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The City & The City was my first of his books and I feel like I should read it again once I drag myself through the end of Iron Council. So far his shorter stories and nonfiction are paced in a way that doesn't leave me climbing walls.
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Mar 21, 2018 00:35
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There is a trailer out for The City and the city: https://youtu.be/h9Ds23M9-RE
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Mar 28, 2018 23:37
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Oasx posted:There is a trailer out for The City and the city: https://youtu.be/h9Ds23M9-RE I still can't believe a China Mieville work is getting a TV adaptation, but The City and the City is the most plausible one to adapt I guess.
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Mar 29, 2018 02:17
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Eiba posted:That... looks pretty good. The unseeing effect seems pretty decent, and that was my biggest worry. Given the recent resounding success of big budget fantasy productions I’m a little surprised it wasn’t perdido street station honestly
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Mar 29, 2018 02:36
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I just want to see railsea made in the style of mad max fury road.
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Mar 29, 2018 02:46
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If they ever make Perdido Street Station I maintain that the best Isaac would be Chiwetel Ejiofor if he prepares for the role by going on an all-cake diet for a year or so
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Mar 29, 2018 02:55
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Wendell Pierce. What’s wrong with you.
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Mar 29, 2018 03:10
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andrew smash posted:Wendell Pierce. What’s wrong with you. If he can do the accent then ok!
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Mar 29, 2018 03:25
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hannibal burress
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Mar 29, 2018 03:48
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andrew smash posted:Wendell Pierce. What’s wrong with you. 
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Mar 29, 2018 15:45
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Also there’s no required accent because new crobuzon is not real so I demand Bunk Isaac
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Apr 2, 2018 00:40
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scary ghost dog posted:hannibal burress
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Apr 2, 2018 06:26
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 Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin screen test.
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Apr 2, 2018 06:39
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China scored a Guggenheim fellowship for fiction. New novel in the works, pretty please? https://twitter.com/effjayem/status/981912772865921024
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Apr 6, 2018 00:50
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The first episode of The city and the city aired on BBC2 last night, it was pretty good!
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Apr 7, 2018 08:55
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Oasx posted:The first episode of The city and the city aired on BBC2 last night, it was pretty good! After watching the first episode I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was and how it nailed the aesthetic of Besźel (at least how I pictured it in the book). I was even more surprised at how many Liverpudlian locations I spotted and at one point saw a building that I used to live in as a student.
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Apr 8, 2018 17:59
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Doesn't look like there's a TVIV thread for it, but refresh my memory with "The City and the City". spoilers for the show...The wife storyline, artifact smuggling and evil AmeriCorp, those were entirely show creations right? Am I recalling correctly that the book twist was that: 1. Breach isn't some otherworldly force, but they do have some weird future-guns/tech. 2. There's no magic, people are just trained to not see the 2 cities and Breach just walks differently in a way that both cities don't see them. 3. Orsiney isn't real and the author murders the girl because she was going to spill that it isn't real and ruin him. Right? The whole series was pretty good, they could have done more to make Breach otherworldly, rather that just spoiling in the first episode that they're people in suits. Also, not sure I was a fan of the new storyline with the American corporation that just sort of puttered out. The one line that really bugged me was the whole thing where the Cities have to be kept separate because they "hate" each other (not really a spoiler, its in the first episode), but I suppose for TV you can't just leave the reason for the two cities being separate vague and mysterious like the book.
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Apr 8, 2018 22:18
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I haven't watched TC & TC adaptation yet, but I'm watching my way through "Counterpart" on Starz and it gives me a real TC & TC vibe. Definitely check it out if you need more of a similar fix!
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Apr 9, 2018 05:01
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Snuffman posted:The wife storyline, artifact smuggling and evil AmeriCorp, those were entirely show creations right? Am I recalling correctly that the book twist was that: 1. Correct, Breach is a mundane organization that, while very adept at surveillance, probably rely more on their reputation than they'd like to admit. I think some of them actually get shot up pretty bad near the end of the book, so they're far from all powerful. I believe their tech was also pretty contemporary but I might be wrong. The agency itself was largely made up of individuals who had breached the two cities themselves. 2. Yeah, no magic there, just mental/social conditioning. 3. I think Orciny's existence was left vague? The fact is, there were weird, maybe-supernatural-but-otherwise-useless artifacts being dug up and sold to foreign companies by corrupt politicians and who knows where they come from. But yes, the actual murder was just committed by an angry academic, not some force from a third, secret city. Mordja fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Apr 10, 2018 |
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Apr 10, 2018 17:54
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I'm pretty sure the corporation was in the book as well.
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Apr 11, 2018 12:09
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Just finished Last Days of New Paris, I enjoyed it a lot, though it felt very pulpy and almost goofy in some parts. So I whanna know, is there anything of his that's a bit less nuanced and a bit more.. I dunno. Some scenes felt like they were handled with a rapier when I wanted to see a sledgehammer, if that makes sense.
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Apr 13, 2018 00:50
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Sandwolf posted:Just finished Last Days of New Paris, I enjoyed it a lot, though it felt very pulpy and almost goofy in some parts. So I whanna know, is there anything of his that's a bit less nuanced and a bit more.. I dunno. Some scenes felt like they were handled with a rapier when I wanted to see a sledgehammer, if that makes sense. Perdido Street Station is kind of a big flashy action movie behind the flowery prose. Also Kraken.
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Apr 13, 2018 02:01
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Uhh can I introduce you to any parts of anything where he talks about class issues? Like as someone who literally has his PhD monograph and agrees with him politically, chunks of Iron Council and Looking for Jake are a bit much. I really want to like Iron Council but my main reaction has always been calm down. Please. No. Stop. You’re being a bit much.
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Apr 13, 2018 06:26
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Xiahou Dun posted:Uhh can I introduce you to any parts of anything where he talks about class issues? I liked IC since it exemplified the naivety of socialists/marxists. It wasn’t too much, but done rather well. I also liked how the Toro character ended up with doing revolution for selfish goals, which btw has historical precedence. The radicalization of the replacement Toro was also good. All in all, he portrays how revolutions fail.
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Apr 13, 2018 14:32
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Nah it was too much
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Apr 13, 2018 15:02
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mitochondritom posted:After watching the first episode I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was and how it nailed the aesthetic of Besźel (at least how I pictured it in the book). I was even more surprised at how many Liverpudlian locations I spotted and at one point saw a building that I used to live in as a student. I was tickled by them leaving in a Merseytravel bus stop in the first wide shot of
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Apr 13, 2018 22:16
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Juice Packets posted:I was tickled by them leaving in a Merseytravel bus stop in the first wide shot of My girlfriend is from Manchester and she spotted a bunch of stuff from there. In particular she noticed somewhere close to Deansgate. We finished watching it last night and while I enjoyed it, I think it deviated pretty heavily from the book (Borlu's wife being the main one). Both myself and my partner didn't really enjoy the flash backs with his wife. Neither of us understood why he was so into her, when she seemingly gave zero shits about him. Almost to the point of her using him. In particular the scene where she moves into his apartment and just dumps her poo poo down, immediately gets him making coffee and is flippant, whereas it is a massive deal for him. If I recall correctly, in the novel Borlu has a girlfriend (maybe 2?) who he is sort of on-and-off seeing and doesn't have much baggage. Other than that, I thought it was really well done. I enjoyed the contrast of the cities and even thought changing Ghatt into a female character worked well. I imagine it didn't do very well with people who weren't familiar with the book. It didn't do nearly enough to explain how Beszel, Ul-Qooma and breach worked until Corwi flipped him between cities, the girl with the toy in episode one wasn't explicit enough I think.
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Apr 14, 2018 10:27
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Just started Kraken and really really good so far. Not what I was expecting. I have also done work in the collections of the Natural History Museum and so have a really strong sense of place, which might be helping me appreciate this book.
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May 9, 2018 05:13
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Bilirubin posted:Just started Kraken and really really good so far. Not what I was expecting. I have also done work in the collections of the Natural History Museum and so have a really strong sense of place, which might be helping me appreciate this book. OK. The world is really interesting, but Billy (and Marg to a lesser extent) is quite the Mary Sue. Its ruining an otherwise fun read Perhaps it is underscoring John Constantine's old ultimate secret of magic: "Any oval office can do it"
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May 22, 2018 06:12
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Bilirubin posted:OK. The world is really interesting, but Billy (and Marg to a lesser extent) is quite the Mary Sue. Its ruining an otherwise fun read Kraken was my introduction to Mieville and I read it after a visit to the NHM (including the spirit jar tour) and so I found the whole thing to be really engaging and fun. It felt like a better take on Harry Potter, if that makes sense. I should re-read it sometime because a lot of the latter half is getting foggy with regards to what happens. I think Kraken was the Mieville book where he got stuck in a cycle of using the word "clot". Sometimes it felt like he had a bet with someone on how many times he could slip it in there.
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May 22, 2018 07:27
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mitochondritom posted:Kraken was my introduction to Mieville and I read it after a visit to the NHM (including the spirit jar tour) and so I found the whole thing to be really engaging and fun. It felt like a better take on Harry Potter, if that makes sense. I should re-read it sometime because a lot of the latter half is getting foggy with regards to what happens. I work in the natural sciences and have spent time in the collections at the NHM (edit: which I mentioned already and completely forgot oops) so yeah, that was immediately engaging. Not sure all of the technicians would immediately master the arts macabre (muahahaha) quite that quickly. Or ever. And no research staff only have masters degrees. But still, its a great fun summer read and was perfect for my 4 hour flights
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May 22, 2018 14:29
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I enjoyed Kraken, and it had some great scenes and creatures and bits of humour. But the core urban fantasy idea of "another world hiding in plain sight" always seems to wear thin pretty quickly for me. Maybe it'd itch my brain less if I lived in a city too.
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May 24, 2018 04:45
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Xiahou Dun posted:Uhh can I introduce you to any parts of anything where he talks about class issues? Rail companies ruins the world, then their inbred descendants base their society on a prophecy that someday someone will come and pay their debt
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May 24, 2018 18:16
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Anyone watch the full TC&TC miniseries? I've heard mixed things.
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May 24, 2018 21:58
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Mordja posted:Anyone watch the full TC&TC miniseries? I've heard mixed things. I liked it, although I kind of lost track of what was going on and am not really too sure exactly how it ended. The camera tricks for separating the cities were pretty neat.
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May 25, 2018 05:23
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Mordja posted:Anyone watch the full TC&TC miniseries? I've heard mixed things. I really enjoyed it, my partner did (both read TC&TC) as did a guy I know at work (non Mieville reader, no experience with TC&TC). It differs sufficiently from the book that you aren't 2 steps ahead and I loved the way they shot the cities (Liverpool and Manchester in the UK).
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May 25, 2018 07:44
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I thought the series was good, though it could perhaps have benefited from being an episode or two longer in order to flesh out the two cities.
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May 25, 2018 10:22
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I really enjoyed it, and was impressed by the way they subtly expanded on certain roles, characters and themes in the book to create a product that was in some ways better than the book. On the other hand, I was ultimately disappointed by some of the changes they made to the implementation of the plot. On the whole it's an exceedingly good adaptation and I recommend it.
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May 26, 2018 12:15
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Finished Kraken finally. Loved the twists at the climax. I mean Billy was still a little too good at doing stuff but in the end it was a fun story and I hope some of these characters get used again in future books. The FSRC is a concept that should be explored further IMO
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May 28, 2018 00:57
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I wasn’t really a fan of Kraken. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really bring anything new to the table like a lot of his other works did for me. Goss and Subby were Croup and Vandemar from Neverwhere. To a T.
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May 30, 2018 04:39
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