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Just finished New Paris- it was fun, with some great monsters- particularly, uh, the last one. It didn't grab me in the same way that Scar or Embassytown did, but then, I'm not overly familiar with Surrealism. (Embassytown is simply wonderful...) I remember reading that Mieville inte3nds to write one book in every genre, although I get the feeling he is simply making his own genre: Confused Person Wanders Around Weird City in the Company of Someone Who Is Slightly Less Confused, And The True Enemy is Capitalism.
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Sep 2, 2016 03:32
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Hedrigall posted:Something Mieville does exceptionally well is "here's a category of fantastical things, but I'm only going to tell you just a few examples". For example, the playing cards in that short story, or the creatures of Bas-Lag, or books in Armada's library in The Scar, or the heroes of Dial H... And so many other little lists and groups of things that make for exceptional worldbuilding. He leaves you wanting so much more, and gives the impression of an enormous world beyond the story. One of the reasons I love Mieville so much Aagh. That bit in Scar where Silas is talking about the things he's seen in the Gengris, and he mentions... what was it... limb farms, salp vats, skin libraries and simply "the music." Just brilliant. Come to think of it, is it possible that this idea is at the core of Language in Embassytown? Us humans can't help but take a few scraps of names from these imaginary sets and have our imaginations start piecing together a world, while our poor hypothetical Ariekes simply never could...
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Sep 21, 2016 08:25
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Just finished Census Taker. It was an interesting exploration of childhood memory & perception, and I loved the little hints about thd shape of the world; but I do feel it wouldn't have lost much if it had been written as a short story. Seconding Cardiac's comment- it would be nice to see another full novel from Mieville.
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Sep 29, 2016 10:09
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I can recommend Shaun Tan. Mostly he illustrates kids' books, but reading them recently I was struck by how "Mieville" they felt-- every single page in The Arrival, for instance, feels like an illustration from the mythical next Bas Lag book. Seriously, google Shaun Tan.
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Jan 24, 2017 07:35
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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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Interesting! I wonder how long it takes a production to go from filming to airing... Anyway, I just finished a re-read of Kraken, and I almost feel like it would work better as a series of little 5-minute tv episodes. (Or- heresy!- some kind of trading card game......) Tiny filmed stories about the magic ipod or the haunted teleporter or the embassy to the sea or whatever. There's so much fun stuff in Kraken- but even Mieville evetually runs out of ways to say "it feels like the end of the world is getting close and ppl feel bad."
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Apr 27, 2017 12:47
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I recall seeing an interview with Mieville where he said "dude, this is my apotheosis" in answer to a question about great big monsters showing up in a book about socialism and railways, which is possibly the most Mieville thing ever.
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Oct 31, 2017 10:50
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I first read PSS while eating a huge spicy slimy Portuguese chicken burger. Needless to say I finished the book but not the burger.
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Oct 31, 2017 21:15
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Embassytown has a wonderful ending, I think. But then I really love that book. I've re-read Scar quite a few times, and IC, but I can never seem to make it through PSS again...
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Nov 3, 2017 11:17
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Yeah, I think the "message" of Railsea is actually my favourite of all the books. Plus, thanks to Mieville's love of pulp, we as the reader get a "you maniacs, you blew it up! drat you!" moment, even if the actual protagonist doesn't.
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Nov 27, 2017 23:58
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I've got no idea what mid 90's big pants rave culture is, but your phrasing conjured up a pretty magical mental image of it
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Dec 17, 2017 03:30
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Help, I can't stop watching these On another note, the Brucolac's rather drawn-out execution in Scar is exactly what it feels like when you get sunburned in Australia and try to go outside the following day.
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Jan 19, 2018 23:28
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China uses the phrase "stained with his emissions" to describe the state of the deck after the Brucolac's spent all day melting all over it, which has always stuck in my head as a uniquely hideous bit of phrasing even by Mievillian standards.
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Jan 20, 2018 09:08
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Just finished re reading Railsea. It's just so much fun, and those last few chapters come together beautifully. Although now i can't stop giggling at the idea of "Railsea, but with trampolines instead of rails."
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Feb 16, 2018 12:46
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Yeah, I felt that the most fun part of TC&C was gradually uncovering the idea that Breach are not actually magical at all, and that the spooky stuff is just in the onlookers' heads.
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Feb 24, 2018 10:37
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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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Goss' line about Happy Kites always makes me giggle though. Anyway, I've caught the first episode of TC&TC. The palette differences between the two cities are really pleasing. (And apparently I've been pronouncing Beszel incorrectly this whole time...)
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Jun 4, 2018 05:38
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Cool, the thread's moving again! I still remember the first time I read a Mieville novel. I was eating a really greasy chili chicken burger while reading Perdido Street Station. I did not finish the burger.
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Feb 28, 2019 08:39
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Quandary posted:Embassytown was the best book he's written so I want more like that. Absolutely. I adore Embassytown, except for that one line about an alien with a mouth that is "a snaggle-toothed ventricle," a phrase that just ruins my day every time I read it. Uggh. Microcline posted:What's I find most interesting about this is that while Mieville has talked about "what if fantasy were inspired by Gormenghast instead of Lord of the Rings", his writing fits much more to Tolkien's idea of "the second world" than Peake's more Shakespearean style of a set and players in service of themes. (Tolkien gets more of a pass here than his imitators because his goal wasn't to create an authoritative text on a world but to create a modern Beowulf, i.e. it's less about the battles and more about the songs we sing about them) The two authors I enjoy most are Tolkien and Mieville; it's hard not to feel conflicted... From memory, Mieville views Tolkien's secondary-world-creation as an obsessive retreat from the horrors of the real world. Which seems like an unfair characterization of a dude who was orphaned at age 11 and watched all his friends get red-misted in the trenches of ww1. But yeah, both authors are obsessive world-builders, and Peake is a very different beast altogether... It's interesting to look at how the two authors handle their battle scenes. Mieville does a great job mixing his "war is hell" in with his "monster battles are super cool," while Tolkien's actual experience of industrialised warfare is best depicted, I suspect, in those long chapters of Frodo wandering delirious and exhausted and terrified through the treeless smoking wastelands of Mordor.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:39
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Clot, drool, brute, splay, scab. Mieville loves his yucky words. He describes mutant cactacae as "corticled with excrescence" (ew). One of his most ridiculous sentences is in Kraken, where he writes "their evil magic got stronger" as "their bad knacks waxed." mitochondritom posted:Really disliked the Goss and Stubby parts though. Can't quite put my finger on why. Overall I thought it was like a better "American Gods". Yyyyyeah, I know exactly what you mean. That said, the protective mp3 player deserves a book of its own. Hedrigall posted:He only ever uses it to describe the grindylow magic I once had a dream about a movie version of The Scar that opened with a black screen and Tanner saying the line "their science ain't ours," and it was so awesome that I woke up. I really want to see that non-existent movie, dammit.
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May 13, 2019 08:25
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Are they the ones literally described as "fighting for gold and experience"? Such a great line.
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May 13, 2019 14:13
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My biggest complaint with PSS is that it has fight scenes that you just itch to tell people about, only you can't without sounding completely insane. The handlinger fight-!! The sunspear!!-!!-!!!! (The factory, clotted with puissance, drooled brute pugnacity into the water)
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May 13, 2019 22:19
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Grand Prize Winner posted:ah, I stopped for the night at Yag's italic interlude Doooo iiiiiiiit! It's even appropriate to the story. The Remakers excuse their bio-sadism with a lot of waffle about law and justice. Yag implies to Isaac that he lost his wings for some weird alien bird crime that humans can't understand. Fancy talking is the enemy! A dumbified Construct Council speech would be amazing.
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May 14, 2019 03:43
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Quandary posted:Remaking is legit one of the most hosed up things in any novels I've read and sets a horrifying stage for all of the Bas Lag books. The scene with the remade whore house in PSS is horrifying To be honest: I haven't actually re-read PSS in about ten years because of that scene; there's some stuff I don't necessarily want in my head. It really is the most relentlessly grim drat book.
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May 14, 2019 04:59
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The only restraint in PSS is the metal one attaching you to a surgical bed in the Remaking factory.
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May 15, 2019 04:12
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This thread is a glittering panorama of things I never, ever want to put into google image search
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May 17, 2019 01:51
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A film version of the Armada vs Morning Walker et al battle would be just lovely.
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May 17, 2019 04:45
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Quandary posted:I want to watch The Scar filmed and created in the same style as Mad Max Fury Road "I live! I die! I live again!" would work as a quote for Hedrigall and the Brucolac, come to think of it.
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May 17, 2019 04:47
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Perhaps The Scar is all about the voyage, not the destination. (Ugh.)
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May 20, 2019 04:28
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The Scar's plot sort of resembles a bar of soap in a bath. Sometimes it shoots dramatically about; most of the time it's lost in uncertainty; and the more you try to grasp some kind of finale, the worse things become.andrew smash posted:It's his best novel by a considerable margin, imo. Oh, agreed. It's also the only Mieville book I've lent out and not had returned. Dammit.
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May 21, 2019 06:50
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If there's one thing that Mieville likes more than describing an integument, it's the word integument. (That and socialism?)
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May 23, 2019 06:52
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pseudanonymous posted:He is like legitimately a socialist. Oh I know, he's awesome. On that note, would it be possible to get hold of his PhD thesis...? YES
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May 23, 2019 12:28
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pseudanonymous posted:When they start talking about Chaverim (hebrew) is from a long lost language in Iron Council is that meant to imply that New Crobuzon is on some distant Earth? Interesting! Proooooobably not, I would think. The original golem story is about a man named Judah Lowe who builds a not-quite-living machine to protect a synagogue. So either the words "golem" "judah" and "chaverim" have survived from the old world, and absolutely nothing else has, OR Mieville is using that little scrap of etymology as another homage to the first golem story. Come to think of it, a story about golems is just about the most Mieville thing possible: golems are simultaneously a pulp nerd monster standby AND the creation of an oppressed minority dreaming of safety.
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Jun 13, 2019 07:41
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Mieville hasn't published anything new in a while. Do we know if he's stopped writing entirely? (Maybe he's spent the lockdown working on the fabled fourth Bas-Lag book!?!) And, given the current state of things, does the thread have any recommendations for Mievillian authors?
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Mar 29, 2021 06:14
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I wonder if Mieville likes "puissant" because it means strange & powerful and sounds a little bit like "pus"? Also, the best line about the grindylow has to be "their science ain't ours." It needs to be the opening line of a trailer for a hypothetical Bas Lag movie, ideally said over a black screen with weird faint noises in the background. Notahippie posted:It probably depends on what you like about Mieville. I don't think there's anybody that blends social commentary/big ideas with the new weird/cosmic horror in quite the same way that he does... That's the problem, isn't it! I used to read a lot of scifi, but Mieville kind of ruined most of it for me. I need my scifi to include cool monsters, angry politics and weird experimental literary nonsense now. Thanks all for the recommendations, though.
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Mar 30, 2021 03:05
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pseudanonymous posted:Well, there is Lovecraft: Come to think of it, the ending of The Scar left me with exactly the same feelings as Lovecraft's thing of "what I saw there, I cannot tell you, lest you go mad! Oh No! It is coming through the window! I dare not describe it!"
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Mar 30, 2021 05:07
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pseudanonymous posted:Oh, I actually really like the end of The Scar. Yeah, I first read it when I was about 17, and was not a fan o that ending. With the intervening... aagh, two decades... it's begun to make a lot more sense.
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Mar 30, 2021 06:37
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FPyat posted:Whatever happened to that history of the Communist Manifesto? Very weird to me that it seemed to be on track for publication then vanished into nothingness. Is this an elaborate Iron Council joke?
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Mar 30, 2021 10:03
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Embassytown is my absolute favourite. Possibly because I am a delicate flower and really don't deal well with the ending of PSS. pseudanonymous posted:A puissant post that might cause a ruction with ersatz outrage violating the lassitudinous bathos the palimpsestic thread usually exhibits, it rather chivvies the bonce in it's lack of elasticity in accepting the alterity of posting about Mieville's sesquipedalian tendencies. This post drools clots of accreted brute pugnacity.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:31
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Just finished a re-read of Embassytown. It's so good. I love how the whole planet is a Geiger-ish biomech nightmare, but the narrator doesn't seem remotely upset by any of it. "They're free and they're ours." Great line.
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Jun 7, 2023 14:37
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