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Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin

RoboCicero posted:

Hell yeah! I was sort of disappointed when, in The City and The City, Orciny didn't show up, so I'm ready for some Dark Magic and Terrifying Machinations. I recall vaguely that he mentioned how he wanted to do a different genre with each successive book -- what's this one going to be?

Lovecraftian horror by the sound of it!

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Shanty
Nov 7, 2005

I Love Dogs

SaviourX posted:

Had me at "renegade squid-worshiper".

But I do hope it isn't couched in the stilted, byzantine prose of TC&TC. How can there be 100 pages left?!

Man, that had me at "giant squid". I need to catch up on me old China. I've only read Perdito Street Station, but I definitely need to catch up to THAT thing.

Edit: Having read the bit on his name I had to edit this post.

Shanty fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Oct 30, 2009

Mrs. Badcrumble
Sep 21, 2002
Cool. He wrote a nice piece on tentacles and their general literary meaning (and the inability of the "weird" to mix with the "ghostly" in modern horrific literature even though they're so kindred) in this journal: http://www.urbanomic.com/CollapseIV.pdf (his piece is called "M.R. James and the Quantum Vampire") and it sounds like that ties into his same interests (although, if I recall correctly, he supposedly turned in the manuscripts for City and the City and Kraken at the same time).

RoboCicero
Oct 22, 2009

"I'm sick and tired of reading these posts!"

Hedrigall posted:

Lovecraftian horror by the sound of it!

Oh my god! I can't believe I didn't pick up on that right away. I'm even more excited for this book. In Perdido and The Scar we had flashes of terror, but I always got the impression (from Looking For Jake) that if Mieville really put his mind to it he'd make a book that would melt your face off.

Vandermeer (if you haven't read Ambergris, do it! The books are top notch and really does a lot with the shift to 'fungus punk') does it really well with the machine passage and the pervading sense of alien-ness. I don't know! This is going to be a good year.

Team Black Zion
Aug 26, 2006

Next time you play chess, be sure to replace your queens and knights with pawns!
I love that people read loads of speculative fiction written from a propagandized Western world/capitalist mindset without question but as soon as an author decides to mirror real life class struggle and civil rights issues in his fiction they go screaming about communism and socialism.

Saerdna
Aug 8, 2004

Team Black Zion posted:

I love that people read loads of speculative fiction written from a propagandized Western world/capitalist mindset without question but as soon as an author decides to mirror real life class struggle and civil rights issues in his fiction they go screaming about communism and socialism.

Books aren't meant to provoke thought, they're meant to masturbate your nerd boner.

McCaine
Feb 20, 2002

ASK ME ABOUT MAKING A SICK BURN ON MY
TWITTER ABOUT VILE RATS DEATH FOR SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED THREE YEARS AGO, PS CHECK MY RAP SHEET BECAUSE I AM MOST LIKELY STILL BUTT HURT THAT HE BANNED ME BECAUSE I POSTED PEDO ANIME BOYS
Oh I just found this thread. Thanks Hedrigall for the great thread and making me finally read The Iron Council! Unsurprisingly, I loved precisely the political stuff the best, unlike most people in this thread apparently. I have to admit I don't care at all for horror though so the 'new weird' doesn't appeal to me.

Also I know someone personally who in turn knows the guy well. I keep hoping she'll introduce me :kiddo:

SaviourX
Sep 30, 2003

The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, or Eartha Kitt.

New weird ain't necessarily about the horror, more about the strangeness of new(ish) worlds and cultures.

Saerdna
Aug 8, 2004

McCaine posted:

Oh I just found this thread. Thanks Hedrigall for the great thread and making me finally read The Iron Council! Unsurprisingly, I loved precisely the political stuff the best, unlike most people in this thread apparently. I have to admit I don't care at all for horror though so the 'new weird' doesn't appeal to me.

Also I know someone personally who in turn knows the guy well. I keep hoping she'll introduce me :kiddo:

Aren't you in different countries?

Mrs. Badcrumble
Sep 21, 2002

McCaine posted:

Oh I just found this thread. Thanks Hedrigall for the great thread and making me finally read The Iron Council! Unsurprisingly, I loved precisely the political stuff the best, unlike most people in this thread apparently. I have to admit I don't care at all for horror though so the 'new weird' doesn't appeal to me.

Also I know someone personally who in turn knows the guy well. I keep hoping she'll introduce me :kiddo:

You hadn't read Iron Council yet? :mad: It's his best one by far, especially if you enjoy the political side of his writing, although maybe I partly love it because :love: ~I love Walter Benjamin~ :love:

SaviourX
Sep 30, 2003

The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, or Eartha Kitt.

Finally finished TC&TC the other day, and while I appreciate his writing it for his mum, I wish he would have kept it as an academic treatise or something. He went so far to the analytical spectrum that it kind of ruined any momentum or interest that was held by the story itself. The world hinted at by the novel really was cursory to whatever thesis he was trying to work up, and in the end the main thrust of the work only really served to be a 'welp, this this is the most exciting thing to happen in a long while and even though things have changed now, story's over, move along' sort of thing.

It seems like he part wanted it to be this morass of stilted language, purposefully thick to get through and dislocating, but I just wanted to get through it and be done with it and it never served the narrative as much as it did in the Bas-Lag books. Oh well.

E: Also, Chandler-esque dialogue in Eastern Europe. Not working.

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin
:siren:BOOK COVER!:siren:

I know you guys like book covers. Here's Kraken's!



And a new blurb:


Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?

For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god.

A god that someone is hoping will end the world.



Merry christmas I guess :3:

Mahasamatman
Nov 8, 2006

Flame on the trail headed for the powder keg
At the suggestion of this thread, I picked up Perdido Street Station a few weeks ago and casually started plodding through it. The setting fastened me for the first few hundred pages until the plot picked up, and I stayed up several hours longer than I should have just now to finally finish it.

I feel broken inside. Poor Yagharek. Poor Lin. I was really hoping either of those arcs would have resolved with a "happy" ending. Maybe Isaac can somehow fix his crysis engine to give Lin back full capacity? Why did he have to leave Yagharek after everything? (I know why, but after everything Yagharek did for him, you'd think forgiveness could win out. Yagharek has suffered enough.)

I'll pick up The Scar and Iron Council with the inevitable bookstore christmas gift cards.

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin

Mahasamatman posted:

At the suggestion of this thread, I picked up Perdido Street Station a few weeks ago and casually started plodding through it. The setting fastened me for the first few hundred pages until the plot picked up, and I stayed up several hours longer than I should have just now to finally finish it.

I feel broken inside. Poor Yagharek. Poor Lin. I was really hoping either of those arcs would have resolved with a "happy" ending. Maybe Isaac can somehow fix his crysis engine to give Lin back full capacity? Why did he have to leave Yagharek after everything? (I know why, but after everything Yagharek did for him, you'd think forgiveness could win out. Yagharek has suffered enough.)

I'll pick up The Scar and Iron Council with the inevitable bookstore christmas gift cards.

The series gets better and better from here on, you're gonna have a loving awesome christmas :3:

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

The Scar is one of my favorite novels to have come out in a long time. As a novel it holds its own in plot and pacing while still introducing plenty of the insane concepts, or twists on more established concepts, that make the setting so interesting. I thought the description of the necropolis city was fascinating; a place where the living are a social underclass that save up to be made into the undead, and vampires are beggars on the streets. I think Perdido Street Station and especially Iron Council are guilty of putting style over substance in a way that The Scar avoids. What I mean by that is PSS and Council drag awfully and get confused in some places. I could barely finish Iron Council; the last third of the book just seemed interminable.

Bas-Lag is just a fascinating setting. At first I would have liked a map in each of the books, but now I think I'm honestly better-off without. That's not something I would say for most fantasy. Mieville does a great job of invoking the idea of impending doom or imagined greatness just "off-screen" which I think is part of his excellence in horror writing and unusual settings. He seems good at making the reader assume there must be even cooler (or scarier) stuff going on in the background without taking his view off the foreground.

So I have this theory for what's going on with Bas-Lag, but I'd bet others have come up with the same thing: Does anyone else remember in the Scar, the Ghosthead Empire is mentioned as being extraterrestrial in origin? The Scar itself is supposed to be the physical evidence of the impact of their arrival, but the aliens seem to have been extradimensional or possessing technology that breaks into other dimension. It seems to me that the "torque" he describes is a force that twists things through other dimensions or alternate realities or something. That would explain the bizarre behavior of the potential sword that is identified as their technology.

The current state of Bas-Lag is due to the immense torque event that caused the Scar. All the sorts of weird cactus-people and bug-women and slake moths and whatnot are the descendants of the reproductively viable survivors of what must have been an even more bizarre and horrifying menagerie immediately after the torque event. This would seem to be born out by the New Crobuzon military's alarmed reaction to the first and final torque bomb they used. Has anyone else arrived at this conclusion? I'd be surprised if the answer was no.

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin


US cover. Kind of generic and disappointing, just like the cover for TC&TC was.



Another book coming out next year (August 4) is Before They Were Giants, an anthology of first-published short stories by lots of famous SFF authors:

See how it all began! In Before They Were Giants, editor James L. Sutter collects the first published stories of 15 of science fiction and fantasy's most important authors, including winners of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, New York Times bestsellers, and members of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Along with these often rare or never-before-anthologized stories, all 15 authors provide brand-new retrospective critiques and interviews discussing the stories' geneses, how publication affected their lives, and what they know now about writing that they wish they'd known then. Contributors include Ben Bova, Charles Stross, China Mieville, Cory Doctorow, David Brin, Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Larry Niven, Michael Swanwick, Nicola Griffith, Piers Anthony, R. A. Salvatore, Spider Robinson, and William Gibson.

I believe China's story will be "Highway Sixty One Revisited" which he wrote in 1986!

Aussie Crawl
Aug 21, 2007
Contains Opinions Which May Offend
I'd love to know what the gently caress is wrong with American Publishers, why do they always choose the blandest possible image for your book covers. I mean look what they did to Terry Pratchetts books for so many years.

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


Arglebargle III posted:

So I have this theory for what's going on with Bas-Lag, but I'd bet others have come up with the same thing: Does anyone else remember in the Scar, the Ghosthead Empire is mentioned as being extraterrestrial in origin? The Scar itself is supposed to be the physical evidence of the impact of their arrival, but the aliens seem to have been extradimensional or possessing technology that breaks into other dimension. It seems to me that the "torque" he describes is a force that twists things through other dimensions or alternate realities or something. That would explain the bizarre behavior of the potential sword that is identified as their technology.

The current state of Bas-Lag is due to the immense torque event that caused the Scar. All the sorts of weird cactus-people and bug-women and slake moths and whatnot are the descendants of the reproductively viable survivors of what must have been an even more bizarre and horrifying menagerie immediately after the torque event. This would seem to be born out by the New Crobuzon military's alarmed reaction to the first and final torque bomb they used. Has anyone else arrived at this conclusion? I'd be surprised if the answer was no.


This may come out kinda hazy as I'm a little sleep deprived right now, but I'm certain Doul mentions some degree of difference between torque and whatever tech the Ghostead Empire used.

Another thing that just occurred to me: if New Crobuzon Bas-Lag's London, then High Cromlech (the one with the Thanati) is its New York.

ShutteredIn
Mar 24, 2005

El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon
So China wrote a pretty interesting article on the monstrous aspects used in Weird fiction for the philosophy journal Collapse called: M. R. James and the Quantum Vampire: Weird; Hauntological: Versus and/or and and/or or?

The whole journal is available for free in pdf here:

http://freeourbooks.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/collapseiv.pdf

China's article starts on page 62 of the PDF. It's worth looking at just for the picture of "China" with skull and octopus.

Also the Reza Negarestani article on necrosis after China's is one of the most disgusting things I've ever read.

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

Aussie Crawl posted:

I'd love to know what the gently caress is wrong with American Publishers, why do they always choose the blandest possible image for your book covers. I mean look what they did to Terry Pratchetts books for so many years.

Guess the American reading public is just a bunch of boring-rear end motherfuckers (speaking as an American reader, of course).

Am I the only one who likes the US TC&TC cover? I just started reading it finally this afternoon and given the setting, it's actually a pretty nice understated cover - the reversed "The City" is a nice touch and I like the photo of the city at the bottom - it hints at the Eastern Europe location. The US cover of PSS has a similar feel that I like with the outspread wing and the shot of a grimy street at night. It's not a typical "fantasy" cover, is probably why I like it. The Scar is kinda bland but again, the understated look is nice.

Somebody mentioned VanderMeer earlier - now his stuff always has great weird covers to go with the subject matter:

His most recent book Finch:


His previous book Shriek: An Afterword:



The original cover for City and Saints and Madmen with an actual story written in fine type on the cover. Can't find a good picture that shows the cover up close but you get the idea:



His short story collection Secret Life:



Veniss Underground:

Click here for the full 420x668 image.


Anyway, TC&TC is definitely a different book for Mieville so far, but I'm digging it. Glad he did something other than another Bas-Lag book. Funny how he and VanderMeer both did the detective fiction route with their most recent releases.

Encryptic fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Dec 29, 2009

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin

Encryptic posted:

Glad he did something other than another Bas-Lag book.

Really? I'll lap up anything he writes, but Iron Council was released in 2004 :argh:

I want my Bas Lag fix :(

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

Iron Council was good but not my favorite. Probably better he took a break from it instead of milking the poo poo out of the Bas-Lag world.

Ballsworthy
Apr 30, 2008

yup

Encryptic posted:

Probably better he took a break from it instead of milking the poo poo out of the Bas-Lag world.

My brain knows this is true but my nerd-bones want some goddamn Bas-Lag.

edit: also those VanderMeer covers kick rear end. I've read some of his shorts and some anthologies he's edited and have been wanting to pick up a novel, which would you recommend?

RoboCicero
Oct 22, 2009

"I'm sick and tired of reading these posts!"
I would absolutely recommend Shriek: An Afterword. If you want to learn everything about Ambergris and Vandermeer's neat blend of fungus-punk I'd suggest moving on to Cities of Saints and Madman, and then onto Finch.

By the way, for those of you who had read Finch -- Do you get the feeling that it was a really good book that was only marred by the fact that it was set in Ambergris? I talked with some of my friends and we all agree that the fact that the grey-caps were an alien race devoid of motive contributed a lot to the atmosphere. The fact that they started interacting with Finch on a human-like level was a fairly big departure from Ambergris in the first two books, and I don't know how I feel about it

LZEnglish
Jul 11, 2009

RoboCicero posted:

By the way, for those of you who had read Finch -- Do you get the feeling that it was a really good book that was only marred by the fact that it was set in Ambergris? I talked with some of my friends and we all agree that the fact that the grey-caps were an alien race devoid of motive contributed a lot to the atmosphere. The fact that they started interacting with Finch on a human-like level was a fairly big departure from Ambergris in the first two books, and I don't know how I feel about it

Personally, it annoyed the hell out of me. I still really enjoyed the book, but I felt like it just sort of destroyed the aura of impenetrable menace the grey caps had going, which was what made them so effective in the first place. They went from unfathomably alien to completely generic; it was a literary TMI. Which sorts of leads into my next on-topic point...

I think part of why all the Bas-Lag stuff is so interesting is because we know so very little about it. As a reader, you naturally want to know everything there is to know about what you're reading, and Mieville deliberately witholds this information to keep you guessing- and keep you reading. The books are riddled with a thousand tantalizing hints about this or that bizarre person/place/thing/event that is never fully revealed. It hints at a huge and intricate world behind everything you are told, and it does it fairly naturally, so that you're never ripped out of your immersion by a 6-page exposition. If nothing else, Mieville is a fantastic worldbuilder.

Speaking of Mieville dropping hints, does anybody else think that the man who killed Jack Half-A-Prayer before he could be publicly executed might actually be Isaac?

He has a habit of doing this kind of thing, I think. In his short story collection, there's a very traditional, very non-fantasy ghost story that is probably one of the best ghost stories I have ever read- and this is from someone who's a fanatic for the genre and will obsessively track down and read even obscure and justly-forgotten pieces of poo poo published in The Strand for a penny-a-line about a million and a half years ago. Part of the reason I felt the story was so effective and so creepy was because absolutely none of it is ever explained. The threat comes out of nowhere, entirely unexpectedly, as just some hosed up terrifying thing that happens to ordinary people for incomprehensible reasons. There are hints, here and there, that something more is going on, that if you could just see a little farther, or figure out some crucial piece of information, it would all make sense suddenly, it could all be understood and predicted and counteracted. But that clarity never comes, and so the story stays with you because you wonder if, unprepared as you are, just maybe it could happen to you.

All that up there is actually the reason why I didn't particularly care for The City & The City. It was well done and had a fascinating premise, but the end just felt so off to me. It felt like watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie where the big twist is that he couldn't actually think of a twist and just went with whatever retarded idea occurred to him 24 hours before the outline was due. We were told too much, and knowing the secret destroyed the very thing that made it so fascinating in the first place.

Ballsworthy
Apr 30, 2008

yup

LZEnglish posted:

Speaking of Mieville dropping hints, does anybody else think that the man who killed Jack Half-A-Prayer before he could be publicly executed might actually be Isaac?

??? Please explain.

LZEnglish posted:

In his short story collection, there's a very traditional, very non-fantasy ghost story that is probably one of the best ghost stories I have ever read

Was this the one about the stained-glass window? Because yeah that loving owned.

Hallucinogenic Toreador
Nov 21, 2000

Whoooooahh I'd be
Nothin' without you
Baaaaaa-by

LZEnglish posted:

Speaking of Mieville dropping hints, does anybody else think that the man who killed Jack Half-A-Prayer before he could be publicly executed might actually be Isaac?

I am certain that it's Yagharek. The description of the man as "heavily pocked" matches with him plucking all his feathers at the end of Perdido Street Station, his mouth and nose are covered to hide his beak, his voice is described as harsh because it wasn't a human voice. He even picks up the overseers whip, a weapon that Yagharek was expert with but would have been useless to Isaac.

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

RoboCicero posted:

I would absolutely recommend Shriek: An Afterword. If you want to learn everything about Ambergris and Vandermeer's neat blend of fungus-punk I'd suggest moving on to Cities of Saints and Madman, and then onto Finch.

By the way, for those of you who had read Finch -- Do you get the feeling that it was a really good book that was only marred by the fact that it was set in Ambergris? I talked with some of my friends and we all agree that the fact that the grey-caps were an alien race devoid of motive contributed a lot to the atmosphere. The fact that they started interacting with Finch on a human-like level was a fairly big departure from Ambergris in the first two books, and I don't know how I feel about it

Yeah, "Shriek" is probably the best place to start with his Ambergris books since its a straight novel. "City" is really good but it's a pastiche of styles between the various parts - a couple novellas, a history of Ambergris with snarky commentary in the footnotes, among other things.

Veniss Underground is also really good to start with. It's a different setting from Ambergris, however.

I agree as far as Finch goes - Shriek (my favorite book so far) was fantastic because even Duncan didn't understand what the gray caps were up to, and the underground was described in just enough detail to be interesting but still totally alien - especially the description of the Machine.

Finch was still really good though if not my favorite of his work so far.


Maybe I should start a VanderMeer thread since we apparently have a decent amount of people ITT who've read VanderMeer. If anyone likes Mieville, they'll probably dig VanderMeer as well. He's one of the most imaginative and talented writers working today, for my money.

Encryptic fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Dec 29, 2009

LZEnglish
Jul 11, 2009

Hallucinogenic Toreador posted:

I am certain that it's Yagharek. The description of the man as "heavily pocked" matches with him plucking all his feathers at the end of Perdido Street Station, his mouth and nose are covered to hide his beak, his voice is described as harsh because it wasn't a human voice. He even picks up the overseers whip, a weapon that Yagharek was expert with but would have been useless to Isaac.

Ohhh man, I did not even think of that, but it makes perfect sense! I thought it was Isaac because it mentions at one point that Isaac has a pock marked face too, and because Isaac owed Jack big for saving his rear end, so I figured he came back do him a solid in the form of a mercy kill, and wouldn't really care about the repercussions of maybe being caught, because Lin was FUBAR. But your idea is definitely better- I didn't even consider the whip or the harsh voice. Good eye!

Ballsworthy" posted:

Was this the one about the stained-glass window? Because yeah that loving owned.

Yeah, that one was great, but I was referring to "The Ballroom". Honestly, all his short stories are pretty awesome. Another creepy unexplained one was about the woman in the white-painted room that the narrator has to bring a bowl of pudding to every day.

Ballsworthy
Apr 30, 2008

yup

LZEnglish posted:

Another creepy unexplained one was about the woman in the white-painted room that the narrator has to bring a bowl of pudding to every day.

poo poo I forgot all about that one. I need to find out who I lent that book to and get it back.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Grand Prize Winner posted:

This may come out kinda hazy as I'm a little sleep deprived right now, but I'm certain Doul mentions some degree of difference between torque and whatever tech the Ghostead Empire used.

I agree. Torque seems like some sort of magical radiation. The sword is a play on quantum mechanics, as best as I could tell. It's everywhere at once until it actually strikes, different probabilities governing where it hits, all that. I don't think there's necessarily any connection to torque.

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin

Hallucinogenic Toreador posted:

I am certain that it's Yagharek. The description of the man as "heavily pocked" matches with him plucking all his feathers at the end of Perdido Street Station, his mouth and nose are covered to hide his beak, his voice is described as harsh because it wasn't a human voice. He even picks up the overseers whip, a weapon that Yagharek was expert with but would have been useless to Isaac.

Yes, this is correct.

LZEnglish posted:

Yeah, that one was great, but I was referring to "The Ballroom". Honestly, all his short stories are pretty awesome. Another creepy unexplained one was about the woman in the white-painted room that the narrator has to bring a bowl of pudding to every day.

I love, love LOVE that collection. The one about the white room was called Details and there was (maybe still is?) going to be a movie made of it:

Wikipedia posted:

In 2006 it was announced that the story Details was turned into a script by Dan Kay, and subsequently picked up by studio Paramount Vantage. The script was said to expand upon the original story's exploration of pareidolia and rework the plot to feature a father and daughter. As of November 2008, Martyrs director Pascal Laugier is attached to direct.

And yeah, the Ballroom scared the gently caress out of me. Such an effectively creepy story, yet the ending was hilarious (deliberately so).

Oasx
Oct 11, 2006

Freshly Squeezed
I think i will check out some of those Jeff VanderMeer books, i really liked the New Weird & Steampunk anthologies he edited...

Ballsworthy
Apr 30, 2008

yup

Oasx posted:

I think i will check out some of those Jeff VanderMeer books, i really liked the New Weird & Steampunk anthologies he edited...

My favorite parts of both of those were his introductions, actually. Muthafucka knows his poo poo.

zacpol
Jan 11, 2010

Encryptic posted:



The original cover for City and Saints and Madmen with an actual story written in fine type on the cover. Can't find a good picture that shows the cover up close but you get the idea:



I could kiss you for this. I read the amazon page for that book a while ago and wanted to order it, but I didn't and soon forgot the name entirely. So stumbling on your post was the best thing to happen to me today.

But back on the topic of China Mieville, even though I'm joining the thread late...

I loved the three Bas-Lag novels, although The Scar was definitely my favorite. I really love his gritty settings and style; everything about the world is detailed and a lot of it warrants at least its own short story. Like (non-spoiler) the Ribs in New Crobuzon from Perdido Street Station, the Weavers from PSS and The Iron Council, the khepri exodus, etc.

But that praise in itself is also my one criticism, besides the obligatory and in my mind not entirely necessary love stories in each of the novels. Mieville mentions places like High Cromlech and Tesh, both of which would be perfect settings for Mieville's urban fantasy, but I feel like he might focus on New Crobuzon inhabitants and spinoffs rather than creating an entirely new storyline. Also, there are other characters and locations that are equally intriguing but most likely won't have an entire book devoted to them because it would necessitate a stylistic change: for example, the nomadic Garuda tribes in the desert.

Still, I love Mieville's writing and I'm going to start reading TC&TC later in the week on my plane ride to Chicago.

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

zacpol posted:

I could kiss you for this. I read the amazon page for that book a while ago and wanted to order it, but I didn't and soon forgot the name entirely. So stumbling on your post was the best thing to happen to me today.

Cool - glad I was of some help. Enjoy the book. :)

zacpol
Jan 11, 2010

Encryptic posted:

Cool - glad I was of some help. Enjoy the book. :)

So I picked up The City of Saints and Madmen yesterday, and started reading it today on my plane ride. The first story was bad to the point of skipping ahead to the second after 30 pages. I thought I had made a mistake, but the second story, in which the historian recounts the founding of Ambergris, is both interesting and funny. I even stopped after the first few sections to read the glossary of terms, which as a whole was even better (my favorites being the entry on The Occupation, the letter from Maximillian Sharp, and the Hyggboutten's burial ritual).

Do his other books share the same sense of humor?

zacpol fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Jan 13, 2010

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

zacpol posted:

So I picked up The City of Saints and Madmen yesterday, and started reading it today on my plane ride. The first story was bad to the point of skipping ahead to the second after 30 pages. I thought I had made a mistake, but the second story, in which the historian recounts the founding of Ambergris, is both interesting and funny. I even stopped after the first few sections to read the glossary of terms, which as a whole was even better (my favorites being the entry on The Occupation, the letter from Maximillian Sharp, and the Hoegbotton's burial ritual).

Do his other books share the same sense of humor?

I liked "Dradin, In Love", dammit. It's definitely a weird story though.

"Early History" is fantastic, of course. The sarcastic commentary in the footnotes definitely makes it. If you liked that, Shriek: An Afterword is even better. It takes the form of an "afterword" to the "Early History of Ambergris" written by the author's sister, with "footnotes" interjected by the author. Really good - my favorite of his stuff so far. It's well-written, funny at points but sad and above all, weird. You should dig it, hopefully.

CrimsonGhost
Aug 9, 2003
Who watches The Watcher?

Encryptic posted:

I liked "Dradin, In Love", dammit. It's definitely a weird story though.

Dradin is the best by a long shot that I think he written yet. The grotesque and arabesque aspects personified Poe and Lovecraft in a way I have yet to read anywhere else. That story just stayed with me and the ending was exactly right.

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Evfedu
Feb 28, 2007
Started reading Perdido Street Station because of this thread.

Was very close to dropping it for the first 100 pages or so, and I'm still a little bit irked by the scatalogical bent to the prose (seriously, is anything in New Crobuzon not "spattered" in one way or another?). But man, that poo poo picked up good when that cocoon hatched. Very big fan of the ideas he throws around, Slake Moths and Weaver in particular. Going to read his short story collection next (when I get around to his next book) before I go on to The Scar. Guy's not a bad author, and definitely knows where the sick-trigger is.

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