China Miéville/Bas-Lag megathread

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ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

Just a reminder that his new book, The City & The City is out today. I just went and picked up my copy

# ¿ May 26, 2009 21:53

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:15

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

The Powell's event was very fun and had surprisingly few horrible nerd questions that I associate with fantasy author Q/A sessions. China said my Quixote tattoo was "wicked badass" :smug:

Anyone catch the name of the book/author of the book he recommended that is "half horror novel half philosophy text"? He said it was an Iranian author and it started with an N but he said it way too fast.

ShutteredIn fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jun 8, 2009

# ¿ Jun 8, 2009 06:03

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

Ballsworthy posted:

Cyclonopedia, by Reza Negarestani
http://www.amazon.com/Cyclonopedia-Complicity-Materials-Reza-Negarestani/dp/0980544009

The best thing is that when he did get a horrible nerd question he managed to turn it into something interesting to talk about. Very funny and intelligent man.

Wow thanks that was fast. This sounds pretty awesome.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2009 18:59

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.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2009 19:28

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

When I saw him speak last year there were tons of nerds asking the same Bas-Lag questions, etc etc. In this big crowd there was one little kid there that said Un Lun Dun was his favorite book. China took about 5 minutes out of his Q&A to talk to the kid about the book and his favorite parts, gave him recommendations on other kids books he likes and ask him what kind of stories he likes to write. Classy dude.

You could tell he was really excited to have young fans and he said he was definitely going to do more YA down the road, so that might be one of the ones he's been working on. I see a lot of authors speak and he was easily one of the most entertaining. He told a story about drawing an octopus while on the phone at his mom's house and she laughed at him for drawing the same stuff now that he did when he was a kid. Later on she found an old notepad from when he was young with a drawing of an octopus in a space helmet, to which his reaction was "Oh man an octopus astronaut, that's genius!" and started drawing it again.

ShutteredIn fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Apr 5, 2011

# ¿ Apr 5, 2011 09:56

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

Has this been posted? Because it's hilarious:

quote:

Facebook
1601 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto
CA 94304
USA
6 October 2010

Dear Facebook People,

URGENT COMPLAINT– PLEASE READ, MORE ACTION TO FOLLOW SHORTLY

1) The short version:

At least one person, if not more, is/are impersonating me on Facebook, with (a) fake profile(s) claiming my identity. Despite me repeatedly bringing this to your attention, you have taken no action to remedy the situation. And I’m getting very annoyed.

2) The full version:

This thing you hold is called a letter. This is the third time I’ve contacted you, and I’m doing so by this antiquated method because, and I realise this may shock you so brace yourself, I have no Facebook account. Which means it is nigh-on impossible for me to get in touch with you. Kudos for your Ninja avoidance strategies.

Back when you had a button allowing me to alert you to a fake profile despite not having an account myself, I contacted you that way. I was answered with a resonant silence. Subsequently, when the problem persisted, I hunted lengthily for, found and left a message on the phone number you go out of your way to hide. Absolutely nothing happened. So here we go again: third time’s a charm.

I am being imitated on Facebook. I believe the only reason anyone is bothering to do this is because I’m a novelist (published by Macmillan and Random House), a writer and broadcaster, with a minor public profile. I think there are one or two community pages about my stuff on Facebook – that of course is very flattering and nice of people to bother. The problem is that there is or are also pages by someone(s) purporting to be me. This is weird and creepy. What’s worse is I know for a fact that some readers, friends and colleagues are friending ‘China Miéville’ under the impression that it is me, and that others are wondering why ‘China Miéville’ refuses to respond to them. And I have no idea what dreadful things or ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ are being claimed as mine, nor what ‘I’ am saying.

I know lots of people enjoy being on Facebook. Great. More power to them. Vaya con Dios. Me, though: not my thing. I have absolutely no interest in it. I am not now nor have I ever been a Facebook member. Short of some weird Damascene moment, I will not ever join Facebook – and if that unlikely event occurs, I promise I’ll tell you immediately. In the meantime, though, as a matter of urgency, as a matter of courtesy, as a matter of decency, please respond to my repeated requests:

• Please delete all profiles claiming to be me (with or without the accent on the ‘é’ – last time I looked, I found one ‘China Mieville’, and one more accurately rendered).
• Please do not allow anyone else to impersonate me. I have neither time nor inclination to trawl your listings regularly to see if another bizarre liar has sprung up.
• And while you’re at it, please institute a system whereby those of us with the temerity not to sign up to your service can still contact you on these matters and actually get a [insert cuss-word] answer.

I appeal to you to honour your commitments to security and integrity. Of course as a multi-gajillion-dollar company I have absolutely no meaningful leverage over you at all. If David Fincher’s film doesn’t embarrass you, you’re hardly going to notice the plaintive whining of a geek like me. All I can do is go public. Which is my next plan.

I’m allowing a week for this letter to reach you by airmail, then three days for you to respond to me by phone or the email address provided. Then, if I’ve heard nothing, on 16 October 2010, I’ll send copies of this message to all the literary organizations and publications with which I have connections

…

some of the many books bloggers I know; and anyone else I can think of. I’ll encourage them all to publicise the matter. I’m tired of being impersonated, and I’m sick of you refusing to answer me.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
China Miéville

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 05:18

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

There are a couple fan pages but I'm not sure if that's what he was talking about.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2011 03:41

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:15

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

Hedrigall posted:

Looking at that Amazon page, this may be a YA book after all...

Last time I saw him talk he said he had a Young Adult novel basically finished for after Embassytown was out, guessing it was this.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2011 03:57

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > China Miéville/Bas-Lag megathread