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vty posted:Does Scar take awhile to get going? I'm around 15%(kindle) into it She's at the lovers.. just found out the Johannes guy works for them; and really find it...boring so far. I do like Chinas writing, though. Just not finding much of an interesting story to grab onto. Contrary to the majority opinion here I prefer Perdido Street Station to The Scar, it's also the first book in the series and I'd have started there. There isn't a lot of a crossover though so it shouldn't prevent you from enjoying it. Like the rest of the Bas Lag novels the first act is kind of slow, serving just to set up the characters and stage, it does pay off though because when things get really hectic latter on you feel you are right there watching poo poo hit the fan.
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Mar 24, 2010 09:51
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Iacen posted:I'm planning on getting either The Kraken or The city and The City. I'd give Iron Council another go if I were you. While I'd rank it last in the series it does become much more interesting as it goes on and you get to know New Crobuzon (my favorite "character") a bit more.
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Apr 7, 2010 20:18
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Exactly, the book takes a dramatic change of pace and style shortly after the introduction of the grub, stick with it a little longer.
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Apr 11, 2010 17:37
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Captain_Indigo posted:Oh I remember I was going to ask if anyone could explain a little bit about the Crisis Engine from PSS. I think you're mixing up two distinct things here. On one hand you have the crisis engine, which in this instance is being used as an amplifier, but could be used to power anything, like flight for Yag. The science behind it is bogus of course but it is essentially a perpetual motion machine. Whatever you do to increase "crisis" (think of it as potential energy), like lifting a rock for example, will be used as "fuel" by the engine to generate even more crisis, lifting the rock even higher for example. The signal, which is what is being amplified in this instance is a composite of 3 things: - the brain pattern of the CC, which is pure rationality - the brain pattern of the Weaver, which is pure irrationality - the brain pattern of the old man which is used as a schema to combine the previous two into a human like pattern that will taste like Kobe beef to the moths When the moths try to feed on the signal they get blown up because despite tasting irresistibly it doesn't satiate them, there's no real substance there just flavor, so they just keep lapping it up until they croak.
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Apr 27, 2010 18:06
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Hedrigall posted:Let's sperg about Bas-Lag books to come In the same vein, what did the Khepri flee from?  Though I fear this is one of those circumstances where the less you know the more interesting it is I hate being tantalized.
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Apr 30, 2010 07:29
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Things come spiraling down into poo poo soon after the grub is introduced 1/3 into the book. It worked for me at least because New Crobuzon became my favorite "character" in his books.
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Jun 28, 2010 19:28
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Agnostic watermelon posted:The Perdido Street Station ending was a loving downer. almost all of Issac's friends die horribly, the ones that aren't are being chased by a drug lord, Issac's sweet rear end crisis engine is broken, yag's a rapist, and Lin is retarded True, but I loved the fact that when it seemed that Yag was going to kill himself when he realized that even what he did was not enough to earn redemption, and that even the people he sacrificed for deserted him because of what he did, he instead decided to embrace New Crobuzon. The motto for New Crobuzon might as well be "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore... that I might grind them all into the decadent and wretched mass of depravity that roams my streets." All shall love her and despair. 
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Jun 29, 2010 18:11
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Has anyone read "The Tain"? I don't think I've seen it mentioned in the thread yet.
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Sep 16, 2010 03:31
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pkd3001 posted:I love Sci-fi, with (Philip K. Dick being my favorite author), but to be honest I read Mieville's "Perdido Street Station,"or at least the first 50 pages and did not like it at all. Maybe I should try and "King Rat," first for my first book from Mieville? I love wierd sci-fi like PKD and his later stuff, but for some reason I was not into "Perdido Street Station." Maybe I would enjoy his other stuff more. PSS does a complete 180 after page 90 or so. The first act is exclusively to set up the stage for the action and in fact I think the fact he takes such a long time to describe the place where the action takes place is why I love his books so much. My favorite Mieville "character" remains New Crobuzon itself.
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Jun 10, 2011 19:52
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Hedrigall posted:
Calling it now, Armada goes up the Gross Tar, releases the Iron Council and they join forces to bring the great proletarian revolution to Bered Kai Nev. 
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Aug 18, 2011 17:20
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fookolt posted:Hah, I just finished Iron Council and I also really liked the ending! I'd go Embassytown and then TC&TC. Didn't actively hate Kraken as most people seem to but it certainly didn't engross me as hard as Embassytown, the Bas Lag series or even TC&TC.
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May 8, 2012 10:26
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Wait, but isn't New Crobuzon almost two thousand years old and the center of an empire?! They aren't the sole superpower and might or might not be the most powerful state in the world but more than anyone else they are global players. I never felt like it was a London simile though, from what I've read about Pittsburgh it does seem more appropriate.
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Feb 21, 2013 10:53
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Yeah, for me Embassytown was the book that gave the closest feeling to what I felt when I was reading Perdido Street Station. I agree that while PSS is on my top 10 books it would be better if it was shorter by 20%/25%. However I felt the exact opposite with Embassytown, I wish it was 20%/25% longer. I felt there was still a lot of meat on those bones, if I had my fill it would probably have topped PSS. Since I doubt we'll have a "sequel" a la The Scar I just wish he had showed us a bit more.
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May 17, 2013 00:37
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Hedrigall posted:He has said in interviews that Embassytown may one day be just the first book in an "Immerverse" series. Link is dead. Still, holy poo poo!  e: Never mind, got the cached version. China Miéville posted:Who doesn’t love the sea? It is both literarily and ‘in real life’ fascinating. Though I prefer under the sea to on the top of it. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 02:34 on May 17, 2013 |
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May 17, 2013 02:27
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Revelation Space didn't do much for me appart from the prequel "The Prefect" which I liked. House of Suns is a very interesting take on space travel, Terminal World I also liked (for me it was the "Mievillest" of the lot). Pushing Ice and Century Rain were kind of meh.
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Jun 1, 2013 10:50
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I'd love to read something taking place in the days before the Ravening but that's probably better left unexplored so I'd settle for something in the Immerverse.
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Sep 13, 2013 01:31
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You'll probably enjoy Embassytown a lot then.
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Dec 21, 2013 15:23
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ZorajitZorajit posted:I'm thinking about picking up Mieville because I'm increasingly exhausted with gibbering right-wingers taking up all the space on the SF&F shelf. I'm looking at you Baen publishing. Should I start with Perdido Street Station? While I think Embassytown is Miéville's best book I just loving love New Crobuzon. Go ahead with Perdido Street Station and if you enjoy it do the rest of Bas Lag. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 23:04 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 22:57
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amuayse posted:Eh, I didn't like Yag's ending since it seemed so out of the blue and ridiculously vindictive on the whole Garudan culture. By comparison not really, they took away his ability to fly, if he had been human the New Crobuzon authorities would at the very least take away his ability to walk (imprisonment) or more likely remade him and sentenced him to life in slavery. The point was that it wasn't up to Isaac to forgive Yag and reverse a sentence for a terrible crime committed against someone else just because Yag had become his friend in the meanwhile. If he had simply seen a paper stating why Yag had been convicted he probably could have rationalized it away but to have the victim there pleading with him in person not to allow Yag to simply escape the punishment for what he had done really drove it home, especially after what happened to Lin. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 12:41
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Slo-Tek posted:The thing I liked about Yag's whole arc is that he was, and remains a very bad garuda. However, he is a pretty good dissident human. Being too abstract, and choice thieving fits in just fine in NC. Yeah, that's why I loved the ending. Yag, facing the realization that he would never again be able to be a true garuda embraced the alternative and became just another "human" freak in a city full of monstrosities and redirected his energy into doing something good for the oppressed. When he lost the last possibility to recover what was taken from him he finally began working on the expiation for what he had done. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 12:51
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amuayse posted:I kinda felt that the exposition Garuda seemed awfully terse and not very convincing considering what happens next. Yes, the crime was horrible but Yag saved Isaac's life multiple times and saved Lin from being completely gone, not to mention the whole journey Yag had to make beforehand so it just seemed rather weird that all got undone with a 1 minute conversation on Isaac's doorstep. That was the point I think, none of that matters because Yag hurt a real person, no abstraction  , and Isaac does not have the right to forgive crimes that weren't committed against him regardless of how much good Yag did to him personally.You're rooting for Yag the whole time, they go through so much together. At first glance my visceral reaction was "poo poo, this dude saved his live and the live of his girlfriend gently caress it". But where does it leave the victim? Wouldn't Isaac be further victimizing her if he healed Yag and she saw him just walk away from punishment? Apart from her alien-ness and the weird way in which she expresses what he did to her she is still a living person making a case for not freeing her rapist from "jail" just because he was a totally cool guy to Isaac. The argument could be made that he earned his forgiveness but he didn't earn it from her.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:56
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Karnegal posted:I just finished The Scar via audiobook and found myself a bit underwhelmed. It felt a bit plodding, and I wasn't a huge fan of any of the main characters. Embassytown, no question.
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Jan 12, 2015 13:45
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If it's the one by John Lee he does a great job bringing it to life.
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Jan 17, 2015 04:33
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Xiahou Dun posted:A thing to keep in mind about a lot of his writing, especially Perdido since it was one of his first and is so weird, is that he likes to front-load exposition so once the plot gets going, it can really get going. So, often, people will feel it kind of plodding along in the beginning, they read in dribs and drabs, and then the plot starts moving and they have to marathon the book and can't put it down. (Sample size of me and a dozen or so people I've gotten hooked.) This. I'm not gonna lie, as Hedrigall said New Crobuzon is the main character of PSS and that is what makes it my favorite Mieville book, New Crobuzon is just the greatest fictional city I've read but the book's pace and tone does take an unexpected turn about 1/3rd in, by the time Isaac is doing experiments and [very minor spoiler]gets a box with a caterpillar in it. From there on out it's a roller coaster of  and  .e: oh never mind, you've already got through that, maybe Mieville just isn't for you. If you loathed PSS that much I doubt you'll like IC but I'd still give Embassytown a go, he doesn't "characterize the setting" nearly as much. No proletarian revolution though, just an anti-colonial one and it's a minor plot point. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 11:02 on May 29, 2015 |
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May 29, 2015 10:53
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Now this sounds great.
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Aug 5, 2015 02:40
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Skelicopter posted:You wait 4 years for a new Mieville book and then three turn up at once. Three?
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Aug 7, 2015 17:52
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:3 Moments of an Explosion, Census Taker (technically a novella but still counts), Last Days of New Paris Ah yes, forgot about Census Taker.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:07
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Xiahou Dun posted:I don't really get them but I have a strong reaction and I seriously wonder if that might not be the point. (Also a pretty strong fear/suspicion that I should get a joke but I don't so I feel vaguely embarrassed. So David Lynch in book form?
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Aug 13, 2015 08:45
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It's the original "you had one job!"
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Aug 15, 2015 01:04
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anilEhilated posted:It's made pretty clear that the revolution would be crushed with or without the Council which got the entire army/militia waiting for it; it's either remove it entirely or watch them all get shot. This way, he's preserving hope. No doubt the revolution would be crushed, the question is if they were willing to die did Judah have the right to prevent them from doing it? I think I'm inclined to agree with Judah on this, their death now would serve no purpose and this way they'll be a daily reminder to the people of New Crobuzon that they aren't alone, that others all around them hate the government even if they have to keep their heads down for now. The revolution lives still. A revolution must be about what is most effective, not bourgeois notions of romantic sacrifice. 
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Sep 30, 2015 20:29
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Stinky_Pete posted:Hi, uh, I just started listening to Perdido Street Station, read by an Englishman who sounds like he's in a "chamber" wearing a suit with something red and poofy between his lapels. Loving it so far. Didn't expect him to start going on about Isaac's cock in my office's parking lot John Lee does an amazing job.
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Nov 3, 2015 09:47
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Mordja posted:Anyway, next up is The City & the City which I'm excited to get into, despite knowing the big twist. I don't think that will take away from your enjoyment very much, it's only a twist in the sense that you're expecting there to be some typical CM weirdness going on and it turns out that it's just the fruit of good old totalitarian craziness. It's also addressed halfway through the book, it's no "The Sixth Sense" reveal that changes your perspective on everything.
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May 16, 2016 22:05
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Embassytown
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Aug 11, 2016 23:25
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Tree Bucket posted: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. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
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Sep 9, 2016 21:17
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Yeah, This Census Taker is a bad start. I'd recommend Embassytown or PSS.
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Mar 27, 2017 15:05
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