The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Literature => Topic started by: What Came Before on May 14, 2013, 10:04:57 pm
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The true, epic, titantic Godzilla vs. Mothra battle of our age, as far as I'm concerned -- well, at least regarding speculative/fantasy fiction.
Certainly there's no need to argue the case for Prince of Nothing on this forum. Yet what about the utterly extraordinary Bas-Lag trilogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas-Lag) from China Mieville? Any fans here? Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and The Iron Council -- for me, as far as sheer imaginative grandeur, even PON has to take a humble bow before them. Of course Mieville is no lightweight as far as meaning is concerned either -- morality, politics, pathos, humanity, he pulls no punches. Reading him is a humbling experience for anyone who fancies him or herself as creative -- he shows you just what a truly creative mind is capable of.
I just finished his latest novel -- a re-imagining of Moby Dick. Now just pause there for a second: who would even dare to attempt something as mad as that? Yet he would, and did -- the jaw-dropping YA novel Railsea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railsea). Now this is what young people should read (once they get a bit older they can get Prince of Nothing ;) ), not Hunger Game, or god forbid, Twilight.
p.s.: I attempted to search the forum to see if there's already a discussion about China Mieville, but the search function was not working for me.
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This is the first a topic has featured China Mieville.
I'll look into the search issue.
Also, never read any of his books, though I've watched a number of his lectures. Interesting person, no doubt. I will have to look up this Bas-Lag trilogy. Good fiction has eluded me for a long time...
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Just out of curiosity: on the old Three Seas forum, was there any discussion about Mr. Mieville?
Anyway, there's no doubt that he's a tremendous writer. I don't know anything about his lectures, but I'm not surprised to hear that he gives interesting ones. Like Bakker, he's also a "student of the game" -- someone who is very knowledgeable about the genre he's working in, familiar with all the traditions, and a master craftsman. Above that, they are both writers who are not just interested in spinning tales dragons and princesses.
Be warned, though: just like reading Bakker will set an impossibly high bar for any future high fantasies you may read, the same goes for Mieville -- Victorian steampunk will never be the same again. Similiar to what Bakker has done for the First Crusade, Mieville has reimagined early modernity: an age of science, mysticism, mass politics, violence, revolutions, utopianism, exploration, optimism...
Lastly, I may have erred in called the Bas-Lag books a "trilogy." They are all in the same setting and share a few characters, but they are not connected in overall plot -- definitely not like Prince of Nothing.
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There was not any conversation regarding CM on the old Three-Seas, if I recall correctly.
I went out and bought Perdido Street Station today because I'm dying for good fiction. I recently dove into Leviathan Wakes and bought Caliban's War with PSS. Honestly though, aside from Bakker, Asimov and "James A.S. Corey" are all I've been reading lately - fiction-wise. I probably have eight or nine non-fiction titles on the go ;).
We'll see how they go. No worries about misleading me, Truth Shines. CM is either going to rock my socks or be tossed to the corner ;P.
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Mieville has an incredible worldbuilding skill, and his short stories are magnificent IMO.
At the same time, while I've always wanted to know what happens in his novels, I don't recall caring deeply for any characters of his. In many respects I'd want to say CM nudges out or exceeds Bakker, but character wise I think Bakker wins easily.
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I agree with you on the character issue. Bakker's characters really have a ton of internal monologues. Right now I'm re-reading PON (probably for the 4th or 5th time). In TTT, there's a section of about 8 pages of just pure self-reflection by Achamian: on himself, on his relationships, on his mission... No plot development or dialogue whatsoever. Bakker can really give you unparalleled psychological depth when it comes to characters.
Also, absolutely agree on Mieville's worldbuilding skills. He openly posited himself as the anti-Tolkien. Not many, if any, people could have gotten away with it, if only because almost everyone uses his or her own versions of elves and wizards and dark lord, but not Mieville. Bas-Lag is a genuinely original creation of the highest caliber. The really ludicrous thing is that he makes it look almost effortless -- just look at Railsea. It's a relatively short novel (only about two to three hundred pages) intended primarily for a YA audience, and yet he just spins out, almost as if en passant, an amazing new world
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"Railsea is set on a dystopic, dying world whose oceans, the "railsea", are deserts colonized by ravenous speed-tunneling giant naked mole rats," - from OP wiki link
Sounds a lot like Dune from that line alone.
Hopefully one of these days I'll get around to China Mieville, you've piqued my interest. As I've found throughout most of these boards is that if no one is around to debate with, things get rather boring. I hope to alleviate some of that for you, but not for a bit. I've gotta finish Herbert's Dune Saga first and then exams, and then (hopefully) TUC. But then after that I'll look into it lol.
3 weeks later, Madness how goes the read?
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TSA is great, but iron council is probably the best spec fic ever written, inclusive of the silmarillion and dune.
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"Railsea is set on a dystopic, dying world whose oceans, the "railsea", are deserts colonized by ravenous speed-tunneling giant naked mole rats," - from OP wiki link
Sounds a lot like Dune from that line alone.
If that's the impression you got, it's more than a little misleading. There's no feeling of scifi to it (or at least none in the traditional sense of it). But mainly, the emphasis is on the rail not the desert. You'll see what I mean if you read it. Mieville, the great steampunkist that he is, is fascinated by trains and rails (also seen in Iron Council) -- that great puffing, roaring work of brute force and human imagination which embodies so many conflicting trends in early modernity, gives a completely different resonance from any elements in Dune.
TSA is great, but iron council is probably the best spec fic ever written, inclusive of the silmarillion and dune.
Wow that's pretty extravagant. Still, I'd agree that in the Bas-Lag trilogy, Iron Council is clearly the exhilarating crescendo, and certainly outshines vast majority of other speculative fiction works. You can say Perdido Street Station is about the pursuit of dreams of one man, while The Scar is the utopianism of a nation. But Iron Council is, with its obvious nod to Judah Loew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Loew), a challenge to the order of the world itself.
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I daresay Iron Council deals with themes close to sologdin's heart. ;)
I rate the Scar most highly of CM's books that I have read. I loved the idea of the scar itself along with all the thematic layering, not to mention that Uther Doul's crazy sword is the second best 'magic sword' in fantasy (after Stormbringer).
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TSA is great, but iron council is probably the best spec fic ever written, inclusive of the silmarillion and dune.
I've always heard -- until now, at least -- that the Iron Council is a preachy and pretentious bore of a book, a real letdown after the first two, which are supposed to be very good.
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Gah! I need to start reading PSS. Picked it up a couple times and it hasn't yet taken me off running.
solo strikes me as very well read and I'm a fan of his perspective on other matters. I'd certainly have to read the book before turning aside his endorsement. But after all, I'm just a man who...
Cheers.
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TSA is great, but iron council is probably the best spec fic ever written, inclusive of the silmarillion and dune.
I've always heard -- until now, at least -- that the Iron Council is a preachy and pretentious bore of a book, a real letdown after the first two, which are supposed to be very good.
That may depend on one's political idealogy. imho
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TSA is great, but iron council is probably the best spec fic ever written, inclusive of the silmarillion and dune.
I've always heard -- until now, at least -- that the Iron Council is a preachy and pretentious bore of a book, a real letdown after the first two, which are supposed to be very good.
That may depend on one's political idealogy. imho
If that's true, then the book must at least be preachy. Whether you consider it pretentious and a bore as well will depend on one's politics...
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Not necessarily. Maybe just reflecting the inability of ignoring ones own biases for long enough to read the novel... kinda makes me think of lockesnow's thread elsewhere about removing context.
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Agree with Wilshire.
I think IC examines peoples' motivations etc beneath their idealogy, more than pushing the idealogies themselves.
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Considering that some have dubbed Bakker some kind of extreme misogynist, I guess I can not be surprised with any opinion. It shows, at least, that you can always see what you want to see. Context can be everything.
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"Humans live in literal, physically different semantic realities based on our sensory perceptions and our awareness and interpretations of them" - random thought I wrote down a couple years ago as I was reading A Strange Loop.
And everything I've learned since hasn't contradicted this, simply made it much, much more complex.
You guys are pretty cool :) (read cognitive vigilant, if its possible).
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China Mieville is never preachy. You'd never get long passages of discourse on political ideology or philosophy (like, say, Robert Heinlein). Like Bakker, he closely adheres to the maxim of "Show, Don't Tell."
And Iron Council certainly cannot possibly be construed as "a bore." War? Revolution? Conspiracy? Golems? These are boring? Wow whoever believes that must be James Bond or something.
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I read Perdido Street Station over the summer and didn't particularly care for it. I enjoyed Mieville's prose, there were times I found myself caught up in his eloquence, and he had some very striking metaphors, but to me it felt as if every time the conflict was becoming too much to handle, a solution was just readily introduced, which were accompanied by their own plot complications but ultimately were easily reconciled.
I wasn't unsatisfied with it, there were some interesting elements to it, and maybe I'd have a greater appreciation for it within the larger context of the trilogy, but I don't think it is a book I would read again.
But that's just one man's opinion.. hope I didn't dissuade anyone from picking it up though, it's certainly worth a taste
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I've finally started reading Mieville. (Except for City and the City, which I read a few years ago and like quite a lot. I've actually found myself defending it to those put off by its 'unrealistic' fundamental conceit.)
I'm almost finished with PSS. While I think it's very good, it's been something of a disappointment. I expected it to be... I don't know... bigger, grander. I'm hoping the ending pulls out all the stops.
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I'd hope the rest of the trilogy has more to offer (assuming the events of Bas-Lag are related)?
Who's even letting you read books, delavagus ;)? I thought you were writing us one.
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If only, if only! ALL I'm doing is reading books these days -- trying to burn through a stack of philosophy books that have been waiting to be read for, ooh, years now, in some cases.
This damn dissertation is gonna kill me. I thought I'd be able to get back to my novel by mid-January. At this rate, I don't know... I may have to rethink my startegy for 2013, because I HAVE to finish the beast, and I've already lost a month.
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Good-natured jeering, anyhow. Good luck, of course, and congratulations again for even getting to this point in your academic career. I'm sure we'll dissecting your series soon enough.
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I've finished PSS and am on to The Scar. About PSS, I gotta say, it's glutinously pugnacious!
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Okay, almost no one's going to get my last post unless they've read PSS recently. Mieville uses some unusual vocabulary, which I like, but I always find it funny when author's use weird words over and over and over again. When he wrote PSS, Mieville was altogether too fond of the words 'glutinous' and 'pugnacious.' I'm a ways into The Scar, and so far they've only appeared a few times.
I found 'glutinous' to be very evocative the first, second, and third time he used it. Not so much after that. As for 'pugnacious,' I've always thought the word is hilarious for some reason. It always puts me in mind of a pug. I've never used it. I doubt I ever will.
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Can't say that it jarred me enough to notice, although it has been a decade or more since I read PSS.
I will note, however, that authors tend to chose vocabulary like a palette, some more conciously than others.
For example TSA is replete with glistening phalluses, moribund races, death swirling down all over the place, orators speaking oil and so forth.
I feel that terms such as those you noted fit pretty well with the main PoV character as type of Edwardian scientist in a dystopic Wonderland.
The Scar is a much paler beast than PSS.
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Lol. I will note, delavagus that you have previously used pugnacious, raising a lifetime count to two ;).
That is a very good analogy, Curethan. I would hazard that could warrant being a writing heuristic. It's something I try to avoid at all costs in my writing, having an unconscious palette - I think by analogy having a palette is unavoidable. There are just certain patterns or words that seem to jar in proximity.
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Both authors imbue their works with such a sense of historical tragedy, it's incredible; the climax to Miéville's Iron Council is one of the most devastating conclusions to a series I've ever read. I personally enjoy Miéville a bit more because I tend to think his skills are more honed than Bakker's; The Second Apocalypse series is my favorite series, but I think Bakker's non-fantasy work doesn't quite live up to Miéville's impressive range (fantasy, sci-fi, detective, etc.).
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Just finished PSS. I'd have to say I loved it, in a revolting kind of way. IMO China does a spectacular job with his description. Dunno how to phrase that all literary-wanking style, but I felt like the book really came to life. Some might say too much, I say it was great. All the description and detail brought the depravity and horror of the world to life, making the scene an integral part of the story.
Where Bakker had his work done on the politicking and character's dialogues (both inner and outer), China's focus was on the descriptive details. In that respect, China did a much better job of making his landscapes, his city, real, than does Bakker. Maybe it was because I listened to this book on audio while making 8 hour car trips, but I never got bored or felt like the description where over done.
I thoroughly enjoyed PSS, and as I'm not a fan of fairy tale endings, I'm glad the author wasn't afraid to make misfortune happen upon main characters. Not all books have forums full of speculation to hash out all the intricacies of the plot, but that doesn't stop them from being great books.
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death swirling down all over the place
To be fair that's probably some 'life is a spiral, but seen only from its end as a circle' and some sort of paradoxy only seen by souls thing. To be fair, it's more like a flag.
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Wilshire, you make me think of Guy Kay... That's how I would describe him against Bakker, as well.
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Guy Kay hmm? Maybe I should read him too.
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I wouldn't recommend his urban fantasy but then I'm just not that into urban fantasy, just fyi, if you're going to seek his stuff out. Tigana, Under Heaven, Lions of Al-Rassan, Last Light of the Sun, I can vouch for - though, again, not really decided on how much I enjoy his stuff.
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Tigana is a favourite of mine. The first time I put it down I felt satisfied, but everytime I began to consider it again my appreciation for it would grow. Under Heaven is near the top of my summer reading list.
If I'm not mistaken, Kay is also partly responsible for crafting Tolkien's notes into The Silmarillion alongside Christopher Tolkien. He's definitely worth checking out
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I thoroughly enjoyed Tigana for the musical focus and the little analogous caveats to the Iberian peninsula.
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I thoroughly enjoyed Tigana for the musical focus
Same here. Initially I thought a troupe of musicians incongruous to the story (sorry if I'm vague, I'm trying to avoiding spoiling the novel for anyone who hasn't read it), but after completing the novel it makes a lot of sense and is actually quite clever and moving.
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Lol. Yeah. The Dive for the Ring was also spell-bounding.
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also some gay barbarians in Tigana if my memory serves me correctly, so good RSB crossover!
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I thoroughly enjoyed Tigana for the musical focus and the little analogous caveats to the Iberian peninsula.
I always thought the Peninsula of the Palm was (loosely) based on Italy...
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Guy Kay hmm? Maybe I should read him too.
Guy Kay is one of my role-models. Back in the day I used to worship the page he wrote upon. Now, not so much. As an author, he's extraordinarily, sometimes mind-bogglingly good at many things; but I think he's also quite weak when it comes to other things. His language can be gorgeous. His authortial sensibilities in general are top-notch, in my opinion. His greatest weakness, I think, is storytelling. Tigana, for instance, seems to me now to be awfully messy and digressive from a storytelling standpoint; yet the ideas, the settings, the feeling of the whole thing is just incredible.
His later books become tighter, but at the cost of grandeur. Under Heaven, for example, strikes me as a fine piece of storytelling. But I was surprised by how small the story is. There's nothing wrong with small. I've wished more than once that I was capable of writing a story with such a limited scope. But there's something... I dunno... too neat and restrained about it, it seems to me, especially given that the book is set against the backdrop of historical events of massive, massive proportions.
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Tigana, for instance, seems to me now to be awfully messy and digressive from a storytelling standpoint; yet the ideas, the settings, the feeling of the whole thing is just incredible.
I read it a few years back, before I had taken a genuine interest in storytelling as a craft; I'm also finishing up a class in narrative theory at the moment, so I might have to give it another read afterwards. Although, our application text is Tristram Shandy, so digression is the name of the game :)
But there's something... I dunno... too neat and restrained about it, it seems to me, especially given that the book is set against the backdrop of historical events of massive, massive proportions.
Under Heaven is on my shelf waiting to be read so I'm just hazarding a guess here: is it possible that it is intentionally tight because of the vastness of the history? Is it written in a way that someone familiar with the history will appreciate the smaller scope of it, or perhaps written in a way that encourages research and a second read?
Also, @Madness and any other musicians out there, Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind might be worth checking out for its musical focus. I was absolutely spellbound by Kvothe, could barely put the first book down
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I thoroughly enjoyed Tigana for the musical focus and the little analogous caveats to the Iberian peninsula.
I always thought the Peninsula of the Palm was (loosely) based on Italy...
Upside down, I could see that. Honestly, it was something in his descriptions and characters that reminded me of the region - no real logical choice, simply an affect that came over me reading.
@Camlost, I have had Name of the Wind on my shelf since the summer we met. In fact, I had it that entire summer too. I've never even felt the urge to crack it - first-person narrative can be extremely tedious for me, sometimes, depending on its craft.
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I have had Name of the Wind on my shelf since the summer we met. In fact, I had it that entire summer too. I've never even felt the urge to crack it - first-person narrative can be extremely tedious for me, sometimes, depending on its craft.
I know it's probably bad form for me to be too open in criticizing fantasy authors -- I don't want it to seem that I think myself 'superior' to them, esp. given that they've finished books and gotten published and I'm still just a wannabe; nor do I want to make 'enemies' before I even publish a book -- but I'll run the risk enough to say that I was very disappointed by TNOTW. I'm honestly perplexed by the praise heaped on it.
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I'm getting a little of topic with this post, away from Mieville that is, but I thought I might clarify my particular appreciation for TNotW. I've always had an interest in classical mythology. Now, this might seem a strange correlation, but the idea of a legend telling his own story seemed similar to the notion of myths being subject to group control (variants popping up throughout time and place) for me, and that struck me as a very interesting narrative feature of the text.
I've always been an advocate of structured magic systems in fantasy elsewise it simply becomes a plot feature. This was one of the initial big draws to Bakker's work for me. Applying this to Rothfuss' work, I found Sympathy to be a clever form of structured magic (again keeping it vague for those who haven't read it).
Back to the topic at hand though, has anyone read Kraken by Mieville?
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I've read Kraken. It's my least favorite; it's a very fun read, but it isn't much more than a weird magical romp through the dark fantastical underbelly of London. Some great moments, and even greater characters, but the plot falls a bit flat. And on top of that, there isn't much in the way of poignant cultural/political commentary that Miéville typically injects into his works.
I will say, however, that Melville fans should find some stuff to love in Kraken. It's basically Miéville's modern homage to Moby Dick.
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Lol, delavagus. I think you are safe with that level of commentary :).
I've heard like things about Railsea, Soterion... truth?
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To be honest, I started Railsea and never finished; couldn't really get into it. For starters, it's a far more blatant homage to Moby Dick than Kraken was; what made Kraken enjoyable (for a Melville nut like me anyway) were its subtle references and nuanced nods. Railsea is just an obvious and sometimes ridiculous "young adult fantasy" version of Moby Dick. I didn't find much worth retaining in it.
His Bas-Lag trilogy and books Embassytown and The City and the City are such fantastic works that I wouldn't bother recommending Railsea to anyone over the age of eighteen who is interested in Miéville.
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I read the synopsis of The City and the City ... and uh wow, seems intensely confusing but this might be a good thing. He certainly likes to write unique books doesn't he.
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Thought I'd chime back in. I've finished Perdido Street Station and The Scar, and am almost finished with The Iron Council.
After getting over my initial disappointment with PSS (which was my own problem, not the book's -- PSS was probably too hyped to me for it to live up to my expectations), I've come to think the series is really quite impressive. I can see why he got all the accolades. I hardly think the books are perfect (but then few if any novels are). But they're well-written and evocative. Above all, they positively brim with imagination -- moreover, imagination imbued with great intelligence.
I think that PSS is the best of the Bas Lag books. For some reason, though, The Scar is my favorite. The ending fell flat for me (I'm stubbornly traditionalist when it comes to conclusions), but something about the book really grabbed me. Though I haven't finished it quite yet, so far my sense is that The Iron Council is by far the weakest of the bunch. I mentioned in an earlier post that it was my impressions that TIC was 'preachy.' The reality is nowhere near as bad as I'd been led to believe. (I imagined almost Ayn-Randish-ly long speeches by and debates between councilors on the perpetual train. Thankfully Mieville is neither a hack nor a crank.) Still, I think the book suffers not so much from its politics as from its plotting. My judgments here are only half-formed at best, but I feel like, by striving to outdo himself with the TIC, Mieville ended up producing a lesser work. By attempting to do more, he ended up doing less...
Vague, I know. Did anyone else have that feeling? Or something like it?
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Couldn't finish The City and the City. Just not a fan of the genre.
I loved PSS, and the ending was a big proponent of that. The book was dark and gritty, a happy ending would have ruined the entire novel for me.
I've not picked up the next book in the series yet, since a lot of my "reading" is actually done on frequent 4 or 8 hour drives, and for some reason the rest of Bas-Lag never made it to audio.
Does either sequel flesh out some of the less developed topics? Such as the whole Demon/hell thing? Or do they follow a more mundane man who sees the works of taumaturgy from afar?
Embassytown and Kraken are both on Audio, and so it Looking for Jake: Stories (which follows Jack Half-A-Prayer as a central character I think). I suppose I'll probably pick up one of those soon and see how they go. Of the three, any recommendations?
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Embassytown for sure. Kraken is quite fun, but I found it to be a bit silly; just Miéville goofing off, really. Embassytown, on the other hand, is an amazingly imagined speculative SF novel that is fun to read and really challenges its reader.
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I've not picked up the next book in the series yet, since a lot of my "reading" is actually done on frequent 4 or 8 hour drives, and for some reason the rest of Bas-Lag never made it to audio.
Sure they did. I listened to all three of the books. (I too get almost all my fiction in audio form these days...)
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Hmm well I'll just have to look harder. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the second 2 books got removed from audible.com for some reason. Guess I could look around instead of giving up when its not in the first place I look lol.
And thanks for the advice Morrigan
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kraken is menippean satire, very plainly through the subtitle, "an anatomy," in the sense intended by frye. that places it very much in the tradition of moby dick--but mieville's version is the anti-melville, one wherein we confront the end, and win. melville's version is more starkly apocalyptic, and more similar to RSB, or, so it seems at this time when TSA is incomplete. we shall see if RSB bears out the menippean tradition, as i am suspecting.
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Interesting thoughts about TSA, solo.
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Couldn't finish The City and the City. Just not a fan of the genre.
I loved PSS, and the ending was a big proponent of that. The book was dark and gritty, a happy ending would have ruined the entire novel for me.
I've not picked up the next book in the series yet, since a lot of my "reading" is actually done on frequent 4 or 8 hour drives, and for some reason the rest of Bas-Lag never made it to audio.
Does either sequel flesh out some of the less developed topics? Such as the whole Demon/hell thing? Or do they follow a more mundane man who sees the works of taumaturgy from afar?
Embassytown and Kraken are both on Audio, and so it Looking for Jake: Stories (which follows Jack Half-A-Prayer as a central character I think). I suppose I'll probably pick up one of those soon and see how they go. Of the three, any recommendations?
Embassytown for sure. Kraken is quite fun, but I found it to be a bit silly; just Miéville goofing off, really. Embassytown, on the other hand, is an amazingly imagined speculative SF novel that is fun to read and really challenges its reader.
I loved all three Bas-Lag books, and The City and the City. I'd not come across anything like Perdido Street Station before. It changed my perceptions of what could be done with fantasy.
Kraken disappointed me. It just seemed like it was written by someone with a London fetish.
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Solo, years later, thanks for the word menippean.
I loved all three Bas-Lag books, and The City and the City. I'd not come across anything like Perdido Street Station before. It changed my perceptions of what could be done with fantasy.
As I predicted, I never have gotten around to them but they remain on the list. I agree with you on PSS - something entirely unique, both in concept and in prose. He's a great writer, imo.