Mieville Thread!

[Superfluous Crow]

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

[Steerpike]

Yeah, I've seen that image before, and immediately thought of Yag.

[Steerpike]

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...

[LD]

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".

[LD]

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.

[Steerpike]

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]

[LD]

Mieville has another book coming out in about 6-8 months (!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken_%28novel%29

[Steerpike]

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.

[LD]

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".

[Steerpike]

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*).

[LD]

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.

[Superfluous Crow]

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?  

[LD]

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

[Superfluous Crow]

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...

[Kindling]

I am preparing myself to eat Kraken, using my eyes. Eye-eating. Yes.