 13:20
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Alright, I guess I'll just read the lot 
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Oct 15, 2013 06:05
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Alhazred posted:I also like this one: That was such an awesome cover  A friend of mine borrowed my copy with that cover and never game it back.... the fucker.
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Oct 18, 2013 16:29
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China couldn't make the World Fantasy Convention this year so as an apology every attendee got a limited edition chapbook written and illustrated by him. I'm super jealous. Apparently it has a short story called "The Ninth Technique" which is a horror story involving insects. Hopefully it'll show up in the (rumoured) new collection next year.
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Nov 7, 2013 23:46
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Hedrigall posted:Hopefully it'll show up in the (rumoured) new collection next year. I sure hope that thing is real, I ordered it over two months ago already. http://www.bookdepository.com/China-Mi%C3%A9ville-Short-Stories-China-Mieville/9780230770188 Then again, Bookdepo gets a lot of stuff wrong.
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Nov 20, 2013 11:23
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So this must be the longest time without any details on a new book since The City and The City was announced? There was a book a year between then and Railsea as well.
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Nov 20, 2013 13:17
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fookolt posted:God drat, I'm going through the Bas Lag wiki again (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas-Lag) and it's just astonishing how loving good the worldbuilding and everything is. Wikipedia posted:Hell
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Nov 20, 2013 16:42
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BioTech posted:I sure hope that thing is real, I ordered it over two months ago already. It's disappeared from Amazon so maybe cancel your order, for now. But then that ISBN might be a placeholder for the new book when it eventually gets announced so who knows? Now however, if you google that ISBN you get, in the top results, a spreadsheet file from Pan Macmillan last edited on the 5th of November which still lists "China Miéville Short Stories" for June 2014 so 
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Nov 22, 2013 05:07
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Does anyone buy McSweeney's? The new issue (#45) has a new China Miéville short story called "The Design". I need to get my hands on it  
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Dec 12, 2013 10:02
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Just finished Embassytown. I have to agree with the people in this thread who say it's their favorite. Absolutely loved the hatching of the scheme at "I don't want to be a simile. I want to be a metaphor", and teared up a tiny bit in the following chapters as the ramifications worked themselves out. The most powerful book about language that I have ever read.
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Dec 16, 2013 22:40
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That book was weird as poo poo and I really enjoyed it. It was the second of his books I read, first being the City and the City so I really went in having no idea what it would be except possibly kind of odd.
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Dec 18, 2013 16:06
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Hedrigall posted:Does anyone buy McSweeney's? The new issue (#45) has a new China Miéville short story called "The Design". I need to get my hands on it Got a copy of it today, haven't read the story yet though.
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Dec 18, 2013 20:04
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I read Perdido Street Station a few years ago and loved it. I just recently started the Scar and am digging it so far. I'm not sure what it is about China Mieville's novels but the world building or imagery or something just clicks with me. I can imagine the things he is writing about vividly and the "aesthetic" of the world (if you can use that word to describe literature) just really hits a sweet spot with me, not too flowery with the prose but descriptive enough to kick-start my imagination. EDIT: Also, while I don't agree with the guy politics at all, I still love the poo poo out of his books, so don't let that dissuade you. SilkyP fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 02:18
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SilkyP posted:EDIT: Also, while I don't agree with the guy politics at all, I still love the poo poo out of his books, so don't let that dissuade you. I do agree with his politics, which is is slightly crushing, because all the characters that share his politics are beaten ruthlessly and repeatedly into the dirt from go
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Dec 19, 2013 11:06
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Pozzo posted:I do agree with his politics, which is is slightly crushing, because all the characters that share his politics are beaten ruthlessly and repeatedly into the dirt from go Oh, like in real life then? SilkyP posted:I read Perdido Street Station a few years ago and loved it. I just recently started the Scar and am digging it so far. I'm not sure what it is about China Mieville's novels but the world building or imagery or something just clicks with me. I can imagine the things he is writing about vividly and the "aesthetic" of the world (if you can use that word to describe literature) just really hits a sweet spot with me, not too flowery with the prose but descriptive enough to kick-start my imagination. Yeah, that is weird and amazing with Mieville. He manages to catch your interest even while throwing out all this weird stuff constantly. Many fantasy writers have a tendency in the beginning of a series to throw out a lot of weird stuff with weird names that is hard to keep track off and causes readers to be confused. Bakker and Erikson comes to mind. In contrast Mieville does the same, but for some reason it all seems natural from the start. I'm only sad he won't write any more Bas-Lag.
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Dec 19, 2013 15:01
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taser rates posted:Got a copy of it today, haven't read the story yet though. Ended up reading the new short story yesterday, and it was, well, pretty Mieville. It's about a surgeon in training who finds that the body he's practicing on has a scrimshawed skeleton. As weird as that sounds, it's actually pretty restrained and melancholy, can't recall if he's written something in that mood before.
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Dec 19, 2013 16:24
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I'm torn between my want of a new Mieville story and my want to not support Dave Eggars. Hopefully it'll be in that upcoming short story collection whenever that gets confirmed. I blame time golems, personally.
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Dec 20, 2013 01:51
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SilkyP posted:the "aesthetic" of the world You most certainly can, and Bas-Lag and the works that influenced it do definitely fit that.
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Dec 20, 2013 07:23
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Welp, just finished The Scar, amazing as I figured it would be. I've only read The Scar and Perdido and even though its a close contest, I kind of liked Perdido a little better. I'm not sure if this is because Perdido came out of nowhere for me since I picked it up more or less randomly or because Yagharek, Issac, and the Weaver are up there for my favorite fictional characters ever. I kinda want to hold off on reading Iron Council now because I don't want to burn through them too quick. I really wish more writers could write like this, Mieville kind of spoiled me when it comes to fantasy novels.
SilkyP fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Dec 21, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2013 00:54
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You'll probably enjoy Embassytown a lot then.
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Dec 21, 2013 15:23
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SilkyP posted:Welp, just finished The Scar, amazing as I figured it would be. I've only read The Scar and Perdido and even though its a close contest, I kind of liked Perdido a little better. I'm not sure if this is because Perdido came out of nowhere for me since I picked it up more or less randomly or because Yagharek, Issac, and the Weaver are up there for my favorite fictional characters ever. I kinda want to hold off on reading Iron Council now because I don't want to burn through them too quick. I really wish more writers could write like this, Mieville kind of spoiled me when it comes to fantasy novels. The Scar was even more amazing third time around. I've reread the BasLag series 2-3 times now, and I still found small new things in each reread. The Scar is more intricate with integrated plot lines compared to Perdido, which is more of a horror story. Can't really decide which one I like more. Iron Council is weaker than both of them, but still a very good book. Just reread it last week. Part of the weakness of IC was that it depended on previous books for introducing some of the fantastic components like handlingers and Weavers. gently caress, now I have to reread Perdido, since I want to read about Weavers, handlingers and refresh my memory of the Constructs.
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Dec 28, 2013 23:08
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I'm a little sad that so many people dislike Looking for Jake. I'm willing to acknowledge that it isn't much like his later novels, but there's just something satisfying about horror and ghost stories done so well.
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Dec 29, 2013 14:34
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Prop Wash posted:I'm a little sad that so many people dislike Looking for Jake. I'm willing to acknowledge that it isn't much like his later novels, but there's just something satisfying about horror and ghost stories done so well. People dislike Looking for Jake? I loved Mieville's short stories! Probably why I'm so excited about the rumors of another short story collection next/this (?) year. EDIT: The only story I didn't like was the one about the guy who edited the SNES/N64 cartridge and it was LIFECHANGING (ugh). The Christmas story was just cute. 
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Dec 29, 2013 19:59
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Yeah there's loads to like in Looking For Jake. "The Ball Room" has stuck in my mind ever since I read it.
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Dec 29, 2013 21:50
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"The Ball Room" is my favourite of the lot, "Familiar" is gross as poo poo, "Details" and "Foundation" are pretty terrifying, "Reports of Certain Events in London" is awesomely creative, "The Tain" is a nice novella to finish it all off. It's a good collection. Only "Jack" is disappointing (because of what it could have been), and I still don't really get "On the Way to the Front". edit: Potential contents of new collection: Full stories - Covehithe - The Rope is the World - A Room of One's Own (Hellboy) - The Ninth Technique - The Design - Estate - Highway 61 Revisited - Pulvadmonitor: The Dust's Warning Flash fiction - Three Moments of an Explosion - Rejected Pitch (Scrap Iron Man) - Four Final Orpheuses Comic - London Intrusion Other - Unused Swamp Thing scripts? - Unused Dial H ideas? Plus anything new he's hiding from us (oh Jabber please, a new Bas-Lag novella?) Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2013 23:18
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The second and final Dial H digest should be coming out in February, I think, and people who want to see what China's been up to really ought to pick up both of those. And yeah, Hedrigall, I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to see a little bit of stuff from his Tumblr make it into the book.
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Dec 30, 2013 00:11
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Oh yeah, it'd be good to see some of that Tumblr stuff. The flash fiction in particular is excellent - I've got some people interested in Mieville by showing them Four Final Orpheuses, for instance.
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Dec 30, 2013 17:08
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Edited above list to include the story "Estate" which was published in The White Review issue 8, around August 2013 I think. Did anyone pick this up? There's an excerpt here: http://www.thewhitereview.org/fiction/estate/ edit: A review of the issue calls it "a perplexing [...] story about an estate kid who witnesses the first in an outbreak of deer that roam rundown areas worldwide with their antlers alight." Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 10:48
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It's a loving travesty that more people don't talk about Un Lun Dun. That book owns. I was fist-pumping the entire time I was reading it. It was imaginative and well constructed and whimsical, goddammit. It was The Phantom Tollbooth, but better. Young Adult stigma be damned, I think that may be the best book that Mieville's written.
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Jan 10, 2014 10:40
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Desumaytah posted:It's a loving travesty that more people don't talk about Un Lun Dun. That book owns. I was fist-pumping the entire time I was reading it. It was imaginative and well constructed and whimsical, goddammit. It was The Phantom Tollbooth, but better. Young Adult stigma be damned, I think that may be the best book that Mieville's written. I like it, but I think it is one of his weakest books.
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Jan 10, 2014 10:43
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Oasx posted:I like it, but I think it is one of his weakest books. I really disagree. It's an excellent demi-coming of age story set in a posh, fantasy London. It has more imagination than everything but the freakiest bits of Bas Lag, and I actually gave a drat about Deeba as the main character, which is more than I can say for Bellis from The Scar, or any one of the people who were supposed to be the protagonists of Iron Council. I'd rather reread it than The City & The City, or Kraken, or Embassytown. I enjoyed all of those, but Un Lun Dun just struck a chord with me.
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Jan 10, 2014 10:56
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Here's what I thought when I read it for the second time, last year:my Goodreads review posted: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. As far as YA adventures go, Railsea wipes the floor with it IMO.
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Jan 10, 2014 11:41
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Hedrigall posted:Here's what I thought when I read it for the second time, last year: Well, it is still a good book since it is Mieville. Maybe not his strongest though, but significantly better than King Rat. Both Un Lun Dun and Kraken made me feel like I was reading Neil Gaiman.
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Jan 10, 2014 11:51
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Un Lun Dun feels very much to me like, London elements aside, it was written specifically to be adapted to film by Hayao Miyazaki.
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Jan 10, 2014 19:32
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Might've been pointed out already, but I noticed something cool in the kindle version of The City and the City: the name Bes El is counted by the kindle as five different words. It's Bes [Invisible Word][Invisible Word][Invisible Word] El. I started checking after a while, and it happens every single time the name comes up, so it must be intentional. On the page it looks like a single space, so it's literally three words in the same space.
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Jan 11, 2014 17:56
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I'm pretty sure it;s not. It's not even Bes El, it's Besźel, so what's happening there is probably that the kindle version doesn't handle the accent properly. The print version, it's definitely one word. Sorry.
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Jan 12, 2014 00:37
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The new short story collection slated for June this year has been pushed back to November. 
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Jan 29, 2014 15:51
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Between that news and everything about Jeff Vandermeer's new series sounding super generic, this coming year looks like it'll have a sharp Weirdness deficit.
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Jan 30, 2014 17:49
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BigSkillet posted:Between that news and everything about Jeff Vandermeer's new series sounding super generic, this coming year looks like it'll have a sharp Weirdness deficit. Aww, have there been bad reviews? I preordered Annihilation because I thought it sounded awesome. From what I've heard, it's like an account of an expedition into the Cacotopic Stain.
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Jan 31, 2014 01:25
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I'm halfway through The Scar and I'm really enjoying it but something about the way Uther Doul is presented grates on me. I'm just not a fan of the mysterious swordsman with a magical sword and a monk's temperament. It's like the one thing that keeps me from enjoying the book totally. 
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Jan 31, 2014 05:17
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