What do people think of China Mieville?

[Squirrel_Domain]

I personally love his books!

However, no one I mention him to seems to know about him. What do the playgrounders feel about him?
He's the author of "Perdido Street Station", "The Scar", and "Iron Council", among others.

[loopy]

Well, as a person, my answer is... "Who?" Followed by an inquisitive look.

[Megatron46]

I've read "Perdido Street Station"- a nasty, nasty book- but a very, very good one. I've not read anything else by him- but if they're as good as his first, then they'll be great!

[Squirrel_Domain]

Well I meant his books...

But yeah, that's the reaction I get most of the time. Supposedly his books are best-sellers and critically acclaimed, so I find it odd no one I've talked to has read his books.
I was just wondering if anyone here has. If they haven't, I say they should!

[Squirrel_Domain]

I've read "Perdido Street Station"- a nasty, nasty book- but a very, very good one. I've not read anything else by him- but if they're as good as his first, then they'll be great!

The Scar and Iron council are follow-ups to that one, and they are also very, very good.

Also, he wrote a book called "Un-Lundun", which is a kind of like Phantom Toolbooth... with the kick*** knob turned way up!

[Prime32]

I enjoyed Perdido Street Station, but I haven't been able to find any of his other work (even that one I had to order in).

It was very... urban.

[Athaniar]

Haven't read any books (perhaps I should), but there was a Dragon that focused on him.

[bosssmiley]

Interesting weird fantasy; shame about the Marxism. :smallamused:

(at least Mieville's got past his "Tolkien is over-rated" phase. Moorcock is still stuck in his)

@vvv: "The Scar" can be read as a drug-addled Marxist urban guerilla's fever dream of Melville's "Moby Dikh". A meditation on whaling and the eternal lure of the sea by a wildly hallucinating Citizen Smith. When read in that context the book's a positive tour de force of imagery and comment. :smallbiggrin:

*Heh* I might start taking that tack on all China's books from now on. "Perdido Street Station" is the Jack the Ripper story, as conceived by a musophobe academic who always hated wind-up toys. "Iron Council" is the story of the Transcontinental Railroad, as told by a student of Marxist agit-prop theatre in the throes of cold turkey.

[Prime32]

Haven't read any books (perhaps I should), but there was a Dragon that focused on him.And that is what made me curious enough to pick PDS up. I've been told that if I like his work I'll like A Song of Ice and Fire, so I assume it works in reverse. :smallconfused: (I have the first book in that series but never read it)

[Lioness]

I love Perdido Street Station, but I haven't read any of the others. Some pages were a bit hard to get through, but other were pure brilliance. I love the general oddness of the world, and the way that he doesn't leave anything out.

[WalkingTarget]

I've read PDS and just finished The Scar last week and, while I liked them well enough, they didn't really wow me. I think my problem with them is Mieville's tendency to make things, to quote Moe Szyslak, "weird for the sake of weird."

I mean, he's pretty good at making up interesting-sounding races, but I have trouble thinking of a logically satisfying reason for some of them to exist other than Rule of Cool. There are at least two races (the Khephri and the Anophelii) where one gender is mindless (or close to it) and the other mates with them purely out of a sense of duty, even if they don't particularly care to do so.

And then there's the plot of The Scar...

I can maybe see reading it again with the understanding that everything that Uther Doul says should be analyzed to see how he's manipulating people (Bellis, The Lovers, etc.) which might be interesting, but other than that the book is pretty pointless other than as a way to show off how weird Bas-Lag is. That is, unless Mieville comes back to problems between New Crobuzon and the Grindylow eventually as fallout to Silas's mission, but even then that just means the side plot of this book was the setup for a later one, which isn't really satisfying for reading this one specifically.

Some of the theoretical ideas are neat, admittedly (Isaac's "crisis energy" and the Ghosthead Empire's "possibility mining").

I guess a quote from Mieville is pertinent: "I’m writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I’m creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have... I’m trying to say I’ve invented this world that I think is really cool and I have these really big stories to tell in it and one of the ways that I find to make that interesting is to think about it politically. If you want to do that too, that’s fantastic. But if not, isn’t this a cool monster?"

My problem is that I'm not particularly interested in the political points and "isn't this a cool monster?" by itself isn't enough for me. These are strictly personal taste though, so I can't say they really detract from his writing ability in general.

I would like to read The City and the City if/when I can track down a copy, though. I'll probably get to The Iron Council eventually too, but, well, I've got Pratchett to read first. You know how it is. :smalltongue:

[Violet Octopus]

I'm about 1/3 of the way into Perdido Street Station. I'm strongly enjoying it so far, though the Marxism just got a lot more obvious. Hopefully it doesn't crossover into outright polemic.

I'll probably buy the campaign setting, when it comes out.

...oddly the only people I know IRL who read him are anarchists. None of the socialists I know read him.

[JonestheSpy]

Mieville is one of my favorite autohrs writing today, brilliant imagination, wonderful mastery of language.

And not go go any farther into the political realm, I will just say that the stuff people are deriding as simple 'Marxism' - and therefore something they can simply dismiss and not think about - are in fact accurate portrayals of life in early industrialized society, even if the people in question are amphibious frogmen or beetle-headed women. Try reading Victor Hugo - Bas-Lag and the city New Crobozun have strong resemblence to the France and Paris of Les Miserables.

Enough about that. I think it's also worth pointing out that Mievile's stuff has just a huge wealth of original ideas for gamers to pick and choose from, especially for folks in urban settings, as Mieville is a complete city boy at heart - a pirate city of boats all fastened together and roaming the seas, parasitical vampire hands, animate umbrellas that can be used as shields or weapons...it's just a treasure trove in that regard.

Oh, and I also should say his "young adult" novel Un Lun Dun is very different than the other stuff. Not dumbed-down at all, but much more playful and optimistic, but equally wierd and terrifying (in ag ood way).

[Dragor]

Un Lundun is very, very good. Loved every second of it.

Is there anything more awesome than a Binja?

[Squirrel_Domain]

Un Lundun is very, very good. Loved every second of it.

Is there anything more awesome than a Binja?

No, no there is not :smallbiggrin:

@Walking Target: Yeah I approach the books the same way. I find them much more enjoyable when not looking for the political allegory. Also, Iron Council is my favorite of the New Crobuzon series, get that one as soon as you're done with the pratchett book.

@Violet Octopus: I haven't been keeping up with him as of late. You must link to what is known about the campaign setting! :smallsmile:

[Faulty]

Loved Perdido Street Station. Very hard hitting but satisfying book.

[Liffguard]

I've read Perdido Street Station and The Scar. I'm not really sure what my overall opinion was of them. When I look back in retrospect I can see that they were both good books, but at the time I found them very frustrating to read. Both have an over-reliance on "weird for the sake of weird." For example, I couldn't accept Armada. I kept on trying to work out the logistics of a floating city. Where did they get their food and other resources from? Piracy? The sheer scale of piracy required wouldn't have been feasible. And so on. To be fair, this was far more prominent in TS than PSS.

The other problem was that I often felt Mieville's personal politics were intruding on the story too much. The fact that I vehemently disagree with his politics made it quite hard to relate to some characters a lot of the time. Again, an example, I was rooting for New Crobuzon over Armada during the naval battle scene. This was also far more prominent in TS than PSS.

[Squirrel_Domain]

I've read Perdido Street Station and The Scar. I'm not really sure what my overall opinion was of them. When I look back in retrospect I can see that they were both good books, but at the time I found them very frustrating to read. Both have an over-reliance on "weird for the sake of weird." For example, I couldn't accept Armada. I kept on trying to work out the logistics of a floating city. Where did they get their food and other resources from? Piracy? The sheer scale of piracy required wouldn't have been feasible. And so on. To be fair, this was far more prominent in TS than PDS.


It's been a while since I've read The Scar, but I believe there were ships filled with soil that had exposed tops that people used as farms and produce centers. Piracy is a major part of Armada's economy, but mostly because that's how people come to the city, I think it has some degree of self-sufficiency.

[J.Gellert]

Perdido Street Station: I was bored in the beginning, but the second half was awesome.

The Scar: Awesome in the beginning, but I got a little bored towards the end. Didn't help that I didn't care for Uther at all... I was rooting for the girl all the way.

Iron Council: Awesome in the beginning and near the ending, got bored in the middle. Really... just didn't care about Judah's long-drawn backstory, especially the sexual parts of it.

All three books: I didn't like the endings. Any of them. Must be a Mieville thing... Just don't dig it. I like a happy ending, or one where everyone gets what he deserves. Mieville's endings are too "real" for me, and people get screwed badly...

I like the setting, even if I think it gets overboard with trying to differentiate itself from High Fantasy. We get it, Mieville, you hate the guts of Tolkien so you give us cactus-people... Weird for the sake of weird, as was said above. If such hypothetical societies like Armada or the Iron Council could exist, they would, in the long history of mankind. Anyway. It's still awesome, and New Crobuzon is real enough to make up for all the weirdness outside of it. I'd play a D&D campaign set on Bas-Lag.

The characters are awesome as well. Even the minor ones. Love them.

What I want to see next: A novel about High Cromlech. But it's an old and not-so-weird idea, so I doubt that'll happen :smalltongue:

Added: I was also rooting for New Crobuzon over Armada! Good to know I'm not the only one. Not that I felt bad or anything. I was rooting for New Crobuzon during Iron Council as well... :smallbiggrin:

[Violet Octopus]

@Squirrel_Domain
from his wikipedia article:
"on February 19, 2008 it was announced that Adamant Entertainment will be developing an RPG based on the Bas-Lag universe [6]"
Unfortunately reference is a broken link. Am currently hunting for more recent news.

Apparently there's d20 Bas-Lag stuff in the Feb 2007 issue of Dragon Magazine as well.

edit: @JonesTheSpy
Oh, my problem isn't with Marxist themes in literature, it's when political themes in general take over the work. Like, say, some of the later Ender books by Orson Scott Card.

edit again:
Not much news. Apparently the original release time was Fall 2009.

[Lioness]

Apparently there's d20 Bas-Lag stuff in the Feb 2007 issue of Dragon Magazine as well.



Drat, you beat me to it. That's what I came onto the thread to say.

The article has stats for most of the races and monsters...it's really cool.