China Miéville

Yes, that most atypical-looking of fantasy writers! I'm rather surprised he doesn't already have a thread here.

Having been meaning to investigate his works for rather a long time, I've just finished Perdido Street Station, and loved it. Looking forward to the next book in the Bas-Lag Cycle.

edited 21st May '12 11:19:32 AM by pagad

I'm 200 pages or so into Perdido Street Station and I love it too! I really like his descriptive passages - they really make the city come alive. The only negatives so far are the slightly jarring movements from Purple Prose bits of description to blunt bits of speech - especiailly Isaac's - that start with expletives. Not that I'm being overly sensitive about the swearing in itself, its just a bit odd to move from these beautiful poetic paragraphs to someone going 'Fuck me, I'm knackered! Where do I pick up my moolah?'.

My favourite author! I'll be picking up his new book quite soon. My favourite book of his is Iron Council, though it seems to be very controversial even among people who like his other books. The City and the City is a close 2nd, even though its the most un-Mievilley of his books. If you're reading Bas Lag in order you're going to love The Scar, he went absolutely wild with the fantasy world-building in it.

I read Perdido Street Station a couple of years ago and ended up feeling very ambivalent about it. There's a lot to like and a lot to dislike, but I'm still curious about Mieville. Tell me, are his other works... better paced?

I liken Perdido Street Station to a debut album by a promising band. Lots of creative elements and a cool style, but there were also some things that didnt match with the universe, and yeah sometimes the pacing was questionable. The other books remove those elements that didnt match (stuff like references to devils and Dungeons and Dragons).

There was an article on Bas-Lag in Dragon magazine a few years ago, which gave a few previously unknown details - like a bit of a world map, showing New Crobuzon, the Cacotopic Stain and the general area around them. It also included stats for Slake-moths, Weavers (with the alignment Lawful Chaos) and probability weapons like the one from The Scar. The author also had stats for the hedgehog-men on his blog at one point, too.

Actually, I think Perdido Street Station is the best of the three; I found the protagonist of The Scar to be a deeply irritating person, and it was a struggle to care enough about her to keep turning the pages. Iron Council was better, but again, there was something about it I wasn't so keen on.

edited 25th May '12 1:20:16 AM by AndrewGPaul

The Bas-Lag stuff doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'm into, but I've read Kraken, which I liked, and The City and the City, which I loved.

Huh. I read the entire series, starting from Perdido Street Station and then the rest in order of publication, but I think The Scar is probably my favourite.

It wasn't so much the narrator, who I couldn't have cared less about (and indeed, I wished she was replaced with a more curious narrator with more interest in her surroundings so that we'd get a better look at Armada), but the setting. Man, a floating pirate nation with PROBABILITY SWORDS and vampire pirate lords. Jesus, can this GET any more awesome?! And there was just something really heartwarming about Shekel learning how to read.

Finished Perdido Street Station - the ending was so depressing! Started The City And The City, really really good - the premise is so different and intriguing. Also, he seems to have reigned in his style somewhat; not sure whether this is a good thing or not though...

The most recent Mieville book I read was Kraken, which was enjoyable in a slightly confusing way. An Urban Fantasy setting in which religious disputes are hard to distinguish from gang warfare is aces in my book.

edited 10th Aug '13 5:33:24 PM by Neep

Perdido Street Station was good, and I understand why it won all those awards, but I also think it was rather rough around the edges. In my opinion, his later works are better. Kraken was surprisingly fun for something with such Lovecraftian overtones, and Embassytown has some of the most interesting Starfish Aliens I've read about in quite a while, but I think The City & The City may be my favorite of his so far.

I think The City and the City is the best as well. The lack of overtly fantastic elements means that he actually concentrates on the plot, setting, themes and characters, with the result that it comes across as a sparser, more tightly focused novel than the ones which get a bit 'LOOK LOOK A COOL IDEA ISN'T THIS COOL I KNOW RIGHT HERE'S ANOTHER IDEA LOOK HOW COOL IT IS okay back to the plot now BUT WAIT FIRST LOOK AT THIS OTHER COOL IDEA'.

Jesus, did I really start this thread well over a year ago? 'cause I've only just got round to reading The Scar.

I liked it more than Perdido Street Station. I kind of hated the protagonist, but weirdly enough that didn't really impact my enjoyment of the book at all. I'm still not sure if we're supposed to hate her or not. She's just too cold and arrogant, which is really rather unwarranted given how much regularly goes wrong for her.

Bellis is actually my favourite of China's protagonists, in large part because of the coldness and arrogance. She also makes mistakes that have real consequences for her. It's so rare to see protagonists that have real flaws, and those flaws are relevant to the story.

Un Lun Dun is my favorite out of his books, partly because I love stories like that, where the author just basically pours out his imagination. And it doesn't have the bleak feeling of most of his books.

As far as flawed characters go, I'd argue that Isaac was equally flawed. He got a lot of people killed and nearly doomed the city in his carelessness.

I think I preferred Isaac, if only because Isaac felt like an actual human being and not a robot. Bellis just sort of sneered at everything and everyone, which rendered her failures more cathartic than anything else.

edited 8th Aug '13 12:28:08 PM by pagad