Tag Archives: China Miéville

Book Review: Embassytown by China Miéville

Posted on by
2

One of the main problems with having this almost irrational obsession with China Miéville is that I now go into reading his novels with very high hopes, expecting to be grabbed straight away and by the end, blown away. I was very excited to receive a copy of his latest novel, Embassytown, before it was released. This was the first time I received a book free for review. So I am a little embarrassed it took me so long to finish and therefore review, especially due to my high regard for the author.

With Embassytown, Miéville enters the ‘hard sci-fi’ genre and does amazing things, exploring complex concepts of language and translation within a world that is deeply filled in, though I felt like it took long to get into the actual main story to be told.

The novel is set on a planet at the edge of the ‘immer’ – kind of the known area in which space travel can happen via a kind of space-punkish method of travel called immersing which is similar to colonial era travel by sea. On this planet, humans co-exist with very alien aliens, the Ariekei, and Miéville did very well to make them far removed from human beings, with complex language using two mouths and the fact that thought and truth is linked inseparably from speaking.

The differences between our language and there’s, the problems with communication are explained a lot throughout the work, but I never quite got it until the end. It’s a bit hard to explain in a review which is why it’s worth actually reading the book. Anyway, communication is done through Ambassodors, two people, like twins in body and thought, so similar that the Ariekei consider them one being. It is when a new kind of Ambassador comes and communication breaks down that we get our story. But I felt like this all came rather late.

There is a lot of back story at the start, and even though some of this back story is about the narrator, Avice Benner Cho, I never felt like I got to know her, other than on the surface. The real depth is in the world and the politics of the society, which was fascinating for a time, but to my shame, I put this novel down for a bit when it wasn’t going anywhere fast enough for me to keep reading. It wasn’t until I picked it up again and I got into the second half, and especially much later that it really got moving quickly in the end.

I really wanted to love this book, and I think the story it tells in the end is fascinating, the world Miéville creates so detailed, but there was something about the writing that didn’t grab me. Often it felt like a report, rather than a novel in places. There was lots of ‘telling’ and I kind of felt detached from the events. But perhaps this has something to do with the genre in which its written, something that is very clearly meant to be hard science-fiction, something I haven’t read a lot of. For that reason, I’ve been curious to try and get friends and loved ones that are much more into sci-fi to read it and tell me what they think.

This is worth reading, despite its short-comings, but I think I might go back and finally read the trilogy in search of his better work.

Interview with China Miéville on LiteraryMinded

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to the wonderful Angela Meyer a.k.a. LiteraryMinded, in September I was lucky enough to join her in a fancy hotel room to interview speculative fiction writer and socialist, China Miéville. As a lot of you might know, I’m a big fan of his work and consider myself influenced by him a great deal. Given I’m the only person that writes under the genre ‘Marxist horror,’ Miéville is probably the closest to me in terms of style, sometimes describing his writing as ‘New Weird’ though perhaps he’s a much subtler in his politics.

The interview is published in the Crikey blog, LiteraryMinded in two parts.

Part One

…I like trying to poke at what makes London different than Paris, different than Sydney, different than New York, you know. There’s nothing terribly unusual about loving different cities and writers liking cities but I do like big cities and every time I come to a city – you almost try and get a kind of mouth feel for it, you know, and it’s amazing how quickly it happens. You can get out of the plane and spend two minutes walking through a city you’ve never been to before and you can feel that it feels different from the last one you were at and you’re like okay, what is that? Trying to put words to that. In a way it’s trying to put words to that sense of the specificity of place that I hope is what you’re talking about – it’s very much trying to express that. It’s quite ineffable.

Part Two

Y’no people have talked about this before and to me, it’s kind of a non-issue. I mean there is a tradition amongst some on the left of having a rather fallacious notion of what culture is and how it works and what fiction is, and so you get this kind of pious and unconvincing sense of, y’no, ‘if you are a socialist you shouldn’t…’ or whatever, and I think – it’s not a job recruitment form, it’s a novel, it’s doing a different thing. I’m not asking you to agree with him. I’m not asking you to agree with his choice of job, I’m not asking you to agree with a single decision he makes in the entire book.

Book Review: The City and The City – China Mieville

Posted on by
6

The City and The City is definitely the most amazing novel I’ve read this year but that sounds a bit grandiose because I haven’t read much this year. Anyhow, it blew me away with how rich it was and the message lying underneath.

The City and The CityChina Miéville seems to take on a new genre with each novel, excluding the trilogy which is the same genre. The City and The City takes on the hard-boiled crime genre all within this rich and incredibly deep world of the fantastic, where two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, exist in the same space.

The first thing that strikes you is how much detail Miéville has put into the world; the history behind it, the mechanics of how exactly two cities exist on top of each other and the variations between the two. The descriptions of the buildings are amazing and I could put myself in Beszel and Ul Qoma. It was like the cities were characters in and of themselves.

The mechanics of the two cities work so that if someone from Beszel is walking down the street and walks passed someone in Ul Qoma, sometimes on the same street, they aren’t allowed to see each other or interact with each other. If they do, they must ‘unsee’ before Breach, a body that oversees the borders, steps in.

The crime begins around this idea. A young Canadian student studying archaeology is found murdered and it is believed the killer may have breached in the process.

The investigation takes us into the world of Nationalists and Unificationists, political groups either fighting for one or other city, or with the ‘Unifs,’ the eventual unification between the two cities. I found all of this fascinating with Miéville most probably drawing on his own knowledge of political groupings.

This may be a bit of a pedantic point but I was conscious that as a socialist, I was reading a novel by another socialist from the point-of-view of a police officer. But despite knowing that socialists are against the police, I did not see a problem with this. Miéville has entered into the genre and has to be respectful of its boundaries, but also, he mentioned in his interview that you don’t have to agree with everything your main character does.

The character of Tyador Borlú, the investigator is a sympathetic character at times with a kind of liberal bend on crime fighting. There’s also a healthy disdain for much more unpleasant characters like the Nationalists that makes it easier to side with him.

The other thing about it being a crime novel is it very much written in that style whilst still merging with his own slant on description and prose. I found it easy to read and the story progressed smoothly.

The City and The City is essentially about borders. It’s a very strong metaphor and Miéville was at pains last year when it came out, to deny all of the assumptions of what the novel was about like Israel/Palestine or Berlin. That would be a very lazy interpretation and there is even a nod to this when Borlú mentions going to a conference on duel-city crime fighting alongside police from these places where he makes the comment that they just don’t get it.

The metaphor runs much deeper than that and whilst trying not to spoil it for you, it brings borders to their extreme conclusion, talking about the arbitrariness of borders and how they force people apart who are much closer than they realise. And this metaphor is something that runs through the life of the novel, it is essential to the story, not something laying on top or shoved in your face.

The City and The City is an amazing novel that plays with your head at times whilst fascinating you with the world and how vividly it is described. It comes highly recommended.

Book Review: King Rat – China Miéville

Posted on by
6

King Rat is a dark novel immersed in the underground of London, that twists an old fairy tale with rich characters.

King RatSet in London, Miéville’s first novel, King Rat is about Saul, whose life is turned upside down when his father is murdered and the cops try to pin him with the crime. This is the catalyst for a whole new world and set of rules, but I won’t give it all away. But the fantastic element is down well and easily suspends your disbelief.

I will say though, that the world is rich, partly set within the milieu of London’s Jungle music scene and is a twist on the Pied Piper of Hamlin tale. The characters are all original and interesting in their own right but the strength is in the atmosphere. The whole feel of the novel is dark, sinister and underground. For me, this is the ideal mood for a novel and I was hooked by this feel of the world.

The plot moved at a fast pace and had clear developments and twists, but at the same time came across as realistic. Similarly, the ending built up to a massive climax that was as a whole satisfying without being too cliché at all. The imperfectness of the ending maintained the realism of this very unreal world.

Miéville is known by many as a socialist, and member of Britain’s Socialist Workers Party so of course I was interested to see how he approached politics within this novel. Saul’s late father was an active socialist as part of an organisation so politics is part of the backdrop of the novel but never front and centre.

But the texture and world is obviously shaped by his understanding of the world, adding to the richness of the world especially with his descriptions of the city, contrasting the front of the city with its hidden core, alluding to how it was built by workers.

As Miéville has said in interviews, you don’t have to be political to read these novels, but for those who are interested in the politics, it’s definitely there to be read into.

Overall, an original tale with great characters is definitely recommended for lovers of dark and fantastic stories.

[Rating:4.5]

China Mieville at Melbourne Writers Festival

Posted on by
4

Me with China Mieville at 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival

I was pretty stoked to get the opportunity for photo with China after the ‘Visions of the City’ session yesterday. Overall, he was an inspiring person to hear speak at all the sessions I went to and it’ll certainly help me hone my work.

Apologies though to China if I seemed like a bit of a fanboy type stalker because I seemed to be around wherever he was.

Melbourne Writers Festival: The City, More China Miéville and Overland

Posted on by
3

It’s like my festival is already over :-( I’m broke and don’t have tickets to any more sessions despite me wanting to go to more next weekend. But these two days have been great. I’m sitting in a café now before heading off to a gig in Ferntree Gully, so thought I’d blog now.

I went to the “Visions of the City” session chaired by Overland’s Rjurik Davidson with China Miéville, Margo Lanagan and Jack Dann. China was clearly the most interesting person speaking in the session and it was good to see him attract a much younger crowd this time, as compared to all of the other sessions I’ve been to which had a much older crowd.

They discussed how the city featured in their work. Lanagan and Dan talked about how Melbourne features in both of their stories in the new edition of Overland. Miéville talked more about how the city features particularly in his new book, The City and The City.

Mieville’s fantastical writing seems to go against the grain of fantasy that is known for more feudal like settings. In an old interview in Overland, Miéville particularly emphasised going against this grain as a way of being progressive within the genre.

A large part of the discussion talked about dystopias and utopias and how they’re reflected. China made the point that dystopias in fiction aren’t like real dystopia’s because at the same time, the aesthetic of many dystopias in fiction are nice looking and appealing.

Questions from the audience brought up discussion about how Miéville saw eras in culture defined by sharp political events like how 9/11 shifted the political climate and earlier, Seattle, referring to the anti-capitalist demonstrations in 99.

I had my hand up but didn’t get to ask my question following from that discussion but after the session, I went up to him and asked whether he thought the Global Financial Crisis is one of those defining events and whether it’d shape fiction. He said most definitely but it was hard to predict right now. He did envision kind of financially motivated apocalyptic type stories, though which I found interesting.

I also got the guts to get a photo taken with him and will post that probably tomorrow as there’s no way to transfer to photo from my memory card in this café.

But once again, this session has made me think and I’m sure I’ve missed some important points but perhaps I might remember them again and raise them in future.

Melbourne Writers Festival: China Miéville And Tom Cho

Posted on by
3

I took the day off work to say to see China Miéville and Tom Cho on the first day of the Melbourne Writer’s festival at Federation Square. Festivals are always inspiring and they manage to raise questions and such, and today was no exception

The Morning Read
The morning session featured reading from three authors, China Miéville, Petra White, and Irfan Yusuf as well as some time for questions and chat. China read some bits from a WIP that was about, from what I could gather, the first union set up in hell. His writing was great and it was interesting to hear it read aloud.

Irfan Yusuf has weird politics that I can’t seem to pin down, being an ex-Liberal, but the reading from his book reasonably highlighted racism in Australia and was semi-interesting.

When questions came, I was able to ask China a question about how writing balances with his political activism, and whether he sees it as part of his politics. His answer to the audience was kind of straight forward, that he didn’t see writing as changing the world, but speaking to him after, he was able to elaborate to say that he did see writing as a political act but of course no replacement to actual political action.

Fable, Fantasy And The New Short Story
Tom Cho was in a session with Singaporean writer Cyril Wong where they both spoke about their short story collections and as a short story writer, I found this really interesting. A large part of Cyril’s presentation talked about how his writing identifies him as gay and how he set out not to define himself as Singaporean, or as part of this “East v West” divide.

Tom’s presentation raised some questions for me regarding short stories and such as he discussed the concept of Mary Sue, a kind of perfect protagonist that author uses to live their fantasies. Whilst an author that is clearly intervening into the story is seen as wrong generally amongst writer’s circles, I think these rules shouldn’t be hard and fast and I’m quite attracted to this idea of living certain fantasies through my characters and can see how this wouldn’t just be interesting to the writer.

Overall, Tom’s presentation was entertaining and humorous as well as informative.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to ask a question about them regarding the status of the short story and short story collection at the moment, considering it’s known that publishers generally won’t touch short fiction collections unless it’s written by someone already famous.

I wanted to ask a question about the role of small press and self-publishing in releasing collections even without the aim of selling big.

The Future Of Fiction
The last session I saw was with China Miéville again and Steven Amsterdam regarding the future of fiction and each approached it from a different angle.

Steven talked about the changes technology is making in the publishing industry, and as the sound wasn’t too good, it was hard to make out what he was saying, but from I got out of it, it was a fairly apocalyptic (but reasonable) prediction that the publishing industry is heading into a sort of crisis.

China talked about the future of fiction in terms of how genres, movements and literature are changing. He had some interesting points including that he thinks tropes like zombies and vampires have outlived their time. He also liked movements of literature, creating their own rules of genre and such.

Question time brought up discussion about the Kindle (which China hates and called Amazon a union busting company), eBooks, the internet and the publishing industry. China said he didn’t want to place a bet anyway on which way the industry was going and said that it’s be pretty turbulent in these times and it’ll take a few years to get a sense of where publishing is going.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the guts to take photos of any famous authors or in the sessions if I was allowed, but perhaps I’ll have for you tomorrow when I go to see China Miéville again.

Melbourne Writers Festival Program Launch

Posted on by
4

I boarded the old school city circle tram on the corner of La Trobe and Swantson Street at 10.31 this morning for the launch of the 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival program.

Melbourne Writers Festival program launch 1

It was a bit of an unconventional way to launch something, which I loved, and I enjoyed the crowd and inclusive atmosphere as listened to the MC speak about the festival to the passengers – including unsuspecting tourists that didn’t know what all the fuss was about.

I tweeted pics and updates along the way to Fed Square on my new BlackBerry Storm (apologies about the quality of some.) Yes, I’ve upgraded my geekage level!

Melbourne Writers Festival program launch 2

Walking to The Atrium at Fed Square for the more official proceedings, it felt friendly inviting as we all walked together, writers, spectators and even festival directors and such.

Melbourne Writers Festival program launch 3

I’m excited about this year’s festival and will be attending a few sessions including quite possibly the opening night as well as being very excited to hear socialist and dark fantasy writer, China Miéville.

The Melbourne Writers Festival goes from 21st to the 30th of August. You can find more information about it at http://www.mwf.com.au. Also, I will be blogging and tweeting about the events I attend this year so stay tuned!