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Terry Pratchett has also been accused of making his dwarfs jewish but in a twist ending it's actually the jews themselves who are making that connection because they loving love how the dwarfs are portrayed:Pratchett posted:I've got a very keen fan from Manchester, England -- Mrs. Mayer. She's an orthodox Jew, as orthodox as you can possible be. And she swears that my dwarfs are Jewish -- because of the way they act and their huge body of lore, and how they all move away from their homeland but they say one day they'll go back.
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Apr 2, 2017 13:07
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Well, I have black friends and they say
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Apr 2, 2017 19:53
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Death of the author tho!?! I often find myself asking, What Would China Write. And it's usually some kind of Wolverine storyline/screed against the existential ubermensch that Wolverine usually gets portrayed as. Or something. Dial H kind of rules.
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Apr 3, 2017 02:04
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More to the point, When Will China Write? Not to get all GRRM thread on him. But come on. No new full length novel since 2012...
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Apr 3, 2017 03:12
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Benson Cunningham posted:Bas Lag (read in order) I liked King Rat! I mean, it's his first novel, and it shows, but it really nails its setting and era.
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Apr 3, 2017 13:50
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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. I thought Kraken was fantastic, and I've given a few copies to people who've loved it.
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Apr 3, 2017 13:51
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Kraken is bottom-tier Mieville but Mieville slumming it is comparable to most "Magic London" stories / authors at their best, and I don't think popular opinion is particularly against it.
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Apr 3, 2017 15:47
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Hey, if people like Kraken, I'm all for it. That was just the perception I had from a combo of forums, blogs, and irl friends. Wouldn't mind being wrong, In real life, my friends who read Mieville all think TC&TC is his best thing ever. I double down between Embassytown and The Scar. To be honest, I thought TC&TC kind of fell apart towards the end. The concept and first half were really engaging for me though. It seems like it would make a great setting for an RPG (which I do not mean to imply in a negative way).
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Apr 3, 2017 16:21
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I really didn't like TC&TC at all but I seem to be the only person in the world with that opinion so I think I definitely njeed to give it a re-read
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Apr 3, 2017 16:36
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I love TC&TC, need to re-read it. Out of all of his work it is probably the hardest to make into a tv show/movie, so I really want to see someone try.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:58
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Spuckuk posted:I thought Kraken was fantastic, and I've given a few copies to people who've loved it.  Kraken is great, if only for the magic ipod who mainly plays bad renditions of No Scrubs.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:58
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Kraken is great on the first read, very good on the first couple of rereads, then you realize it's poo poo when you revisit it years later.
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Apr 3, 2017 19:00
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I really didn't like TC&TC at all but I seem to be the only person in the world with that opinion so I think I definitely njeed to give it a re-read I've only read the three bas-lag books, TC&TC, and embassytown and TC&TC is by far my least favorite of them. Embassytown and the scar were the best
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Apr 3, 2017 19:01
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Embassytown is fantastic because it's a beautifully written book of speculative fiction about language rather than the sciences. It's both a very rare breed and an excellent example of its type.
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Apr 3, 2017 19:23
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Kraken sucks, the comedy fails and the dialog is an embarrassment. The only good thing is the villain.
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Apr 3, 2017 21:24
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Embassytown is fantastic because it's a beautifully written book of speculative fiction about language rather than the sciences. It's both a very rare breed and an excellent example of its type.
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Apr 3, 2017 21:31
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With the success of Arrival, we can only hope to see the Embassytown movie next.
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Apr 3, 2017 22:32
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I got into mieville after a couple of stem nerd friends got assigned it in a lit class and sold me on it by really poorly complaining about how they couldn't understand it.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:29
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rumble in the bunghole posted:I got into mieville after a couple of stem nerd friends got assigned it in a lit class and sold me on it by really poorly complaining about how they couldn't understand it. Ahahaha, the best recommendation. TC&TC? Or Embassytown?
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Apr 4, 2017 07:43
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Alhazred posted:
And weaponised origami. It's not his strongest book, but it's profoundly fun. I need to give City and the City another go,it didn't really grab me.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:36
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rumble in the bunghole posted:I got into mieville after a couple of stem nerd friends got assigned it in a lit class and sold me on it by really poorly complaining about how they couldn't understand it. I got PSS gifted to me from a friend who was leaving the country forever, god bless that wonderful mad bitch.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:37
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SaviourX posted:Ahahaha, the best recommendation. TC&TC? Or Embassytown? Un Lun Dun, he said STEM nerds.
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Apr 4, 2017 16:27
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Oh, are we sharing our origin stories? I ran across a copy of Perdido many years ago, and thought "wow, who is this, I thought I knew all the lady SFF novelists, who is she?" Read the back cover, went "this looks dope af", flipped to the author page and said "oh. Oh." It was, actually, dope af, and I've been a fan ever since. That face certainly helped with the initial nudge tho.
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Apr 6, 2017 08:16
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I would like to announce a change of position. I no longer consider Scar to be the best Bas-Lag novel. After careful deliberation I have switched over to Iron Council. Embassytown is still the best Mieville overall and one of the finest recent sci-fi novels. That is all, thank you for reading.
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Apr 6, 2017 10:42
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Care to elaborate? I always considered IC the weakest of the three.
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Apr 6, 2017 11:34
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SaviourX posted:Ahahaha, the best recommendation. TC&TC? Or Embassytown? TC/TC. One of the two is bougie as hell so that's probably why he got stuck on it.
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Apr 6, 2017 13:46
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anilEhilated posted:Care to elaborate? I always considered IC the weakest of the three. Tearoom trade makes any book better. *taps foot seductively*
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Apr 6, 2017 22:39
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anilEhilated posted:Care to elaborate? I always considered IC the weakest of the three. It kind of grew on me. I realized I actually liked all the pronounced political stuff, especially the themes of imperialism and the subjugation of the natives. Especially when the natives are as mysterious and strange as the Stiltspear. Another thing that really works for me is the entire western style vibe surrounding the Council itself. Mieville's writing also feels more mature than in PSS. The whole underground political scene of New Crobuzon is also very interesting to me. And finally, it has the best ending of the three books. I still think Scar has very strong elements, but is failed by some of the over exaggerated characters such as Uther Doul and the Lovers and, ultimately, sunk (lol) by its weak ending.
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Apr 6, 2017 23:17
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:It kind of grew on me. I realized I actually liked all the pronounced political stuff, especially the themes of imperialism and the subjugation of the natives. Especially when the natives are as mysterious and strange as the Stiltspear. Colonialism sucks, full communism now. I wonder how communism plays out in the Craft setting.
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Apr 14, 2017 00:15
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Magical hyper-Capitalist skeletons eat your souls.
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Apr 15, 2017 12:59
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TC&TC coming to BBC as mini-series! http://www.tor.com/2017/04/17/china-mieville-the-city-the-city-television-adaptation/
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Apr 18, 2017 14:47
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OgreNoah posted:TC&TC coming to BBC as mini-series! 
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Apr 18, 2017 19:03
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I have literally no idea how you would try to represent any of that visually, but I'll be very cautiously optimistic, I guess? Kind of surprised that of all his work that was the one to get a TV adaptation ; it seems like they're picking the most difficult of any of them.
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Apr 19, 2017 01:45
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I'd go for a long, scrolling wall of text at the start of the 1st episode, setting out the premise. Then for the rest of the series, you just have half the actors pretend they can't see the other half. Easy!
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Apr 19, 2017 05:51
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Xiahou Dun posted:Kind of surprised that of all his work that was the one to get a TV adaptation ; it seems like they're picking the most difficult of any of them. It is pretty much the only work of his you can adapt without a huge budget, so it makes perfect sense in that way.
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Apr 19, 2017 06:02
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Oh wow that's incredibly exciting! I always imagined if they adapted it they'd play with focus a lot. Not conspicuously blurring out the other city, but just shooting it so that only certain stuff is in focus. However they do it, they can't just have the actors pretending. The viewers need to experience the world like a local does, and fully get used to it, so that the eventual breaches manage to be really shocking. If they go all out with the premise it could look really cool and the visuals could add a lot to the story. If they gently caress it up it could be really terrible. But no sense dwelling on that, China Mieville is getting an adaptation! That's awesome! Thinking about it, I'm actually most excited to see how they portray Ul Qoma. More totalitarian, but more prosperous, Soviet backed, was it explicitly Muslim? It's been a while since I read the book, but it gave my that vibe at least. That's a city I want to see. Especially in contrast with run down but Western oriented Beszel. I'll probably enjoy it even if they skimp out on it, but really characterizing those two cities is possibly the most important thing to make a good adaptation (maybe after finding a way to present un-seeing in an immersive way). Eiba fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 06:44
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Didn't some Chicago theatre do a TC&TC adaptation a while back? Really wish I'd gotten to see it.
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Apr 19, 2017 09:54
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Didn't some Chicago theatre do a TC&TC adaptation a while back? Really wish I'd gotten to see it. Yeah, and another Chicago theatre recently did a production of Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds which looked amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73j1qdiE3GU Wish I could have seen both of them :\
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Apr 19, 2017 10:07
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I think TC&TC is going to be the easiest of his popular novels to convert to screen, other than maybe Kraken (which could get the Swift and Norell treatment). I can't wait to see some of the crowd shots of the two groups of people intermingling but not acknowledging each other. Or going through an embassy checkpoint and flipping the center of focus of a place we just walked through. There are so many delightful opportunities to see something fresh with this.
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Apr 19, 2017 16:27
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I cannot wait for this show. Now, a full movie of The Scar, that would be something special.... Anyway, my wife refuses to read Mieville's stuff because it reminds her too much of her psych patients. For instance, I was explaining TC&TC's unseeing to her, and apparently it's veeeeery similar to certain coping strategies taught to people suffering from shizophrenia. Certainly adds a new dimension to Mieville's work...
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Apr 20, 2017 11:59
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