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Just looking at the "Mieville recommends" list of socialist books - turns out the guy has managed to put into words absolutely perfectly how I feel about Northern Lights. And got some book recs to read as well, I guess.
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Jan 25, 2017 16:09
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Hedrigall posted:Sorry deadthread, there isn't much news lately, but if you're jonesing for a Bas-Lag-esque story lately check out the graphic novel The Spire by Simon Spurrier. It's a murder mystery set in a weird fantasy city filled with many non-human races alongside humans. The whole setting gave me a huge New Crobuzon vibe. It's a great story, and it's one standalone graphic novel, not ongoing comic issues. I bought this after reading your suggestion. I have a single complaint. At the end when Puggannini falls, Sha reaches out her hand to save him. He is well within range of her tentacles. She has used them reflexively and consistently throughout the story until that point. No reason he should have died. That annoyed me, but great comic overall.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:23
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Ceramic Shot posted:Hey man, I've actually ghoulishly pored over the man's diaries and read what I think are all of his published short works. Just asking if there was a connection to one particular pair of works! It's all good. I just always think of that episode and Andy's doucheness and the Kafka jokes.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:22
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I've been listening to The Scar on audiobook, and for the first time Mieville's prose got to me. I started a pretty intense work out plan this week, because if it comes time to Bash the Fash, my flabby internet rear end isn't going to do a very good job of it. Last night, I was in the last mile of my track routine, and feeling pretty beaten up. And then the anophellii women arrived. I knew what to expect, I made it through the loving soup scene in PSS. But listening to a woman drink a pig was apparently my line. I haven't started listening again since last night. I'll get back to it in a day or two. Also, man I really want a book set in High Cromlech. I'm not one for fan fiction, but I'm half tempted to file the serial numbers off because it just sounds so goddamn cool.
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Feb 15, 2017 16:25
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Soup scene?
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Feb 15, 2017 19:59
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Xiahou Dun posted:Soup scene? Isaac goes to see his old boss. Vermishank was drinking lumpy cream soup. He dipped doughy bread into it regularly and sucked at the resulting mess, chewing but not biting off, gnawing and worrying at the saliva-fouled bread that dripped wan yellow onto his desk.
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Feb 15, 2017 20:22
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Huh. Of all the poo poo in that book, that's what got to you?!? Like yeah that's pretty gross, sure, but like compared to : Brain sucking moths. A description of Yagharek's wings being sawed off. Literal demons. That bit in the slaughterhouse. Anything with The Weaver but especially when he cuts everyone's ears off and arranges them into the shape of a pair of scissors. O jesus like any of the ReMade but looking at you ReMade brothel section. Freaky deaky bug sexy times. The Construct Council's weird meat puppet. And probably a lot of other stuff I'm forgetting. Like I love that book, but there is some super gross stuff in it. The soup thing didn't even register in comparison.
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Feb 15, 2017 20:57
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Honestly, the soup scene is what nailed me in PSS because of how mundane it is. Most of the rest of the things you mention involve, to one level or another, an element of fantasy. The soup got me because it's a protract scene of a gross guy eating spit soup with a sponge of bread while tormenting a protagonist. It was a zoom-in to something to the point that it stops being the thing we started looking at and transforms, inexorably, into filth. The runner up would have probably been the the remade brothel, but they're a metaphor. It doesn't matter how horrific their appearance is made because each of them is just a hint at what capitalist society would do, given the capacity to do so. Maybe I am off-base here. Critical talk: The remade are fascinating to me (I haven't read Iron Council yet, and as noted, I'm paused in The Scar, full disclosure) because I'm also horrified by the American carceral state. Horrified here meaning something which frightens but from which one cannot look away. They combine the lifetime branding and disenfranchisement of a felony conviction but retain the capacity to abuse the labor of the "guilty." Historically, they recall such cases as Alan Turing, who developed gynecomastia as a result of the hormone treatments forced on him while homosexuality was criminal. There isn't (or I haven't really been struck by) anything like the biblical literalist culture of American authoritarians, but if you dropped a punishment factory into rural Georgia would anyone be surprised by sermons reminding us that the remade get what they deserve?
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Feb 15, 2017 21:58
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The soup scene is fukken gross and probably the only part to make me feel nauseated in that book.
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Feb 15, 2017 22:38
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The only scene that made me feel ill was what happened in the end to Lin - the tragism of entire situation.
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Feb 16, 2017 00:09
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Critical talk: This is true but I think the Remade are a straightforward allegory. Crobuzon cyborgifies criminals, but the effect is the same as the american prison system: Make people into second-class citizens. New Crobuzon and other places like High Cromlech aren't significantly different politically to a modern republic. The only real difference between states is the Left is more active. Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 03:47
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canis minor posted:The only scene that made me feel ill was what happened in the end to Lin - the tragism of entire situation. That was basically my take so I was surprised. Obviously you guys are welcome to be affected differently by novels we all like enough to post in a thread about, of course, I just was taken aback. PS if that was a problem don't read Säcken. You'll probably die or something. PPS That's not smuglord dumb poo poo ; legit that story made me horrified by the concept of bags
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Feb 16, 2017 04:14
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Dude Säcken owns. Absolutely read it. Also if soup makes you uncomfortable like.... I don't know, think introspectively for a while and try to construct a better self image?
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Feb 16, 2017 04:19
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O yeah Säcken is the poo poo. Owns bones. Sadly the German isn't perfect but I could tell he tried.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:24
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Säcken is one of two horror stories that have ever really gotten to me. The other is Strappado by Laird Barron. *shudders*
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Feb 16, 2017 04:50
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Gene Wolfe's The Sorcerer's House has a few great horror moments in it.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:59
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Xiahou Dun posted:That was basically my take so I was surprised. Säcken for me was Mieville doing his version of Stephen King. Not that special imo.
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Feb 16, 2017 09:11
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The Scar Spoilers follow throughout. Finished The Scar last night. I'm pretty satisfied overall with how it wound down, I actually rather like anti-climaxes. I'm not a fan of the "Death Note" style "I have engineered literally every movement of everyone around me" kind of plot-masterminding, but there was enough uncertainty there that it didn't bother me. High Cromlech is still my favorite thing in the setting; and I really got a kick out of the way the book lets us look around Bas-Lag in ways that PSS hinted at but couldn't ever go to. I'm glad that Bellis got to gently caress off back to New Crobouzon, but something about that set up cut me weirdly close to home and was lingeringly uncomfortable through the whole book. Isaac might have been a more interesting protagonist, but that may have been the inkling more agency he had. The Lovers got less interesting every time I saw them, but maybe that was the point? Tanner Sack was rad and I want to be his friend. We can go to labor protests together. I don't think I'm jumping into Iron Council next. Might knock out another Dark Tower book, because I am a genre baby. Is New Weird as a genre basically dead, or just sort of resting. I'm not really sure what really unifies the movement, because when I looked into The Southern Reach books, they felt pretty far afield.
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Mar 7, 2017 16:08
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ZorajitZorajit posted:I don't think I'm jumping into Iron Council next. Might knock out another Dark Tower book, because I am a genre baby. Is New Weird as a genre basically dead, or just sort of resting. I'm not really sure what really unifies the movement, because when I looked into The Southern Reach books, they felt pretty far afield. I think most of the authors most associated with it have slowed down their output, so it's getting a little frayed as a (semi) coherent literary style. I've read some decent books by more novice authors that probably fit, though, so I think that it may be slowly developing as a style of modern Fantasy. None of the following are as good or as multilayered as Mieville, but check out the Library at Mt Char and Archivist Wasp as books that I'd argue fit into the New Weird. I don't think there's a good manifesto or unifying theme, but for me the central elements are that the books either engage with themes or set pieces which pose fundamental questions about how humans experience the world and how this shapes our attitudes and behavior; or alternately take something that we all experience but express its essence in ways that seem at first completely out of the ordinary (like the Remade discussion above). To me what I like about the movement is that it implicitly critiques the longstanding trend in fantasy and science fiction to just reskin Victorian boy's adventure novels, where everybody is just some variant of a character motivated by easily understandable and usually simplistic motivations. It may just be that as more and more authors write SF or Fantasy, some of the critique that the new weird offers will just be brought into the mainstream of writing and it'll be less coherent as a group of writers.
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Mar 7, 2017 20:43
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Call it experimental fiction. 'new weird fiction' is an a) an unnecessary neologism, because it improves in little to no way upon the extant term 'experimental fiction' and b) very poorly chosen, because new weirdness and new weird theory are already established terms with meanings long predating the word's (very different) application to lit
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Mar 8, 2017 05:18
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It's New Weird because "Weird Fiction" has a very specific connotation and a big part of that connotation is "massive racism and colonialism." (While at the same time Mieville et al are undeniably descended from it.)
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Mar 8, 2017 05:19
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Hey I'm about to read The Census Taker as my first foray in Mieville, are there any things I should take into account? It's not in the Bas Lag world, is it?
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Mar 27, 2017 12:52
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Oh jeez. It's probably the last book you should read as your first Miéville. It's incredibly obtuse. I'd recommend The Scar (best Bas-Lag novel), or The City & The City, or Three Moments Of An Explosion (short story collection). As for whether This Census Taker is set in Bas-Lag... well, that's complicated. For all intents and purposes, no. It's not really set anywhere. But if you're a diehard fan who knows their Bas-Lag, then there's little hints and clues which point to something else...
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Mar 27, 2017 13:30
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Hedrigall posted:Oh jeez. It's probably the last book you should read as your first Miéville. It's incredibly obtuse. I'd recommend The Scar (best Bas-Lag novel), or The City & The City, or Three Moments Of An Explosion (short story collection). Ah gently caress, I thought, $6 novella, why not start there. But if I'll appreciate it more down the line, I'll save it.
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Mar 27, 2017 14:20
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Hedrigall posted:
Would you spoil block the evidence? I I was a die-hard Bas Lag reader while they were coming out but I haven't read the census one because it didn't sound interesting.
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Mar 27, 2017 14:53
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Yeah, This Census Taker is a bad start. I'd recommend Embassytown or PSS.
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Mar 27, 2017 15:05
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Sandwolf posted:Ah gently caress, I thought, $6 novella, why not start there. But if I'll appreciate it more down the line, I'll save it. It's not necessarily bad or even something that requires prior knowledge of Bas-Lag. It's more that it's more "literary" - it takes some work to unpack what the prose is pointing to, and it's not a straightforward narrative. It's a decent novella, and if you're into pieces that take more work then there's no issue with starting there. It's just that it's very different from his other work, most of which have much more straightforward narratives and simpler structures.
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Mar 27, 2017 17:35
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Bas Lag (read in order) Perdido Street Station The Scar Iron Council Stand Alones Embassytown Kraken The City & The City Novellas The Last Days in New Paris Census Taker Short Stories Three Moments of an Explosion Not worth reading King Rat Un Lun Dun Railsea (If you like YA, this is OK) Looking For Jake Books I never heard about before checking today The Tain
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Mar 27, 2017 17:48
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IIRC, The Tain is included in Looking for Jake (which I still maintain has a couple good stories).
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Mar 27, 2017 18:23
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I would switch Railsea and Kraken. Railsea is really good despite being YA.
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Mar 27, 2017 19:02
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I loved Kraken because it was him taking a steaming dump on Harry Potter and it was beautiful. I'm absolutely telling my children the myth of the first union while they are children. Perdido and Embassytown are probably the best starting points. Perdido if you want something weird, Embassytown if you want more "traditional" science fiction.
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Mar 27, 2017 19:24
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Shbobdb posted:I loved Kraken because it was him taking a steaming dump on Harry Potter and it was beautiful.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:30
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The Tane.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:39
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Shbobdb posted:I loved Kraken because it was him taking a steaming dump on Harry Potter and it was beautiful. I'm absolutely telling my children the myth of the first union while they are Kraken is basically Mievilles version of Gaimans work. I fail to see what Potter has to do with it? Also even Mievilles worst books areway above your standard fantasy and is worth reading.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:41
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I absolutely loved This Census-Taker and thought it was gorgeous and haunting and devastating, but I like peculiar, oblique books that make you work for it, and I was already sold on China's brain. If you aren't, it'd probably be heavy going. Where to start depends on what you usually like to read, I think. Not big into SFF? City and the City. REALLY into SFF? Embassytown. Just here for crazy-deep worldbuilding, swashbuckling adventure and cool monsters? Bas-Lag in order, etc. I've also had luck with Railsea as a gateway drug. That one's just so much drat fun.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:42
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Transistor Rhythm posted:Would you spoil block the evidence? I I was a die-hard Bas Lag reader while they were coming out but I haven't read the census one because it didn't sound interesting. I wrote a blog post about it! https://outtherebooks.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/is-this-census-taker-set-in-bas-lag/ Oh man I haven't written on my blog for ages.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:54
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I accept that the popular opinion is against Kraken, but I'm a huge fan. It just works for me.
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Mar 27, 2017 21:44
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Benson Cunningham posted:I accept that the popular opinion is against Kraken, but I'm a huge fan. It just works for me. Yeah, I loved the Kraken. Also loved Embassytown and TC&TC.
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Mar 27, 2017 22:37
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I like Kraken a lot - mostly because it's one of the few times Miéville goes for outright comedy and it works - but don't really get the hate for Looking for Jake. I mean, sure, Miéville's short stories are totally hit-or-miss but there is good stuff in there.
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Mar 27, 2017 23:01
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anilEhilated posted:I like Kraken a lot - mostly because it's one of the few times Miéville goes for outright comedy and it works - but don't really get the hate for Looking for Jake. I mean, sure, Miéville's short stories are totally hit-or-miss but there is good stuff in there. It's been so long since I read it that I can't remember any of my specific criticism, other than a sense of general disinterest (it was hard for me to finish, and it isn't even that long). Compare that to Three Moments of an Explosion, which I read in one sitting. Maybe I'll give it another shot and see if my tastes have changed.
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Mar 27, 2017 23:42
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