Comments on: China Mieville talks about his new hard-boiled/fantastic novel

By: kullervo

kullervo — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fantastic book. Complex, original mystery, difficult to pull off but successfully done. Metaphors that work without beating you over the head. Waiting for a sequel.

By: NotACat

NotACat — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

He talks about the challenges of working in two genres -- the fantastic and the hard-boiled mystery genre -- in one novel.

Like Jim Butcher has been doing for the last 11 volumes of the Dresden Files, and Glen Cook for 12 volumes of Garrett P.I.? I look forward to finding out whether he's found some new challenges or has found some new way to deal with the same old ones.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@1: Totally different. It’s more like a Borges or Umberto Eco piece than pulp urban fantasy.

The central conceit of the novel — I’m not giving anything away here — is that it takes place in two cities sharing the same physical location, so that the two cities are intertwined like a nest of snakes. To avoid trampling on each other’s sovereignty, the inhabitants of the two cities have perfected the art of “unseeing” the other, so that anything obviously belonging to the other city (through colors, architecture, and so on) is completely, and fearfully, ignored: this mutual refusal creates a kind of perceptive alternate reality. There’s actually no “fantasy” at all.

By: neurolux

neurolux — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Two intertwined cities in one, each ignoring the other…sounds like Montreal.

By: Donal

Donal — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Personally disappointed with it, having loved (mostly) his previous works and also being a fan of one of Mieville’s main inspirations, HP Lovecraft.

Agree with #9 above, the setting did remind me of Borges’ “TlÃ¶n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” Nothing wrong there. Borges is a rich vein to mine, as many have, and “Tlon,…” is a particular favourite.

Spotted one of the main outcomes early on, quite disappointing. If the fantastic element was taken out, it would a very pedestrian thriller with nothing new in the plot. The addition of “The City” to “The City” seemed mainly a reason to play with some language eg. “gros-topically”.

His best “weird” fiction (rather than “fantastic”) piece to date has been the “Looking For Jake” title piece in the short story collection of the same name where he (Mielville) demonstrated, unlike many others, that he understood what Lovecraft’s weird fiction was really about; an indifferent universe.

By: Fake51

Fake51 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mieville has a general problem: he loves language far too much, to the point where he falls in love with certain words and will repeat them over and over and over and … (try counting the word brine in Scar and contrast with water or saltwater).
He also suffers from the delusion that altering words will lend to the atmosphere in a book rather than break up the reading. Using words like ‘alchymical’ really doesn’t add anything, it just makes the author look arrogant: ‘Look! I know smart words!”

Apart from that, I love both Scar and Perdido Street Station.

By: error404

error404 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Have a copy right here and I start reading it tonight.

Loved Perdido Street Station, less so the Iron Council, but The Tain and the Scar are both bloody good.

By: michaelkenyon

michaelkenyon — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s not forget George Alec Effinger and his ass kicking muslim future crime dramas, the Marid Audran series.

By: Atomische

Atomische — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished reading this two days ago… my first MiÃ©ville read. Brilliant and indescribable.

By: droostring

droostring — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

For those who have read this and Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami – would I enjoy this based on me liking the Murakami book?

It sounds interesting, especially the melding of the two genres.

By: ResoluteReader

ResoluteReader — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The link to the article by China Mieville is broken, since it is so entertaining, I thought I’d post it!

http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=7813

By: Salamalecs

Salamalecs — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Also worth mentionning, Simon R Green’s Nightside series.

By: bililoquy

bililoquy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Absolutely. Murakami’s a very useful point of comparison for this novel. It’s not fantasy in the Jim Butcher sense.

By: Scurra

Scurra — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#6: And, of course, Green’s earlier Hawk and Fisher books, which were sort of trial runs for the Darkside (which I don’t like nearly as much, but that’s personal taste rather than anything else.)