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FuriousThird posted:You know I didn't want to like this guy after reading Perdido Street Station. It had a completely unsatisfying ending and Mieville goes waaaay out of his way to use the most obscure and cryptic phrasings possible. It was fun at first because it reminded me of stopping every ten minutes to check a dictionary while trying to read Tolkien as a child, but that was an issue of time and localization. If you didn't like the ending of PSS you probably wouldn't like the endings of The Scar or Iron Council either, but I personally loved them. Steer away from Haruki Murakami too.
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May 24, 2009 03:00
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SaviourX posted:Except that I would say that China has about 1000x times the imagination and excitement of Murikami. gently caress that guy. That comparison is like getting pissed off at Hemmingway for not writing about Space Marines. I'm 4th in line for City at the library.
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May 29, 2009 04:24
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I just got The City and The City from the library - the hardback had a waiting list but luckily nobody seemed interested in the audiobook. Really enjoying it so far, but maybe that's because it kept me entertained through two hours of stripping wallpaper this morning  For anyone interested, the reader is pretty good; not amazing, but not bad either. Maybe I'm just not noticing it as much since it's spoken, but does it seem like he's toned down his prose to anyone else? Would love to hear how he handled those nerd questions at the Q&A.
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Jun 21, 2009 17:54
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thecallahan posted:Thanks to the anticipation thread I got to this one and I wanted to let everyone know Perdido Street Station is free right now for Kindle. I'm not sure if it's a special or not but this is the perfect opportunity to jump into this author's work for the first time. Cool, I've got (and have read) PSS in paperback and don't even own a Kindle, but would like to get one in the near future. Will use this as a test-drive for the Kindle app on my iPod. Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Oct 22, 2009 |
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Oct 22, 2009 23:34
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Che Delilas posted:It's not just that I don't like him, it's that I can't identify with him on any level. The animal cruelty thing was just an example. It's not just him either, I can't form a connection to any character so far, and I need to be able to do that to be interested in a story. I've enjoyed the hell out of some pretty dark books, but there was always at least one character in the story that I was really vested in. You probably won't like anything by Mieville then, he writes pretty much transparent protagonists for the narrative to focus around, rather than flesh-and-blood people you can actually relate to. Iron Council might be an exception to this but it's been a long time since I've read it.
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Apr 11, 2010 22:58
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meanolmrcloud posted:Question though, are all his books so sparse in prose? I've gotten a sense it's his imagination thats won him some praise, but the story telling is rather straight forward. Yeah, he actually gets a lot of criticism around here for his rather baroque prose (which I like) in the Bas-Lag books. TC&TC is written as a sort of hardboiled detective story so he switched his writing style to something more in line with that genre.
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Apr 12, 2010 13:19
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Hedrigall posted:Kraken reviews The first one sorta sucks and is a bit spoiler-y, the second and third are good. The second one focuses a bit more on Mieville himself (I didn't know he wrote PSS while working on his doctorate), the third is pretty much all book-centric.
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Apr 24, 2010 04:20
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I think I'm going to be at the Nebula book-signing thingie in Cocoa Beach tomorrow (it also coincides with a shuttle launch, so the two are probably going to be enough to drag me the two hours each way), which Mieville will be at. Anyone have a quick question they'd like me to try asking him?
Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 22:37 on May 13, 2010 |
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May 13, 2010 22:12
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Hedrigall posted:Ask him something about his sci-fi book I would of, but didn't really get the chance. He showed up almost an hour and a half late, after almost everyone had left. I'd gone out to my car to grab my film camera (and deposited the unsigned "The Scar"  ), when I got back he was there and looking a bit rushed, trying to talk with a group of middle/high school aged girls and the Barnes and Noble people who were coordinating the thing at the same time. I did get to overhear a funny quote: they B&N people were I guess trying to get him a room to give some kind of talk/lecture, and they said it was going to be kind of small, because Kevin J. Anderson/Brian Herbert were going to have the big room. China said something like "Well, it'd be lovely if I got Kevin J. Anderson amounts of people..."I did get him to pose for a picture, I'll develop/scan it this weekend and post it if it came out. I said "just act natural" and he reverted to his author photo pose. You know the one. It was really small/intimate overall though, I'd guess maybe 50 fans there (for like 15 authors) tops. Joe Haldeman seemed kinda sad, his wife was really nice though. John Scalzi was witty and quite personable. Edit: hell yeah, picture came out. Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 04:55 on May 15, 2010 |
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May 15, 2010 03:20
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Eh, didn't come out as sharp as I thought, but looks okay small:
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May 15, 2010 22:02
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Turpitude posted:I really like King Rat and it's a fast read, I highly recommend it as a starter Mieville book before diving into Bas Lag. Un Lun Dun more so, but King Rat is fun too. The book by the same title by James Clavell is also a pretty good read, albeit sans anything supernatural (it's about POW's in Singapore during WW2).
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Jun 3, 2010 06:12
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Levitate posted:I just started reading Perdido Street Station this weekend. It seems like a lot of the beginning of the book is just world building for the city and world he has created, is that about right? In fact it seems like most of the book will really be just about this weird world he's created and the stuff that goes on in it, rather than having a big plot idea driving the whole thing. Then again I haven't gotten to whatever this giant moth monster actually does yet The city really is a character unto itself in PSS. The plot takes a while to get moving and still meanders around with some less-than-essential subplots; there's definitely some stuff that could have been cut but I guess Mieville has a pretty generous editor. I still really enjoyed the book, but I don't get all huffy if other people say they didn't.
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Jun 28, 2010 16:00
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Just picked up Kraken at the library, glad I got on that waiting list early!
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Jul 17, 2010 19:46
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Neurosis posted:I've just started reading both Perdido Street Station and The City & The City. The latter seems much better written, even if the beginning is a little dry. But, my God, does Perdido's prose get more tolerable? Right now I'm reading purely because the setting seems like an interesting hybrid of magic and technology (which I see in my mind's eye as being similar to the cinematics of Thief: The Dark Project, actually), but the prose is really pretty average. There are too many moments that feel like an amateur and not terribly intelligent writer wrote it - "and (...) and (...) and (...)", "Or... or... or...", "He pushed it open with his bum". It's taking me out of enjoying the story and setting. The City does give me hope because the prose is very clean, having said that. Nope, it doesn't. IIRC The Scar is a lot better though. I actually started Kraken last night and his writing style there is a bit annoying too. It started out sounding almost like a YA novel, and I'm still not sure I like what it's settled in to.
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Jul 20, 2010 12:39
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Nevermind, got to the part where the two guys come out of the box and kidnap him and I'm loving it now.
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Jul 20, 2010 16:47
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nixar55 posted:I went to China's author spotlight panel at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend. Room was packed. He read a short story about a space elevator that will be appearing somewhere soon. He talked about how Kraken was his "shaggy dog" story and just about how embarrassing it is when two apocalypses show up at the same time. He especially enjoyed writing Collingswood. (And I liked her character a lot, too.) The language of the book overall was a bit tough to decipher sometimes, but you can tell he was having fun. It was a funny book in places. His publicist made his editor, who was moderating the panel, mention this write-up on the front page of the NY Times Arts section: Yeah, she's had some really great lines so far. Goss has been my favorite though; his dialog will have me laughing out loud while at the same time having an "oh gently caress what is he about to do" feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's also been interesting reading the chapters with Leon's Ditto on the brooding in pictures/actual persona thing. He was being his normal self and I asked him if he minded me taking a picture, he said sure, do you want me to do anything, so I said act natural. So he threw on his brood-face 
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Jul 29, 2010 03:37
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SaviourX posted:Oh you have no idea.  Much love for Goss and Subby.
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Aug 11, 2010 03:24
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SaviourX posted:Fuckin' A, half-birthday present here I come! Day after my birthday 
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Nov 13, 2010 14:48
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1294028 posted:If I'm a marxist yet dislike most fantasy/sci-fi books, is reading Mieville worth it? Probably, although IC will be of the most interest to you. He tends to break with a lot of familiar genre tropes, so I mean it's not like his books are filled with wise, pointy-eared elves or anything.
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Nov 14, 2010 01:21
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Paragon8 posted:For some reason I'd always pictured China Mievelle as some overweight lesbian feminist writer which scared me away from the books because I thought they'd be all Anne Rice. Nope, he's this guy: China Miéville by ethics_gradient, on Flickr
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Mar 5, 2011 19:45
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I pre-ordered Embassytown, can't remember the last time I did that with any book/author. Also, sharing the TC&TC love. Kraken was decent but not amazing, but I'm fine with Mieville not writing Bas-Lag books because I enjoy his other stuff so much.
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Mar 25, 2011 16:01
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Noricae posted:Do you have any more info/a link for this? I'm curious as to which cities. Looks like New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Seattle, and Portland. I'm thinking about a roadtrip up the northeast this summer, so I may go see him if it's not out of my way.
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Apr 3, 2011 17:59
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ShutteredIn posted:When I saw him speak last year there were tons of nerds asking the same Bas-Lag questions, etc etc. In this big crowd there was one little kid there that said Un Lun Dun was his favorite book. China took about 5 minutes out of his Q&A to talk to the kid about the book and his favorite parts, gave him recommendations on other kids books he likes and ask him what kind of stories he likes to write. Classy dude. Yeah, I met him briefly at the Nebulas last year and he was all about the tween/teenage girls that showed up to ask him questions (n a non-creepy way.)
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Apr 5, 2011 11:37
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tirinal posted:Gods, I hate you all. This is what being an EU/Aussie gamer must be like. +1. On the plus side, it motivated me to plow through what I was currently reading (and not really enjoying, but whatever, finished!) just so I could clear the decks for new Mieville.
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May 7, 2011 22:06
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Hedrigall posted:Ursula K. Le Guin: Whoa, did he actually write an interesting protagonist this time?!
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May 8, 2011 12:25
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Beige posted:Every now and then I like to check out China's blog, but I feel that most of it goes right over my head. In some posts he links to various articles, but some (for example, 11th-13th May) simply don't make sense to me. Is there some intellectual message that I'm missing or is it just randomness? I'm really curious where he gets his source material for the stuff he posts on his blog. Like does he spend X minutes (hours?) a day trawling through old out-of-copyright books for illustrations to cryptically caption, is he part of some tumblr Illuminati undernet that gives him a steady stream of stuff to post, or what?
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May 13, 2011 22:40
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nixar55 posted:Mostly the latter, from what I understand. Some of the pictures he takes himself, others are things people send to him. Some of the illustrations are his own, too. I'll have to send him some stuff. The place where I worked in college basically made a huge grant-funded project out of going through old out of copyright material (mostly that line-art type stuff that he frequently posts) and scanning/converting it to clipart for free educational use. How do you send something to him?
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May 14, 2011 03:37
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I just finished it (got my pre-ordered copy in the mail yesterday afternoon). Still digesting it, but I feel like I can never get it all with an individual Mieville book: with Embassytown it seemed like he was very interested in exploring language and semiotics, but the actual story he told it with was almost incidental. On first reading, it seems like there are a lot of things he handwaves away so that he can set things up the way he wants, like [END OF THE BOOK] it not being "polite" to ask if Hosts see non-ambassadors as people or what, or the reveal about 3/4 of the way through that Embassytown is actually a strategic linchpin for future exploration. They both work in that they allow the story to continue on its path, but it's sloppy; the former is overly convenient and doesn't seem terribly logical, the latter really gets no foreshadowing and seems like he's stacking the deck so that Event B can happen after Event A. I mean, that's what writers do, but when it's done well it leaves you nodding and going "ah, of course" rather than frowning and muttering "ummm?". I know, my verisimilitude  The jacket kind of teases with the failing marriage thing, but it's barely a subplot and you wind up with a typical plot-fulcrum of a protagonist. I feel like he did a better job with Avice than he has in the past, but there still wasn't a great deal of character growth or internal conflict. It seems like Mieville was doing some odd things with diction (not just his usually verbose word choice, which I love), but I can't quite put my finger on it. I noticed fewer commas than there should have been, and some odd phrasing. It's definitely a book I'll come back to, and I didn't dislike it, but it's probably neck-and-neck with Kraken for my least favorite of his books (which means it's still pretty good, and breathtakingly imaginative). systran posted:Embassytown is sooo good, I'm like 80% through and I started reading it like twelve hours ago (and I had work all day today). I can't stop reading it... I majored in linguistics though so I'll probably be more into this than most readers. The writing is completely solid though... I'll make a longer wall of text post once I finish. I thought you'd be particularly excited about it, interested to hear your thoughts on it!
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May 18, 2011 23:39
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Umiapik posted:I thought the bit at the end was great! It puts Issac in an impossible situation with no 'right' answer: does he admit the essential justice in Yagharek's punishment and interfere no further in the situation, or does he close his eyes to the darker side of Yagharek's character, say "gently caress it, this guy's my buddy now" and carry on regardless? Whatever option he chooses, he's going to hurt somebody dreadfully. Yeah, I though the ending was really well done too. But then again, I like a good non-happy ending.
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Jul 16, 2011 02:14
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Yanno, that's weird. I felt the same way about TC&TC, just couldn't get into it. I seem to remember the first half of Embassytown meandering a little bit too much, but don't have a copy handy to give it a glance and see if that memory holds up. At least he isn't saying 'puissance' every other page. I love TC&TC, love languages/linguistics, enjoy sci-fi, and didn't really care much for Embassytown. 
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Aug 31, 2011 01:29
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Mrs. Badcrumble posted:Christ, it'll be a crime if ADWD beats Embassytown. Not that I think ADWD deserves to win (it doesn't), but I'd be kinda disappointed if Embassytown did. It wasn't bad, but there's no way it was the best sci-fi/fantasy book that came out last year. I don't think I actually read any other brand new speculative fiction books last year, I'm just saying I'd hope there were better choices. Iacen posted:That said, I'm still curious about his other books. If you keep in mind that my favorite Miéville is PSS and The Scar, how would you say Embassytown and TC&TC holds up? Much different or what? They're both different, in their own ways. Personally, TC&TC is my #2 Mieville book after The Scar, but it's probably the least "weird" and his usual rumbustious prose (which I usually like) is absent. I think I'd probably like Iron Council more if I read it again, but sadly my copy is in a box at my parents house on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. I wasn't particularly crazy about Kraken and I don't think many other people were either, so I wouldn't be dissuaded by that. Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 11, 2012 |
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Apr 11, 2012 15:17
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shrike82 posted:What... Penny Arcade is terrible, news at 11. Mrs. Badcrumble posted:I love the Bas-Lag books, but I'm perfectly happy with ending them on Iron Council and perfectly happy if China never writes another one. If and when he does, I'm sure it'll be really cool, but I don't really want to see something actually set in New Crobuzon after the events of Iron Council, nor do I want to hear about New Crobuzon. That's how I feel about it too. I'm of two minds; while a lot of the stuff he mentions or teases at leaves me wanting more, a part of me prefers to just let my imagination dwell on it. I haven't really enjoyed anything of his a whole lot since TC&TC, but I'd be surprised if he never wrote something I really liked again.
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May 14, 2012 13:38
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To my surprise, I think Railsea is probably in my top three Mieville books. Really enjoyable, and I put it away in two sessions reading on my computer (because I borrowed the ebook from my library, and Adobe Digital Editions couldn't be more convoluted to try and read on any of my mobile devices).
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Oct 10, 2012 04:02
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I just started Un Lun Dun and it is just wall-to-wall whimsy. Enjoying it so far, wish he'd been writing when I was YA age.
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Jan 25, 2015 14:27
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