China Miéville/Bas-Lag megathread

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General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I genuinely hope we never get to see any of the mysterious off-stage Bas-Lag stuff like the Torque. Best left imagined, I think, though if anyone could pull it off it'd be Mieville.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2013 04:00

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:27

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

'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!'

# ¿ Mar 9, 2014 18:48

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

It's hilarious and sharp enough that I can forgive the lack of intellectual rigor behind it. :colbert:

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 18:49

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I hate that! That's the only thing China Mieville ever wrote that made me feel smarter than him :spergin:

e: it's still a pretty well written and amusing concept though

# ¿ Jan 15, 2015 03:02

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Dude's not going back to Bas-lag for a long time, if ever. I don't blame him. He did great work there, but it'd be a real waste if he got pigeonholed as that man who writes those books.

# ¿ May 11, 2015 06:42

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Hedrigall posted:

Cover art for the limited edition Three Moments of an Explosion, from Subterranean Press:

drat. Some of the best cover art I've ever seen. Reminds me of Stanley Donwood's work for Radiohead.

edit: OH poo poo it's Dave McKean!!

Goddamn.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2015 23:30

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

andrew smash posted:

Wendell Pierce. What’s wrong with you.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 15:45

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Oasx posted:

I didn't like Kraken either, it seems to be his most divisive work.

I can't stand Kraken because it triggers my compulsive and uncontrollable need to assert that a teleporter is not, under any sane conception of a physical universe, a suicide machine. LOOK ITS JUST HAPPENED AGAINM akgrgjlgfd :unsmigghh:

# ¿ Jun 25, 2018 20:06

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Yeah I have to admit as a joke/clever construct in an urban fantasy book it's pretty good, and it jives with the book's overriding theme about different modes of embodiment.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2018 21:53

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Back, devil! Get thee behind me! I won't be seduced!

# ¿ Jun 25, 2018 22:25

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

andrew smash posted:

I really like everything about the scar for filming except uther. I don't think he even really worked on the page, on the screen what nuance he has will vanish and he will end up a generic "brooding man with dark backstory who owns everyone with a magic sword" figure

He needs to be acted in the broadest possible sense, to reflect his Possible Acting, get Nic Cage or something.

e: I'm a vampire, I'm a vampire, I'm a vampire

# ¿ May 19, 2019 20:59

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Oasx posted:

I've come to appreciate The Scar more, but the ending is still one of the reasons why it's the Bas-Lag book I like the least.

I think it’s about how people are always going to choose the certainty of everyday life over the possibility of revolution and how that bums China out.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2021 14:47

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Written entirely in fraction words this time

# ¿ May 30, 2023 21:49

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Harry Turtledoge :shibe:

# ¿ Jun 3, 2023 02:59

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Low fantasy is when uther doul is an adventurer. High fantasy is when uther doul is part of a knightly order. Science fiction is when uther doul is a cop. Cyberpunk is when uther doul is a corrupt cop. Literary “elevated genre” is when you are married to uther doul. Erotica is when you want uther doul to gently caress you in several possible ways. Literature is when uther doul is a metaphor for men in your life.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2023 04:35

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Mystery is when uther doul is found dead. Horror is when uther doul is found alive. Nonfiction is when uther doul is nowhere to be found.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2023 04:39

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

That's because the human mind doesn't define concept with rules. It creates prototypes, which are just statistical lumps of all the examples of category members you've encountered.

So you know that all birds are birds, but a sparrow is more birdlike than a penguin. All dogs are dogs, but a border collie is more of a dog than a chihuahua. Star Trek is more science fiction than Under the Skin even though both are science fiction. Because they're closer to the prototype.

The rawest prototype-expression of science fiction is probably, like, advertising with a science fiction theme. Just pure signifiers of science fictionality with no content. Or the weird pre-trailers you see at movie theaters where some branded characters jump between different movie genres.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2023 15:12

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:27

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

In my head they look like the Starship Troopers bugs plus a moth. I have aphantasia though so that ain’t worth much

# ¿ Jun 7, 2023 16:45

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > China Miéville/Bas-Lag megathread