|
Oh man, do I ever love Mieville and Bas-Lag. All three are among my favorite fantasy novels. Hey, if anyone ever finds out any info on The City & the City, be sure to come here and post about it, 'kay? There unfortunately has not been much *new* to talk about with regard to Mieville in several years, so I have no particular content for this post. Just, yeah, I enjoy it.
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2008 01:41
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:05 |
|
|
Welp, The City & the City won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel, the preeminent British SF award, making Mieville the first writer to win the award three times (for Perdido, Iron Council, and this). Reviews on Kraken are great (this book looks FUN), he's avoiding getting stuck in one series or genre, he's thoughtful, ambitious, productive, smart, young and healthy. And happy, to all appearances. God, I am looking forward to a couple more decades of novels from this guy.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2010 16:23
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:I hope he's one of those incredibly prolific authors who'll still be writing when he's in his 70s. And I hope there's at least a handful more Bas-Lag novels Oh totally, me too. I love Bas-Lag. But I respect the fact that he's doing other stuff, too, and it's STILL GOOD. And it's great that each Bas-Lag book stands alone, so we're not all furious waiting for the next one to continue the story like certain other authors we all could name.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2010 03:26
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Let's sperg about Bas-Lag books to come I want him to do an utter deconstruction of vampire paranormal romance set in High Cromlech. Or anything else in High Cromlech. Nova Esperium and past and future Bas-Lag books would be great, too. Man, I wonder if the industrializing world presented in the three books so far would ever develop technology along the lines of our "modern" world. Electronics and computing? A novella set during the Malarial Queendom could be cool. Short story of the cactacae and Shankell, with gladiators? I think the Ghosthead sound awesome, of course, but somehow I feel like any actual story set during their rule would be disappointing. He's said he HAS developed lots about Bas-Lag he hasn't put in the books. Also, he does drawings of some of the monsters and races for his own reference, and he's not a terrible artist, as Un Lun Dun showed. I think he's mentioned an interest in a Bas-Lag compendium of the type you're discussing. But High Cromlech always seemed to me like somewhere he'd thought through for Uther Doul's backstory, but kept mysterious in the Scar. edit: Re: a Mieville Space Opera -- I could dig it. and here's another great Kraken review: http://sfreviews.net/mieville_kraken.html onefish fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Apr 30, 2010 |
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2010 17:49
|
|
|
priznat posted:I'm thinking about getting the electronic version of Kraken from amazon when it comes out, I don't have a kindle but I think computer/ipod touch would be fine. Is it released tomorrow for Amazon.co.uk? I can't access the Kindle store there, and my Kindle is registered US.
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2010 19:36
|
|
|
Perdido posted:Crazy! You dug it up. I thought Court of the Air wwas weak, but really, really liked Boneshaker, so hopefully it will work for you, too.
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2010 15:23
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Anyway, for those of you who, like me, adore every single word that that handsome man produces, here's a really good interview with Mr. Miéville: Ah, thanks. Managed to avoid reading the City&City spoilers. Need to actually read that book soon. Rest of it was plenty interesting - he's an impressively self-aware writer. edit: VVV yes, I am glad. onefish fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 13, 2010 |
|
#
¿
May 11, 2010 18:04
|
|
|
Danger posted:Does that mean literally nothing? That quote means literally something completely coherent and sensible. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rumbustious http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nomic
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2010 05:15
|
|
|
I like these covers as pieces of design, but don't know if they really represent his work to me. I really liked the covers for Perdido, The Scar, City & the City, and Kraken. (King Rat and Iron Council were weaker, Un Lun Dun was unmemorable).
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2011 16:52
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:70 pages in. It's loving amazing. Agh. I am so excited. Seems like this might be one I'm going to want to pick up in paper rather than for the Kindle, though... would you say you often have to flip back to earlier points in the book to try and remember or figure something out? That's slightly harder with ebooks.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2011 03:57
|
|
|
Juaguocio posted:I just finished Kraken the other day. It was a lot of fun, though I agree with other posters that some of the characters were a bit weak. Billy never really interested me that much, but oddly enough I came to like Collingswood a lot. She certainly doesn't make it easy for the reader to like her, but I found it very refreshing to have a smart-rear end female character who doesn't take crap from anyone. I liked Collingswood a bunch, too. She really and seriously takes no crap, and not in a "cute" way, but not in a stupid/unbelievable/boring way either. Also, today on his Whatever blog, John Scalzi wrote a bit about why he thinks Perdido Street Station is the best science fiction/fantasy novel of the decade: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/03/16/reader-request-week-2011-4-old-mans-war-and-the-best-sff-novel-of-the-decade/
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2011 21:13
|
|
|
Finally finished TC&TC, after bouncing off the first couple chapters like 3 times. Really solid, original, enjoyable book. I probably had more readerly fun with Kraken, and was more knocked-on-my-rear end by the Bas-Lag books, but this was just *good*, completely precise in the execution of its themes. Mieville is building an extremely impressive, varied body of work, and I think literary/genre history will look well upon him. p.s. Hedrigall, ever consider running an "unofficial China Mieville fan page" or fuckyeahchinamieville.tumblr.com or something?  Not making fun, someone's gotta do it!
onefish fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 28, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2011 15:58
|
|
|
Mrs. Badcrumble posted:IIRC he WAS pitching something to Marvel, so it's likely real. Between the Swamp Thing problem and this, he's probably not feeling so hot about the comic book industry. There is no way that particular blog post is not a joke. He could have been pitching something else, had THAT rejected, and done this partly because of it, but no way was he pitching Scrap Iron Man (or even something else with that same sset-up but a less goofy name). Annnd... new interview! http://onlythebestscifi.blogspot.com/2011/04/interview-china-mieville.html
|
|
#
¿
Apr 8, 2011 01:55
|
|
|
tirinal posted:I despised Kraken. Curious here: why? That book just struck me as so incredibly likable, with so much readerly pleasure involved. Billy wasn't particularly compelling for at least 200 pages, but other than that basically it was 500 pages of fun stuff. So I could see thinking it was inconsequential, but not sure what makes it worthy of despising.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 12, 2011 03:03
|
|
|
1. Kraken's really fun--if it looks fun to you, too, don't listen to the haters. It's probably the Mieville book I *enjoyed* most, not counting Bas-Lag novels. 2. Railsea is probably a young adult book, going by the price and pagecount. Don't worry! YA books can be really good and we're sort of in a YA golden age.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2011 15:23
|
|
|
Oasx posted:Un Lun Dun was really fun, though it doesnt really compare to his 'adult' work Oh right, I actually forgot about Un Lun Dun. Hmm. I would expect something very different from that, which seemed almost "children's book"-inspired. Hopefully a new YA would be more like Paolo Bacigalupi's SHIP BREAKER or similar. Hedrigall posted:Until a few months before publication, Embassytown was listed on Amazon as having something like 208 pages. Hmm. The initial pricing is significant, too, though--$18.00 for a hardcover is standard for YA/children's, but $23.95 retail and up standard for adult. (Embassytown was $26.00). reflir posted:With a title like Railsea there's no way in hell this is what it is but am I the only one who really wants to read a bigass book about the rise and fall of the Malarial Queendoms? I'd love that, but I'd love pretty much any new Bas-Lag stuff, I suspect. RAILSEA does totally suggest Iron Council meets The Scar, though, right? ...
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2011 19:16
|
|
|
Junkenstein posted:I'm currently reading Alistair Reyonlds' Chasm City and it feels like I'm reading Mieville. I've heard tons of good things about that book, but this may be the one that gets me to read it.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2011 17:18
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Post your future Bas-Lag story wish list. Personally I'd like to read about : Anything anything anything. I'm bad for this because all my initial impulses are to know more about stuff better left mysterious, like the Ghosthead Empire and High Cromlech. And we already got as much about the Grindylow as we really need. I *do* think there's potential in something set in the Malarial Queendoms, though--government not as militarily dystopic, but as flat-out insane.
|
|
#
¿
May 5, 2012 15:50
|
|
|
Slo-Tek posted:There is a joke there. Holy poo poo, never noticed that. Thank you, enjoyment++.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2012 06:20
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Limited edition Railsea cover by Vincent Chong, the same guy who did the (much more interesting) Embassytown one, below: So this is interesting to me, because I like Railsea much better as a cover, but agree that Embassytown is more interesting as an illustration. I wish books could still have lots of interior illustrations, so we could get detail like that in the Embassytown piece, without ending up with a weird, cluttered cover.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2012 19:16
|
|
|
Ooh, I wanna play "favorite Mieville." FAVE The Scar Perdido Street Station The City & the City Kraken = Iron Council Embassytown Looking for Jake LEAST FAVE HAVEN'T READ Railsea Un Lun Dun King Rat That's specifically not a "best." PSS and Kraken are pretty clearly not as GOOD or polished as Iron Council, C&C, or Embassytown, but I just had such a blast with both of them. And Iron Council is politically and thematically (and, actually, plot-wise) super interesting, I just recall being pretty jolted by the less baroque style in a Bas-Lag book. I feel like I am the most common sort of Mieville reader. Embassytown was still really awesome while I was reading it, but none of the characters stuck with me.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2013 16:09
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:05 |
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Oh god I hope this thread doesn't die. Going on 2 years since the last book Hey, awesome! Thank you for seeking this out, getting the permissions, etc, and for the clean map you created/are creating below.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2014 18:26
|
|
