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SaviourX posted:Yeah, I read an interview where he was like 'Well it's absolutely part of the fundamental concerns of the magickal folk that they, you know, have a specific vernacular, a certain inclination towards classification and that, that impinges upon them this necessity of naming their manipulation of the fundamental esssences around them, having a common shared language for it. It's purposeful.' ^ Not a real Miéville interview quote. The actual word only comes up 20 times in the entire 800-page book. (Actual number according to a text search, and that's "puissant" and "puissance" combined.)
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Feb 21, 2014 08:28
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It occurred more towards the end when all that puissance was unleashed to be fair. I'm not ragging on his prose style, I liked it save for that one particular word. My objection to the book was he kept escalating things without really resolving anything. It started off contained on this ship, which was cool and forboding, then they get to armada, which is really really interesting, then they discover that they plan to use tremendous magic to raise a mythical sea beast, which is a solid grounding for the entire book. But it just keeps going and going and going and the sea beast doesnt matter at all really, adding element after element after element as though he had no faith in the initial conceit.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:09
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Uther doul sucks. My problem with him is that in a setting that pokes fun and generally kills or maims standard fantasy heroes, uther doul is an epic level d&d fighter with a bunch of prestige levels in mathomancy AND he wins at everything he does. I liked the d&d party in perdido much better.
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Feb 21, 2014 21:24
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BigSkillet posted:Iron Council I think got a lot better with its prose style, but it's still pretty accelerationist as far as fantastic ideas go. Yeah, Iron Council is pretty much just crazy poo poo piled on top of crazy poo poo piled on top of more crazy poo poo. Personally I love it, but you have to kind of accept that a bunch of weird stuff just happens without too much explanation. Though I do find the ending of Iron Council a lot more satisfying than The Scar's (and PSS's, for that matter).
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Feb 22, 2014 00:52
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Eau de MacGowan posted:I finsihed The Scar. It started off really strongly, but it all got a bit too much for my taste. Now theres a mosquito man island! Now theres grindy salamander men! Now theres vampires! Now a massive navy has turned up and been repelled in a chapter! It felt like he was throwing more and more ideas at it rather than resolving the initial ideas/plots he established. They never even got to the fireworks factory! I liked kraken and thought it was a little toned down vs perdido st station. Haven't read anything else by him.
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Feb 22, 2014 06:21
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Hedrigall posted:^ Not a real Miéville interview quote. Why ruin the puissance? And yeah, the ending to IC was one of the legit most awesome things I've read in a long drat time.
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Feb 22, 2014 07:12
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I just impulse-bought a print of this cool New Crobuzon rail map  Also I made a blog post about various maps of Bas-Lag!
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Feb 26, 2014 14:16
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Huh, all this time I thought the Cacotopic Stain and the Torque Zone were the same thing. So the Torque Zone is the one that got all messed up from the weaponry used during the Pirate Wars, and the Cacotopic Stain is just messed up for "natural" reasons?
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Feb 26, 2014 21:07
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Hedrigall posted:I just impulse-bought a print of this cool New Crobuzon rail map That's awesome, thanks for the link!
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Feb 26, 2014 21:21
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Hedrigall posted:^ Not a real Miéville interview quote. As an author, Mieville definitely has a tendency to use fairly unusual words but then use them over and over. Everybody I know who has read any of his books says the same thing. 20 times in a book is an incredible amount of repetition for a word like 'puissance'. Hell, it's been years since I read Perdido Street Station but I still remember thinking "why does he keep using the word bituminous" and why is everything red "russet"? Also I'm a little late to the party talking about The Scar, but it is in my opinion the worst of his books by some margin (haven't read King Rat though). It has many cool ideas, but most of the characters are just flat-out unenjoyable to read (especially the protagonist), and the ending is up there with Iain M Bank's Matter in terms of sheer awful.
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Feb 27, 2014 15:08
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colonel_korn posted:Yeah, Iron Council is pretty much just crazy poo poo piled on top of crazy poo poo piled on top of more crazy poo poo. Personally I love it, but you have to kind of accept that a bunch of weird stuff just happens without too much explanation. You say it like it is a bad thing. I don't know about you, but this is something that I really enjoy with Mieville. I really enjoy how he introduces minor and major stuff into the story, you get a feel for the fantastical in it, but it is not elaborated in detail and blends seemlessly into the story. It is like the turtle villages in Iron Council, that only is present in one scene and could easily get a major elaboration, but doesn't. If I wanted to read a fantasy where someone spergs on every detail, I would read Sanderson.
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Feb 27, 2014 15:35
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I didn't have a problem with 'puissance/puissant', but it always jars me out of Mieville's prose when he uses the word 'palimpsest'. Especially because it never seems to be employed very well. That aside I generally love his writing, and The Scar is my favourite of all his books (except maybe Embassytown).
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Feb 27, 2014 15:42
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The first thing that hooked me on PSS when I read it a few years ago was the use of the word "thaumaturgy". Something about that word makes everything around it better. "Puissance", I don't mind, but don't have a strong reaction to either way.
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Feb 27, 2014 16:21
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Portable Staplefrog posted:The first thing that hooked me on PSS when I read it a few years ago was the use of the word "thaumaturgy". Something about that word makes everything around it better. "Puissance", I don't mind, but don't have a strong reaction to either way. IIRC he was a big d&d player and I think some of this is a reaction to everything in that mode being called magic or magical. I'm okay with thaumaturgists instead of wizards and puissant weapons instead of magic swords.
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Feb 27, 2014 16:33
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It gives magic a nice technicality, especially since it's being used by an industrial society. There's no line where science stops and becomes The Magic System instead.
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Feb 27, 2014 18:35
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I'm doing more Miéville stuff on my blog lately, including: 1) A series of indepth posts about Embassytown as I re-read it. Intro here and the first part here. (spoilers) 2) Reviewing each and every issue of Dial H. The first one is here! (spoilers) 3) Here's a little compendium of various artistic representations of the Hosts from Embassytown.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:39
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One note about the Embassytown posts: 'Pharotekton' is also mentioned as Christ Pharotekton, and the Church of Christ Pharotekton seems to be one of the main versions of Christianity in Mieville's future. It's an adaptation of existing religion rather than something made up out of whole cloth or a joke.
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Mar 5, 2014 11:36
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Ah, well like I say in the post, I can't remember a lot of the details (one of the reasons why re-reads are fun!) but I'll correct my mistakes as I go along. Also here's a Perdido Street Station foreign covers gallery!
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Mar 5, 2014 11:51
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Hedrigall posted:3) Here's a little compendium of various artistic representations of the Hosts from Embassytown. I often wish that Fantasy and Science Fiction authors would take it upon themselves to get some official artwork done. Especially in the case of someone like Mieville, there are so many strange creatures that it would be easier if we could just see what the author intended for them to look like, instead of having ten different interpretations.
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Mar 5, 2014 11:53
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Oasx posted:I often wish that Fantasy and Science Fiction authors would take it upon themselves to get some official artwork done. Especially in the case of someone like Mieville, there are so many strange creatures that it would be easier if we could just see what the author intended for them to look like, instead of having ten different interpretations. China could have drawn them himself, he's a pretty good artist. I guess the visage of the Hosts was secondary to their Language, when it comes to Embassytown's story. Just now thanks to an awesome Twitter person, I am going to get a copy of The Apology Chapbook in the mail 
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Mar 5, 2014 13:25
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I just finished reading Embassytown and I think it's my favourite Mieville book so far. The best worldbuilding, the most exciting plot, the happiest ending. 
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Mar 5, 2014 14:29
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Oasx posted:I often wish that Fantasy and Science Fiction authors would take it upon themselves to get some official artwork done. Especially in the case of someone like Mieville, there are so many strange creatures that it would be easier if we could just see what the author intended for them to look like, instead of having ten different interpretations. I think that's a terrible idea personally but each to their own.
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Mar 5, 2014 15:35
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andrew smash posted:I think that's a terrible idea personally but each to their own. Why is that? It wouldn't stop fans from creating their own version, but it would help a lot of people get a clear idea of what some of the more weirder creatures look like.
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Mar 5, 2014 16:08
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Oasx posted:Why is that? It wouldn't stop fans from creating their own version, but it would help a lot of people get a clear idea of what some of the more weirder creatures look like. For me one of the best things about written fantasy is imagining the characters and settings, I quite like seeing other peoples ideas after I've formed a mental image, but not before I've been able to. Having said that though I never had a good mental image of the Hosts, probably because the internet has killed my imagination.
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Mar 5, 2014 16:25
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Dirty Frank posted:For me one of the best things about written fantasy is imagining the characters and settings, I quite like seeing other peoples ideas after I've formed a mental image, but not before I've been able to. Having said that though I never had a good mental image of the Hosts, probably because the internet has killed my imagination. Well to be fair, he pretty intentionally never describes the Hosts in detail, from what I recall. There are only descriptions of individual body parts or overall impressions (horse bird bug or something like that).
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Mar 5, 2014 17:52
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Hedrigall posted:Also here's a Perdido Street Station foreign covers gallery! The varying degrees of scifi-ness in depictions of New Crobuzon are really neat. I'd always pictured it as one of Ian Miller's surreal clustered cityscapes, though maybe a little more beholden to the laws of physics than this one: http://www.ian-miller.org/after-gormenghast-7/
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Mar 6, 2014 01:48
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Hedrigall posted:Ah, well like I say in the post, I can't remember a lot of the details (one of the reasons why re-reads are fun!) but I'll correct my mistakes as I go along. This one is hilarious. Who's that even supposed to be? Derkhan Blueday I guess? 
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Mar 6, 2014 04:58
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colonel_korn posted:This one is hilarious. Who's that even supposed to be? Derkhan Blueday I guess? How about Bellis on the German covers for The Scar:   Dial H issue 2 review, by the way.
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Mar 6, 2014 12:33
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Hedrigall posted:How about Bellis on the German covers for The Scar: I have always seen Bellis as a mousey librarian/academic. But as Stross has pointed out, an author has very little to do with the outside of a book. Also, the PSS cover is hilarious. I guess they could have showed Isaacs khepri girlfriend, since the body is still human.
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Mar 6, 2014 12:43
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Hedrigall posted:How about Bellis on the German covers for The Scar: The one on the left is actually not far removed from how I envisioned her. The one on the right though...what the hell?
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Mar 6, 2014 16:17
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I pictured the Hosts as looking like those priest guys from the start of the Fifth Element, although I can't think of any reason why.
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Mar 7, 2014 14:14
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:The one on the left is actually not far removed from how I envisioned her. The one on the right though...what the hell? Wait why does it have two titles with two covers? Is the German version two books long or something?
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Mar 8, 2014 16:47
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Wait why does it have two titles with two covers? Is the German version two books long or something? Its pretty common for European publishers to split up long books into two parts, whether they were in two parts initially or not.
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Mar 8, 2014 17:03
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European people can't read long books.
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Mar 8, 2014 19:35
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Translating into German adds about a third to the length of a book. It's a verbose language.
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Mar 8, 2014 20:30
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Oasx posted:I often wish that Fantasy and Science Fiction authors would take it upon themselves to get some official artwork done. Especially in the case of someone like Mieville, there are so many strange creatures that it would be easier if we could just see what the author intended for them to look like, instead of having ten different interpretations. I think you've missed the point of reading.
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Mar 8, 2014 23:24
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Hard Clumping posted:I think you've missed the point of reading. Then why do books have covers with artwork on it? Reading doesn't eliminate the need for something visual, especially not when we are dealing with things that are hard to describe.
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Mar 9, 2014 10:01
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Hard Clumping posted:I think you've missed the point of reading. "Having to fill in the author's blank spots for the literal visual description of something that comes up all the time" is so far down the list of joys of reading that it barely even ranks. Mieville rarely makes it an issue anyways, though. The Hosts are an exception but they're also one of the rare cases where it might be for the best.
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Mar 9, 2014 14:10
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Oasx posted:Then why do books have covers with artwork on it? To sell books. Cover art is often so far removed from what the author describes, especially in sf/f that making fun of it is a tired cliche at this point. I'm not saying you're outright wrong but you literally could not have picked a worse example to illustrate your point.
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Mar 9, 2014 18:31
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'What the gently caress does that look like? I can't fit all these details together in my head!' is a pretty important effect to evoke in a lot of spec fic, especially the stuff Mieville's interested in. It must be super frustrating to write towards that effect and then get a cover that says 'hey guys, just imagine [it] looks like this!'
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Mar 9, 2014 18:48
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