I hope Mieville's next book after this one will be a Bas-Lag one. I predict it will deal with airships. It is the logical progression. He has already done land (trains) and the sea (ships).
Just imagine the wonders of the sky (already partially introduced in the earlier books, but not yet indepth)
The only other environment that is left may be mines and underground. The earlier books covered a lot of ground...
I'm hoping for more on Troglodopolis or Maru'ahm, in terms of the underground/airship thing. I wonder if he might suprise us with something completely different, though. A novel set in Bered Kai Nev?!
Whatever the case, I'm very stoked for The City & The City.
Has anyone read "The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases"? Mieville apparently wrote a chapter (or disease i guess) for it. Would like to know what he came up with. ^^
Also, his book will probably be about something he has barely ever hinted at before. i think he enjoys to surprise his readers with something completely new. Or maybe he'll just write another chapter in the history of New Crobuzon, but i doubt it.
Added this as the official discussion thread for the wiki (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fantasy_Series). Sounds like an author I need to get around to reading.
I've read Mieville's disease (Buscard's Murrain) but nothing else, sadly. I'd like to though, it has amazing contributors, Alan Moore and Jeff Vandermeer and I think maybe Neil Gaiman (!).
With regards to the two manuscripts/The City & The City thing, apparently the publisher didn't know he was writing C & C, and he handed it in the day after handing in another manuscript, which isn't described; it might not necessarily be a novel (I somehow doubt it, though we can hope).
Also, apparently The City & The City is "monster-free," which coming from Mieville is a bit alarming.
It really is somewhat alarming. He always claims he's only in it for the monsters. but then again, it was written for his mother or so i heard. She might have different tastes.
And yes, Neil Gaiman and VanderMeer contribute.
What is China's fictional disease about?
I would go so far as to say that there are no "physical" monsters, ala slakemoths and junk. Doesn't mean there isn't anything monstrous at all, it just happens to be prettier ~~
China's is a strange disease that causes uncontrollable glossolalia; it's triggered when someone says the word "wormwood," with a certain inflection, which supposedly reconfigures the speaker's brain, prompting them to seek out large crowds and repeat the word over and over again. There are hints that an "antidote" word also exists, but it's unknown.
It doesn't sound very credible when I just describe it like that, but Mieville does a good job of making the description look like an Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopedia (the title), and afterwards you don't really feel like saying the word wormwood, just in case...
China speaks about The City & The City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVPKSNKZ3Kg), talking about the peculiar, dream-like logic of police procedurals.
Can anyone remember where the in-depth explanation of crisis science is? Or just explain it? :P
Can only find the part where he blows up the cheese.
Chapter Fourteen and Chapter Twenty of PSS have a pretty good explanation of crisis energy. Basically the idea is that crisis energy is kind of like potential energy, and is omnipresent all about us, since "crisis is a part of being." Vodyanoi tap criss energy to create watercraeft, but most of it goes to waste. Crisis comes out of contradictions (like in the endgame atop the station). I think crisis is partly meant to reflect the idea of The Dialectic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic).
Just finished Iron Council! I had heard it was worse than the others, so chose to skip it after i had read the two others. But i was actually positively surprised. It's a really cool book if you ask me. And for once the ending didn't disappoint as much as it surprised. Very clever of him. Also, golems are pretty awesome.
And now i have finished The City & The City. Very different from his other books, but i'm actually pleasantly surprised at how well he writes non-fantasy like this. And the story is pretty nice as well, it actually made me guess at the wrong villain :)
But of course, the best point about it is:
[spoiler]The idea of the two cities. They co-exist in the same space, and while some areas belong entirely to one or the other, some of them are shared. Because each inhabitant is only ever in one city (unless they cross the centrally located border) they are bound to ignore and evade everything that is in the other city (unseeing it). This is such a great idea, and brilliantly carried out and evoked by Miéville.[/spoiler]
A Mieville interview (http://www.omnivoracious.com/2009/06/china-mi%C3%A9ville-author-of-the-city-the-city-guestblogging-this-week-at-omnivoracious.html); the interviewer is Jeff Vandermeer. I'm really fascinated by the bit at the beginning about the sublime as an aesthetic category, which I've written a couple of papers on.
Thank you.
Hm. Mieville provides another name to keep a lookout for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hope_Hodgson
The guy sounds like quite an intriguing character.
I'm not the only one who thinks this looks exactly like the final scene in Perdido Street Station, am I?
http://www.myfreewallpapers.net/fantasy/pages/steampunk-landscape.shtml
Yeah, I've seen that image before, and immediately thought of Yag.
I'm very excited, my girlfriend just found an autographed copy of The City & The City in Seattle, and luckily I hadn't bought a copy yet...
[blockquote=Light Dragon]Thank you.
Hm. Mieville provides another name to keep a lookout for:
URL
The guy sounds like quite an intriguing character. [/blockquote]
Looking at the article, The Night Land looks amazing. It might be fatiguing to read online, but it sounds truly awesome...
There's also a lot of fanfiction on one of the sites that is linked to by the article. I don't know how good it is, but they seem to be shorter "pastiches".
I have flash disabled, so I have not yet seen this, but:
http://online.wsj.com/video/author-china-mieville-discusses-his-weird-fiction/A5ACB1C3-37DD-4072-B437-2B199CC2B1EF.html
WSJ interview of China Mieville.
Just finished The City & The City...
[spoiler]It reminded me, more than anything, of King Rat (which I recently just reread): the focus on perspectives, on psychogeography, on different sides of cities, on hybridity; the ending was very typical Mieville, that idea of changing states, transforming, becoming more than the sum of your parts. Breach as a power also reminded me a lot of King Rat himself: a sort of menacing bogeyman, but one ultimately deflated by the ornery, impassioned, and very clever protagonist (Tyador and Saul are quite different characters, but both seem to have a certain 'boiling point,' a point at which they call out whatever authority they'd previously been subservant to, casting its own insecurities in its face).
I really liked it, and was a bit surprised by who the villian turned out to be... you're right, Crow, that the best part is the central conceit of the two cities and their very weird coexistence.[/spoiler]
Mieville has another book coming out in about 6-8 months (!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken_%28novel%29
Looks awesome! I heard he handed this one in at the same time as The City & The City, and that the next book he writes will probably be a Bas-Lag novel.
What makes you think that he will return to Bas Lag? Perhaps he is tired of it. Although I certainly hope he returns to Bas Lag after building up his literary "credibility".
There was an interview somewhere or other where he insinuated that he'd be returning to Bas-Lag after Kraken. He's commented on several occasions that while he imagines himself returning to Bas-Lag again and again over his career, he also doesn't want to become the "Bas-Lag machine." I'm glad he hasn't gone the route of the fantasy series as traditionally defined, though, so that we don't have to wait for years to get the next section of an ongoing narrative (*cough* George RR Martin *cough*).
Yes, it's good to refresh oneself and try new directions- it probably help his ideas congeal in a way that other fantasy authors don't. It also probably will help him be even more imaginative when he returns to his work.
Wow, that sounds great :D
From the short blurb i read it also sounded like he might be taking a more absurd/humourous approach than usual?
In a sense, he has something new coming out here (likely only 1 page, though) He's creating one of many countries for a RPG sourcebook.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo/products/v5748btpy87d8&page=2
Interesting side project. I also recently saw a sign of life from the upcoming Bas-Lag RPG from Adamant Entertainment; one of their designers had had his photo taken with Mieville. Not much else to be found on the subject though...
I am preparing myself to eat Kraken, using my eyes. Eye-eating. Yes.
Mieville wrote the introduction for this book by Hugh Cook: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/planetStories/general/v5748dyo5lawh
Looks like an awesome author.
In other vaguely related news, I'm going to be presenting a paper on Mieville (specifically on Iron Council) at a science fiction conference in a few months... my first academic conference!
Having a chance to deliver an academic paper is always exciting! Do they have a website, and will it be streamed online?
Here's the site (http://sfra2010.ning.com/events). No idea about whether there's going to be any kind of streaming...
The upcoming special issues of their journals seem interesting:
Quote"REMAKES, REVISIONS, REBOOTS: Why is the 21st century fascinated by returning to previous sf franchises? Is this nostalgia? Archive fever? Retrofuturism? What economic and cultural forces inform this recent fascination with return and renewal?
BIOPOLITICS: How do biopolitial theories of theorists such as Foucault, Hardt and Negri, Esposito and Agamben inform readings of sf? What can sf contribute to ongoing discussions of biopolitial governance? What can sf visions of posthumanism tell us about life under biopolitical capitalism?
http://www.sfra.org/
Good luck at the symposium. It does not seem as though there will be streaming.
Good luck if you're competing for this as well: http://www.sfra.org/node/54. (The student award).
Seems there are already some teasers out on the book that is to follow Kraken. Embassytown is its name, and what I could find is the following quote from Miéville:
'[it is about] science fiction, aliens and spaceships, but I don't want to give too much away'
So sci-fi from Miéville! Interesting.
A quick google search gave me this:
http://booktionary.blogspot.com/2010/05/news-china-mieville-has-released-kraken.html
which is the link where I found the quote.
Anyone read Kraken yet? I heard it was quite good.
-
Re; Embassytown... seems like Steerpike got the jump on Mieville with his Monomolecular Swordcanes setting :). ... Is there any genre Mieville won't conquer? Is his next book going to be a paranormal romance, just to show that he can do it in literary style?
I'm about a third of the way into Kraken at the moment, and it's GREAT! Feels like a slight return to the grounds of King Rat, but somewhat more mature, and certainly not as any kind of sequel.
As some of you might remember there were some rumors about a Bas-Lag RPG in the works. I have been following this keenly, with the main issue being that there hasn't been a word about "Tales of New Crobuzon" for a while anywhere on the internet.
Being curious and slightly scared that the project had been scrapped as it was originally scheduled for fall 2009, I sent a mail to Adamant Entertainment to ask whether we could still hope to see a Bas-Lag RPG.
I got a reply a bit later and, rejoice, they are still working on it! It's taking a bit longer because China Miéville himself is involved in every step of the creative process, from art over rules to setting, and he is, not surprisingly perhaps, a busy, busy man.
Just thought you'd like to know that.
(I haven't copied the mail onto the Greater Internet Area as it was a personal reply and all that, but PM me if you want to see it)
Excellent news!! I'm a bit pessemistic he'll return to Bas-Lag anytime soon, and this could be so excellent if done properly...
Embassytown is coming out in a few weeks.
But also: http://www.theliteraryplatform.com/2011/03/return-to-bas-lag-an-interview-with-china-mieville/
And a new short story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/22/china-mieville-covehithe-short-story
Hm. Apparently China Mieville wrote the intro to this book in 2004. http://monkeybrainbooks.com/Wizardry_and_Wild_Romance.html
And a new upcoming novel in 2012?
http://www.amazon.com/Railsea-China-Mieville/dp/0345524527/
Railsea?
A new book! I think this is the closest I will ever get to being a fan of something; just hearing the title makes me a little excited for it. Trains? Seas? I'm in.
EDIT: Mieville co-authored a Pathfinder Golarion supplement?!'
EDIT2: Also, what the hell is up with Adamant Entertainment and Tales of New Crobuzon! They swore they were still working on it.
Yes he did co-author a Pathfinder Supplement; he created a River Kingdom's nation-- I think he created the country of Outsea.
I plan on getting my hands on Mieville as soon as I get state-side. That and the most recent ASOIAF.
http://www.amazon.com/Railsea-China-Mieville/dp/0345524527/
Mieville's next book. Due soon.
May 2012
QuoteOn board the moletrain Medes, Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt: the giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one's death and the other's glory. But no matter how spectacular it is, Sham can't shake the sense that there is more to life than traveling the endless rails of the railsea—even if his captain can think only of the hunt for the ivory-colored mole she's been chasing since it took her arm all those years ago. When they come across a wrecked train, at first it's a welcome distraction. But what Sham finds in the derelict—a kind of treasure map indicating a mythical place untouched by iron rails—leads to considerably more than he'd bargained for. Soon he's hunted on all sides, by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters, and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham's life that's about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea.
Here is a novel for readers of all ages, a gripping and brilliantly imagined take on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick that confirms China Miéville's status as "the most original and talented voice to appear in several years" (Science Fiction Chronicle).
And for those who have academic access, wikipedia now has a catalogue of academic references to Bas-Lag
QuoteBirns, Nicholas (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "From Cacotopias to Railroads: Rebellion and the Shaping of the Normal in the Bas-Lag Universe". Extrapolation 50 (2): 200–211.
Burling, William J. (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "Periodizing the Postmodern: China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and the Dynamics of Radical Fantasy". Extrapolation 50 (2): 326–345.
Christakos, N.G. (2004). "China Miéville's The Scar: Pulp Weird Fiction Revisited (Part One: The Books)". Studies in Modern Horror 1 (2): 15–17.
Christakos, N.G. (2004). "China Miéville's The Scar: Pulp Weird Fiction Revisited (Part Two: The Others)". Studies in Modern Horror 1 (3): 3–6.
Cooper, Rich Paul (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "Building Worlds: Dialectical Materialism as Method in China Miéville's Bas-Lag". Extrapolation 50 (2): 212–223.
Dillon, Grace L. (2007). "Scarification and Survivance in China Mieville's The Scar". Foundation 36 (101): 13–25.
Freedman, C. (2005). "To the Perdido Street Station: The Representation of Revolution in China Mieville's Iron Council". Extrapolation 46 (2): 235–248.
Gordon, Joan (2003). "Hybridity, Heterotopia, and Mateship in China Miéville's Perdido Street Station". Science Fiction Studies 30 (3): 456–476.
Hendrick, Christopher (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "Monster Realism and Uneven Development in China Mieville's The Scar". Extrapolation 50 (2): 258–275.
Palmer, Christopher (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "Saving the City in China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels". Extrapolation 50 (2): 224–238.
Rankin, Sandy (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "AGASH AGASP AGAPE: The Weaver as Immanent Utopian Impulse in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and Iron Council". Extrapolation 50 (2): 239–258.
Vint, Sherryl (2009). Vint, Sherryl. ed. "Possible Fictions: Blochian Hope in The Scar". Extrapolation 50 (2): 276–292.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas-Lag#First_Umbric_Age
Other recent (new-ish) articles about him:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/china-mieville-life-writing-genre
http://io9.com/5605836/china-mieville-explains-theology-magic-and-why-jj-abrams-hates-you
He is also writing a comic series: "Dial H" for DC Comics
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36381
Also coming in May.
...Always trying new things(!)
Nice links! I've read most of those articles :).
Had heard about the comic through the grapevine... I will have to check that out.
but seriously, what is happening to the RPG??
No idea what's up with the RPG. I heard from Mieville's mouth that it was for sure coming out, but I'm not sure how closely he's actually following the project.
I'm going to shamelessly brag a bit here - I've had an article Iron Council accepted for publication in Science Fictions Studies. I'm not sure when it will come out - probably not for a few months at least, possibly even a bit longer - but I'm pretty excited about it. Those with access to JSTOR and the like might be able to view it for free once it actually appears in print. It basically performs a feminist/post-structuralist analysis of the Remade in IC, arguing that the identity of "Remade" is far more linguistic, discursive, and social than it is simply technological/biological.
Sounds extremely cool. I'll read it if I ever have the option of doing so! can't you send us the article/post it or do they have some rights to it now that they are publishing it?
I do wonder how you arrive at a feminist angle, though?
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the article - probably not.
By feminism I'm definitely speaking of the highly theoretical/critical feminism one finds in literary studies. Specifically I was comparing the way that theorists like Judith Butler conceive of identity not as something stable, natural, or essential but as a sort of citation/repetitive performance that society demands - so, for Butler, masculinity and femininity, for example, or even our conceptions of maleness and femaleness, aren't essential modes of being that arise "naturally" from our bodies, as so many people have traditionally claimed, but social constructions which we are obliged to continuously (and imperfectly) create for ourselves, performative guises which we don not with conscious agency but due to the dictates of social discourse. If we fail to do so we become "abject" in the eyes of society. For Butler abjection is the process through which those deemed non-normative are ostracized, stigmatized, and demonized. My reading of the Remade makes the claim that the state of being "Remade," while on the surface seeming totally (and hideously) physical, is actually a social construction created through language, and that the Remade are precisely those individuals which New Crobuzon abjects. I point to things like the idea of the fRemade as an example of this structure being overturned or re-written. The moment in The Scar where Shekel ceases to think of Angevine as Remade despite her half-mechanical body would also qualify. The analysis goes on to bring in notions of Foucaultian biopower and talks a bit about Donna Haraway's cyborg theory.
Seriously, why didn't my literature profs talk more about cyborg theory and Foucaultian biopower?? There is like a whole hidden world of awesome literature studies there.
I may be misremembering since I looked into things of this nature a while ago, but regarding your statement that:
"but social constructions which we are obliged to continuously (and imperfectly) create for ourselves, performative guises which we don not with conscious agency but due to the dictates of social discourse. "
That sounds like she would be more defined as a deconstructivist (??)[possibly the post-structuralist that you are referring to] or an existentialist. Now, she would be in the "Critical Studies" area with her focus on class and race/gender distinctions and labels, but calling herself a "feminist" for those particular reasons seems to make the 'feminist' philosopher label a bit too broad-almost to the point where it ruins the essence of the distinction between the different waves of feminist political movements by associating the term with too wide a variety of associatives. That being said, I think that is more of a criticism of her calling defining feminist philosophy that way rather than your utilization of the term since you are merely using her terms to discuss your paper.
Thanks for your summary! And congratulations on the new publication credit.
Judith Butler is absolutely a deconstructionist and a post-structuralist. What makes her a feminist are the objects she deconstructs: gender roles, sexuality, patriarchy, queerness, etc. She's considered an important thinker for both queer theory and feminist theory. Basically she takes feminist theory and adds a heavy dash of post-structuralism. At a certain point the term "feminism" becomes a bit silly - what feminism really leads to and argues for, for most Third Wave feminists, isn't simply equality for women but a radical re-thinking of what constitutes identity - how identities are formed or acquired, how certain identities get marginalized, how identity might be transformed, etcetera. Gender and sexuality are clearly central to all this, hence the connection to feminism.
Any comments about Railsea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railsea
Also, steerpike, you have read more of Mieville's academic writings, so I was wondering as to your input on this. Wikipedia suggested he said this: "Law is structurally indeterminate as applied to particular cases, and so the interpretation which becomes official is always a matter of force; the stronger of the contesting parties in each legal dispute will ultimately obtain the sanction of law. Therefore, he states: "The attempt to replace war and inequality with law is not merely utopian but is precisely self-defeating. A world structured around international law cannot but be one of imperialist violence. The chaotic and bloody world around us is the rule of law." My question is, what then does he suggest to replace law with or to restructure the conflict?
Is he just a deconstructionist in his arguments or does he propose solutions?
I'd agree with his posits about what law is and how it is created and its effect, as his posits are presented in the above statement (e.g. law largely being the arbitrary creation of dominant interests), but I fail to see his conclusions as naturally emanating from those statements. E.g. his statements about law as being non-utopian and self-defeating. I suppose he may be saying it's self-defeating in that it does not inherently advance equality even though people think it is inherently neutral and equal., but I don't have enough information to go on based on the wikipedia statement.
Quote from: Light DragonAlso, steerpike, you have read more of Mieville's academic writings, so I was wondering as to your input on this. Wikipedia suggested he said this: "Law is structurally indeterminate as applied to particular cases, and so the interpretation which becomes official is always a matter of force; the stronger of the contesting parties in each legal dispute will ultimately obtain the sanction of law. Therefore, he states: "The attempt to replace war and inequality with law is not merely utopian but is precisely self-defeating. A world structured around international law cannot but be one of imperialist violence. The chaotic and bloody world around us is the rule of law." My question is, what then does he suggest to replace law with or to restructure the conflict?
Is he just a deconstructionist in his arguments or does he propose solutions?
I'd agree with his posits about what law is and how it is created and its effect, as his posits are presented in the above statement (e.g. law largely being the arbitrary creation of dominant interests), but I fail to see his conclusions as naturally emanating from those statements. E.g. his statements about law as being non-utopian and self-defeating. I suppose he may be saying it's self-defeating in that it does not inherently advance equality even though people think it is inherently neutral and equal., but I don't have enough information to go on based on the wikipedia statement.
I actually haven't read Mieville's work on international law, I'm rather embarrassed to admit (
Between Equal Rights is on my to-read list - I'm not writing on Mieville for my dissertation, sad to say, so I haven't gotten to it yet).
I might hazard a guess that if Mieville was to offer an alternative it might be to work towards the dissolution of nations altogether - a very Marxist idea - while also working against the root causes of war itself. The answer isn't to try and "patch" imperialist politics and warfare with international law, it's to
get rid of the imperialist politics. Easier said than done, of course. That would be my guess, though.
Ok. Thanks! I didn't know that you hadn't been able to get to it yet
Odd... http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/the-perdido-street-project
Tor.Com published a fan story in the land of Mieville.
Possibly relevant for a bump given the sidebar conversations.
Love me some Mieville. More accurately, I love his Bas-Lag stories (largely because I love his setting).
Bas-Lag is excellent, but I have a particular soft spot for the City & the City and Railsea. My most recent read by him was Embassytown, which didn't really resonate with me like his other books did.
Looks like he recently put out a new(?) book called Three Moments of an Explosion. Might have to check that out.
I haven't read it yet but it's a short story collection. Looking for Jake was pretty good, and I read everything he writes as a matter of course so I'll definitely pick it up at some point.
Though I love virtually everything he's written my current order of favourite novels probably goes:
The Scar
Perdido Street Station
Embayssytown
Un Lun Dun
Iron Council
Kraken
The City & the City
Railsea
King Rat
Good Idea. I will give that a try as well:
Perdido Street Station
The Scar
Un Lun Dun
Kraken
The City & the City
Iron Council
Embassytown
I find it difficult to decide between Perdido and the Scar... I probably need to re-read both to definitively decide. I have been meaning to re-read The Scar. It has very good sections, but it also sprawls a bit.
Ditto regarding Station and Scar. Personally, I find it hard to directly compare the two, since the latter is tied to the former (i.e., many of the cool, novel, and enjoyable setting elements of the former are built upon by, or at least continued in, the latter). I read the first half of the Scar first, and greatly enjoyed it. Then, I re-read the first half and the second half after reading Station. The re-read was significantly more enjoyable.
Hmm, looks like you guys put Un Lun Dun up there pretty high. I haven't gotten around to reading it - now I'll definitely have to check it out.
Also The Scar is my favorite of his, definitely. Freaking love that book.