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That dividing line across all of them is the perfect unifying touch to his work.
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Feb 23, 2011 16:30
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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).
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Feb 23, 2011 16:52
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Yeah, they're hit and miss, I like they're going for a unifying style, but even his work isn't that unified, so... Also, Vetruvian man for IC? WTF?
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Feb 24, 2011 03:04
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MikeJF posted:And (thank you to our temporarily departed Hedrigall for the link) here's the back catalogue in the new cover style (click for big): Thanks for posting these! They look fantastic as a whole, although by themselves some are weaker than others (what do snakes have to do with any of the stories in Looking For Jake, either literally or symbolically?). I'll add them to the OP though for extra prettiness. Now i think about it though, they do look similar to the catalogues of some of those ultra-prolific crime authors whose every book is matched to a certain style with minimal art. You know the ones I mean. I hope this doesn't lead to browsers skipping over Miéville's books on bookstore shelves. MikeJF posted:Every other dual design is obvious but what is this meant to be? Top looks like an eye, and the bottom... I have no idea what the bottom is. But it really really reminds me of the supposed spacecraft in ancient Hindu carvings like this:  Does anyone agree?
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Mar 2, 2011 03:07
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oh gently caress cover talk, here's what i got in the mail today because i am a loving legend
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Mar 2, 2011 |
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Mar 2, 2011 07:57
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God drat! gently caress you and your drexel-looking dorm room! Are the edges really navy blue like that and are they releasing paperbacks at the same time as hardcovers? That would be a really awesome choice.
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Mar 2, 2011 08:07
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RoboCicero posted:God drat! gently caress you and your drexel-looking dorm room! The edges are black! This is an ARC (advance reader copy) and is thus a paperback, I assume that it'll be just HB at release, with a paperback coming 6 months later. The ARC is incomplete: there are pages for instance that read "Dedication here" and "Acknowledgements here" and there is also a disclaimer stating that some grammatical/spelling errors may still be present (although China is a god of the English language so it'll probably be flawless). What is drexel? D:
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Mar 2, 2011 08:10
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Ah, that's awesome! I think the colored edges will really give it an great feel when you flip through it, much like those old-timey bibles. You're right about the hardcovers, but they've been sub 20 dollars (unless I get the hot off the press copy from London) generally, so I can't complain. Drexel is a small college that's in the center of Philadelpha that has dorm rooms that look the same as yours, little compartment above the closet and all. It was the most benign insult I could think of!
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Mar 2, 2011 08:13
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70 pages in. It's loving amazing. No plot spoilers, but here's some impressions. Seriously though if you want to go in completely blind then don't read past this barrier: • The blurbs make it seem like the Hosts are the only alien race in the book, but there are dozens of others. The narrative is first-person and everything is alluded to matter-of-factly, like in the Bas-Lag books, so often a race or other concept might be mentioned offhand but not explained. It's like... the protagonist is telling her story to someone who lives in the same fictional world, if you know what I mean. • The language is very baroque, in fact it may be his most verbose book yet, making books like Perdido Street Station seem positively simple to read. It really helps you immerse yourself in this world, although I have to keep looking up (and then remembering later on) what things like "manchmal" mean. He gives a rather baroque slant to the regular sci-fi jargon too, for example "alien" becomes "exoterre", "slower than light speed" becomes "sublux", "stasis" becomes "sopor" and so on. • Because of the hundreds/thousands of colonised planets, years and days are no longer standardised but hours have been kept the same. So he might say something like "250 kilohours ago" and I need to whip out my iPhone to calculate what kind of span of time that is. At other points the narrator mentions her age in years, but there are clues as to the year length of the planet she lives on so you have to do a bit of mental arithmetic to work out that "11 years old" is more like 30. • The book is, as suspected, all about language and communication. The Hosts' language (which was mentioned in all the blurbs) has a cool little twist on exactly what it is, but I won't spoil that. • Apart from languages the other sci-fi invention China has come up with is the Immer, and I don't want to spoil anything about it other than to say it's loving TERRIFYING.  Oh my god I need to read more
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Mar 3, 2011 03:10
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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.
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Mar 3, 2011 03:57
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Not really, although i did flip back a couple of times for general reasons like remembering who a character was or seeing when else a word was used (goddamn that "manchmal") or rereading a particularly striking paragraph (of which there are many, this is such a beautifully written book). You know, no more than (I assume) you would for any other book.
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Mar 3, 2011 04:03
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Hedrigall posted:oh gently caress cover talk, here's what i got in the mail today because i am a loving legend Godspit Jabber and gently caress, you filthy Aussie (i think?!).
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Mar 3, 2011 05:01
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^ Yes I'm Aussie :P I'm now up to pg 193 and holy gently caress some poo poo is going down. I don't know why, it must be the baroque language and weirdness of alien cultures (and there is another aspect which is something like a human still being out of their depth in a situation, despite the general weirdness of their day-to-day life), but this book seems most similar to The Scar and Judah's flashback in Iron Council. If you liked those things then this is the book for you! It is very different in tone to Kraken.
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Mar 3, 2011 14:39
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Page 307. This book is really bleak and kind of disturbing. I love it. I just realised it reminds me a bit of Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, in that it's all about the difficulties of communicating with and understanding the workings of alien minds. The US cover art (you know, that appalling abortion of design with the Matrix-rip-off text and the photoshopped picture of Hong Kong) is so unbelievably inappropriate for the story. The city in the book looks nothing like that, I can tell you that the artwork they used is about as representative of Embassytown as it would be if it was used for New Crobuzon. The UK cover art still makes no sense to me but at least it's pretty so I'm happy with that. Edit: haha, sneaky Dawn Of The Dead reference on page 310. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Mar 5, 2011 |
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Mar 5, 2011 07:53
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Hope I'm not the only person posting here anymore  Finished the book! Oh my god. Brilliant. Reeling. Etc. Here, I wrote a spoiler-free review: http://outtherebooks.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/embassytown-by-china-mieville-a-quirk-of-psyche-and-phonetics/
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Mar 5, 2011 18:43
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Hedrigall posted:Hope I'm not the only person posting here anymore Awesome! I'm excited. Good review. I hope it comes out on ebook on the same date but the new cover designs are pretty slick so I might be tempted to buy physical copies of it. I'm really a huge Mieville fan thanks to this thread. For some reason I'd always pictured China Mievelle as some overweight lesbian feminist writer which scared me away from the books because I thought they'd be all Anne Rice. Paragon8 fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Mar 5, 2011 |
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Mar 5, 2011 19:20
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Paragon8 posted:For some reason I'd always pictured China Mievelle as some overweight lesbian feminist writer which scared me away from the books because I thought they'd be all Anne Rice. Nope, he's this guy:  China Miéville by ethics_gradient, on Flickr
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Mar 5, 2011 19:45
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He's a brutish, muscled skinhead with the mouth of a poet and a poo poo-ton of degrees and knows more about the world than you will ever know plus he writes good books 
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Mar 5, 2011 19:51
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I think the London School of Economics gives away PhDs to any fantasy author who wanders up to their door.
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Mar 5, 2011 20:51
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Hedrigall posted:He's a brutish, muscled skinhead with the mouth of a poet and a poo poo-ton of degrees and knows more about the world than you will ever know plus he writes good books Which is why I'm endlessly grateful that you made this thread! 
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Mar 5, 2011 20:53
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Hedrigall posted:But it really really reminds me of the supposed spacecraft in ancient Hindu carvings like this: No, because I think that's Mayan art.
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Mar 6, 2011 01:22
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fritz posted:No, because I think that's Mayan art. oh derp anyway my point stands
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Mar 6, 2011 04:16
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withak posted:I think the London School of Economics gives away PhDs to any fantasy author who wanders up to their door. Yeah, p much. Also, while I love his pretentious-as-poo poo prose stylings when he writes fiction, I absolutely cannot stand it when he throws it in his blog. loving write like a normal person that hasn't been living in sheltered academia for the last decade, son.
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Mar 7, 2011 05:51
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Some news Good interview (with a massive cocktease of a title) here: Return To Bas-Lag No there's not a new Bas-Lag book yet but China gives more than the usual two sentence answer in response to the question. It's an interesting interview! If you are dying for some new Miéville, you can read the prologue and what they're calling chapter one (which was chapter "0.1" of the "Proem" of the proof copy I read) of Embassytown here: http://www.panmacmillan.com/Extracts/displayPage.asp?PageTitle=An%20exclusive%20chapter%20extract%20from%20Embassytown I loving love this line, and it confused me when I first read it but don't worry it makes sense later: Embassytown posted:‘How do I spell Bren’s name?’ I asked Dad Shemmi, and he showed me. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Mar 14, 2011 |
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Mar 14, 2011 13:35
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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. My library has a copy of TC&TC so I'll probably pick that one up next.
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Mar 15, 2011 23:57
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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/
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Mar 16, 2011 21:13
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Bleedingcool.com has a recap of Chinas panel at C2E2 : http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/19/my-old-china-mieville-at-c2e2-by-greg-baldino/
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Mar 21, 2011 07:27
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I just finished The City & The City as my introduction to Mieville. I was enthused initially for the concept, but in the end it felt a bit... kitchy. I don't know. Sheared of the gimmick, the story was a little flat. It's still a very good gimmick, and a romantic one, but it didn't develop into anything. It just hung there. Lovingly-written, though, from a strictly wordsmith perspective. I like his prose enough that Un Lun Dun and the Bas-Lag novels are next in my Kindle. Also he interviews very well, from what I've read.
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Mar 22, 2011 16:15
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I've only read TC&TC once, when it first came out, and I've been itching to revisit it because I think back to the mini world he invented and the awesome metaphysical central concept with increasing fondness. First time through, I raced to the end to find the answer to the mystery. Next time I read it (probably on my Kindle) I intend to savour the weirdness more. You will love Bas-Lag. Perdido Street Station is the obvious place to start but if you want something a bit different to dense-city-fiction, try The Scar first instead (it's the best; it's also the first Miéville book I ever read, and you certainly don't have to read those books in publication order). Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Mar 22, 2011 |
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Mar 22, 2011 16:27
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Fuinnily enough, I came here to post how I was half-way through my second read through of TC&TC. It is, without a doubt, my favorite work of fiction. There are so many conceptually amazing moments, written with such flare and love that I fail to see how people could dislike it, even though many China fans seem to rank it lowest out of his 'proper' works. Hedrigall, the second time through you are definitely able to appreciate it more. I think the mistake is to think of it as a pulp-noir piece, even though that is how China seems to consider it himself. The mystery is irrelevant really, in fact you are almost set up to know 'whodunnit' by the very concept of the book. I LOVE the fact that the ENTIRE length of the book is spent telling you how there is no third city, but because it is a mystery you can't bring yourself to believe it. ALSO, it wasn't until the second read-through that I realiased that Breach basically is/are Ornicy. The way that Ornicy is explained - a third state between the two cities that disguise themself within both by behaving like the other whilst secretly controlling everything from behind the scenes, is almost identical to how Breach turn out to be. I realise that I am only half way through and it may well be that this point is explored overtly in the latter half of the book, but I don't remember it if it is. Then again that could just be because of how much I was enjoying it.
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Mar 22, 2011 18:49
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Here's another v. positive review for Embassytown from a Goodreads user:Aedan Lake on Goodreads posted:As I write this publication is still a ways off and I'm wary of giving spoilers - as with Perdido Street Station, it is best to go into this completely unprepared as the plot has more than its share of twists. Miéville is a gifted world-creator and storyteller whose books are incredibly fresh on the first reading (as it should be but often is not), and I have found that the best way to read his books is not to read anything more than the cover blurb. Much as I loved Iron Council, a couple of its key moments were spoiled for me in online reviews; I have only myself to blame for not closing the tab sooner.
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Mar 25, 2011 15:53
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I pre-ordered Embassytown, can't remember the last time I did that with any book/author. Also, sharing the TC&TC love. Kraken was decent but not amazing, but I'm fine with Mieville not writing Bas-Lag books because I enjoy his other stuff so much.
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Mar 25, 2011 16:01
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About the prose in the Bas-Lag novels, especially PSS: Everyone's already gone over how China's strength lies in his world-building, and his actual prose can be kind of finicky or bland, but that's never bothered me. The thing that jumps out at me is how he uses profanity in a very out-of-place way. It's not that I mind profanity, it's that it sticks out a lot from his more baroque and formal descriptions. For instance, Yagharek will be going into a monologue about the city, and then suddenly he describes some people as drugfucked. Really? Yagharek's dialogue is dripping with formality! He'd say "drug-addled" or something! 
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Mar 27, 2011 08:33
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I don't mind the modern curses intermingled with the otherwise baroque prose. It's never cringe-worthy on the level of, say, Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains. And I'd much rather China use actual swear words than made-up ones; like the absolutely terrible one Larry Niven has his characters use in Ringworld: "tanj". Ugh. The best curses in Bas-Lag are the ones that mix the baroque and modern language up, making them more jarring and thus more effective, like "Jabber spit and gently caress". On another topic, this is 9 years old now but still a great read: China Miéville's 50 fantasy & science fiction works that socialists should read
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Mar 27, 2011 10:25
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http://handshakemag.com/interview-with-china-mieville/ Another interview, this time mainly about worldbuilding and RPGs. In the preamble it's mentioned that China is supposedly going to publish a book a year until 2014. 2009 - TC&TC 2010 - Kraken 2011 - Embassytown 2012 - ? 2013 - ? 2014 - ? What a loving amazing prolific streak. He's only halfway through, too.
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Mar 28, 2011 13:56
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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 |
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Mar 28, 2011 15:58
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Hedrigall posted:http://handshakemag.com/interview-with-china-mieville/ From what I understand, he's always working on multiple projects at once. So if he gets stuck on one, he switches to another for a bit. I believe he handed in the manuscript for Kraken when he handed in TC&TC. I'm reading a proof of Embassytown and it's just so full of ideas. I have to read paragraphs a few times just to make sure I'm really absorbing everything. He's doing a five-city American tour this summer, too. Love to hear him read and he's just such a nice guy to chat with. Very excited to see him again.
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Apr 2, 2011 07:23
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nixar55 posted:I'm reading a proof of Embassytown and it's just so full of ideas. I have to read paragraphs a few times just to make sure I'm really absorbing everything. I know, and it's incredible. The first 50 pages in particular are so dense with ideas that it could make an entire novel if any other author was writing. I really hope China returns to this universe/world/thing for more stories, like he has for Bas-Lag.
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Apr 2, 2011 07:46
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Hedrigall posted:The first 50 pages in particular are so dense with ideas that it could make an entire novel if any other author was writing. China Mieville is Philip K Dick but with academia instead of addiction.
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Apr 2, 2011 12:27
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nixar55 posted:He's doing a five-city American tour this summer, too. Love to hear him read and he's just such a nice guy to chat with. Very excited to see him again.
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Apr 3, 2011 17:10
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