This might merit it's own thread, but you might consider posting it in one of the reading threads.
We could always turn it into a thread about popular books that we, a minority, end up disliking? I have people recommend me Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant on numerous occasions, and every time I have to tell them that I did try to read those books. And I couldn't make it very far because the main character is a disgusting piece of shit. (I'm basically using this thread to bring up my hatred for that character. I really do not like him.)
I also did not enjoy Neal Stephenson's Anathem. You could skip dozens of pages and not miss anything, because he'd spend those pages talking about irrelevant information - how a bridge is built or buttresses- or by throwing around a lot of fake language. It drove me crazy. Perhaps I'm just not sophisticated enough to appreciate his books, but I have no desire to read another one now.
Fuck Thomas Covenant!
Funny you mention Stephenson because he is one of the formemost guys who game to mind in my gripe about boring or unlikable characters. He is for me to cyberpunk what Meiville is to steampunk. I read the books because they are chock full of cool ideas...but they are a slog to get through because I either hate or couldnt give a fig about anyone involved in the story. I have taken to reading books like this in paralel with something else because they feel almost like text books to an alternate world history class as opposed to fiction.
This is news to me. Low magic, non-traditional races, gang wars, average joes, and bureaucrats instead of a struggle between good and evil, a meandering journey instead of an epic journey, multiple narrators and no heroes' tale.
Fine, but we're still talking about a book where the main character unlocks the fundamental secret of the universe and uses it to defeat Godzilla while keeping it out of the hands of Skynet. It's atypical high fantasy, but you can't call it un-high.
This is news to me. Low magic, non-traditional races, gang wars, average joes, and bureaucrats instead of a struggle between good and evil, a meandering journey instead of an epic journey, multiple narrators and no heroes' tale.
Fine, but we're still talking about a book where the main character unlocks the fundamental secret of the universe and uses it to defeat Godzilla while keeping it out of the hands of Skynet. It's atypical high fantasy, but you can't call it un-high.
This is a very unconvincing attempt to pigeonhole PSS as high fantasy. What definition of 'high fantasy' does this use? One vague enough to fit pretty much any fantasy book into it's environs, which is the same as no definition at all. Try again.
i don't think you have to define PSS as high fantasy in order to construct an argument for why the dock strike scene is stupid
it's a really really long scene with an achingly slow set-up that seems to serve no purpose other than 'THE GUBBAMINT IS BAD'.
i for the record thought that the crisis energy lecture was one of the more interesting parts of the book, but seeing it in the concept of introducing dialectic materialism into the physics of the world makes me hate it a little bit
and rape-us ex machina is my new phrase because god damn fuck the ending of that book
Moreover he's missing the point. They're like Skynet only in the most facile terms. They're a political entity, and they're a religion with worshippers, and they have an aim beyond DESTROY ALL HUMANS. The huge construct they talk to in the junkyard can't support its own weight. And sure enough, in the Iron Council they're stomped on by the NC militia. And the slakemoths are nothing like godzilla.
You might as well say 'well they're all books really so they're, after all, totally and completely alike'.
I don't know, I think Tycho and Mieville are actually guilty of pretty much the same kinds of literary pretension- where it seems like they're actively seeking out the most arcane and baroque construction/diction to dress up their point
the difference is tycho does it about two paragraphs at a clip, largely for humorous ends
mieville does it for an entire overlong book, and it's pretty key in establishing his mood. he also creates the illusion of a large vocabulary by using crazy words, but recycles the same ones over and over again
Meanwhile tycho's 'a phalanx of pedants' is still one of my favorite phrases, though it is rather ostentatious
Out of curiosity - those of you who dislikes Mieville, which authors in the same genre do you prefer?
One of the criticisms above is that he writes unlikable characters who try to save a city not worth saving. That's sounds pretty similar to GRR Martin - right?
I was pretty irritated that Tycho's newspost called out Mieville for being pretentious in his writing. Pot, meet kettle.
Like I said in the title I think Tycho was wrong: Mieville is not a pretentious writer, I wanted him to be one, but I didn't feel he was.
It's pretty obvious we feel oppositely about the whole thing, but at least we can agree there.
I think I most like his books because he's writing a novel in every genre, or at least many novels with many more genres crammed into them. If Mieville's books were the norm I think I'd agree with your reasons for disliking him, but as it is, with all the genre-stringent drivel out there, we need more fantasy writers like him.
Oh, I see. People like the OP require that their fantasy reading be "comfort-reading" that won't challenge them or make them uncomfortable. I've nothing against comfort-reading - I have a large number of books I keep specifically for this reason.
Yeah, he'd better stay away from Meiville, and indeed pretty much all British fantasy novels - even Terry Pratchett is more than happy to throw a little ice water in our faces now and then (Night Watch, Small Gods, Snuff, I Shall Wear Midnight spring to mind from my recent reading).
No, I want to challenged but PSS didn't challenge me. The Marxist elements were too obvious, I know Marxist theory and I spotted those elements and I was like "Ah, so he's using Hegelian dialectics as a fictional energy source... that's stupid." I'm not being arrogant but I know when an author is skillfully weaving complex themes into a narrative and there weren't any in PSS. As I said the nadir of the book for me was the bit where Mieville explains in very simple terms, with equations, his big idea. Big ideas should be more subtle!
Out of curiosity - those of you who dislikes Mieville, which authors in the same genre do you prefer?
One of the criticisms above is that he writes unlikable characters who try to save a city not worth saving. That's sounds pretty similar to GRR Martin - right?
Not all of Martin's characters and societies are totally unlikable 100% of the time.
I actively want to see Mieville's worlds tore asunder and their terrible societies to burn. I tend to support any agents of change, which tend to be the villians.
Oh, I see. People like the OP require that their fantasy reading be "comfort-reading" that won't challenge them or make them uncomfortable. I've nothing against comfort-reading - I have a large number of books I keep specifically for this reason.
Yeah, he'd better stay away from Meiville, and indeed pretty much all British fantasy novels - even Terry Pratchett is more than happy to throw a little ice water in our faces now and then (Night Watch, Small Gods, Snuff, I Shall Wear Midnight spring to mind from my recent reading).
No, I want to challenged but PSS didn't challenge me. The Marxist elements were too obvious, I know Marxist theory and I spotted those elements and I was like "Ah, so he's using Hegelian dialectics as a fictional energy source... that's stupid." I'm not being arrogant but I know when an author is skillfully weaving complex themes into a narrative and there weren't any in PSS. As I said the nadir of the book for me was the bit where Mieville explains in very simple terms, with equations, his big idea. Big ideas should be more subtle!
this. i didn't pick up on the dialectics thing when reading it, but the book was not challenging in any worthwhile way. It was challenging to read the word skein or foetid every fifty lines, but not to grasp the intricacies of the characters and plot, because there kind of weren't any.
however all that said i think a big part of me being so disappointed with this book was reading it coming right off the Book of the Short Sun, and most writers are probably going to look like clowns next to gene wolfe
but still i went into this wanting something big and not easily digestible and was pretty let down
I don't know, I think Tycho and Mieville are actually guilty of pretty much the same kinds of literary pretension- where it seems like they're actively seeking out the most arcane and baroque construction/diction to dress up their point
the difference is tycho does it about two paragraphs at a clip, largely for humorous ends
mieville does it for an entire overlong book, and it's pretty key in establishing his mood. he also creates the illusion of a large vocabulary by using crazy words, but recycles the same ones over and over again
Oh yeah. In PSS, it was "vertiginous". The first time I came across it, I was like whoa, that's a long word, cool, I'll look it up. But the fourth time he used it, I thought, "he's just gone through his manuscript and Find/Replaced 'giddy' with 'vertiginous'. I still think he might have done that.
As for Tycho, the difference is this. Tycho writes a baroque paragraph and then he summarizes that whole paragraph into one simple but incredibly powerful sentence. I've got several of his sentences floating around in my head, "Look outside: you can't say we've finished building the world" is my favorite but almost every major post of his has one or two. That's skillful writing - the ability to distill the complex into the simple without becoming simplistic.
I don't know, I think Tycho and Mieville are actually guilty of pretty much the same kinds of literary pretension- where it seems like they're actively seeking out the most arcane and baroque construction/diction to dress up their point
the difference is tycho does it about two paragraphs at a clip, largely for humorous ends
mieville does it for an entire overlong book, and it's pretty key in establishing his mood. he also creates the illusion of a large vocabulary by using crazy words, but recycles the same ones over and over again
Oh yeah. In PSS, it was "vertiginous". The first time I came across it, I was like whoa, that's a long word, cool, I'll look it up. But the fourth time he used it, I thought, "he's just gone through his manuscript and Find/Replaced 'giddy' with 'vertiginous'. I still think he might have done that.
As for Tycho, the difference is this. Tycho writes a baroque paragraph and then he summarizes that whole paragraph into one simple but incredibly powerful sentence. I've got several of his sentences floating around in my head, "Look outside: you can't say we've finished building the world" is my favorite but almost every major post of his has one or two. That's skillful writing - the ability to distill the complex into the simple without becoming simplistic.
truth
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HawkstoneDon't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. Somewhere outside of BarstowRegistered Userregular
Out of curiosity - those of you who dislikes Mieville, which authors in the same genre do you prefer?
One of the criticisms above is that he writes unlikable characters who try to save a city not worth saving. That's sounds pretty similar to GRR Martin - right?
GRRM has many flaws ....a great many, but likable characters is not one. Arya, Brienne, The Imp, Rob are all very likable just off the top of my head, and Visarys, The Hound, and Jamie are all at least entertaining in a bastardish short of way, and thats just low hanging fruit.
Mieville is interesting, but if only for building interesting species or ideas.
Awesome things - the Weaver, people whose blood dried into armor etc.
Terrible things - his characters, blatant communist leanings intruding on story, inability to get anything done expeditiously.
The normal blatantly racist/fascist societies we see in fantasy are just fine, but "communism" isn't?
Curse that red villain Meiville for not conforming to genre norms!
When it gets in the way of the story: Yes. I have no problem with communism, but Iron Council in particular seemed to try to jam it into every crevice.
I don't know, I think Tycho and Mieville are actually guilty of pretty much the same kinds of literary pretension- where it seems like they're actively seeking out the most arcane and baroque construction/diction to dress up their point
the difference is tycho does it about two paragraphs at a clip, largely for humorous ends
mieville does it for an entire overlong book, and it's pretty key in establishing his mood. he also creates the illusion of a large vocabulary by using crazy words, but recycles the same ones over and over again
Oh yeah. In PSS, it was "vertiginous". The first time I came across it, I was like whoa, that's a long word, cool, I'll look it up. But the fourth time he used it, I thought, "he's just gone through his manuscript and Find/Replaced 'giddy' with 'vertiginous'. I still think he might have done that.
As for Tycho, the difference is this. Tycho writes a baroque paragraph and then he summarizes that whole paragraph into one simple but incredibly powerful sentence. I've got several of his sentences floating around in my head, "Look outside: you can't say we've finished building the world" is my favorite but almost every major post of his has one or two. That's skillful writing - the ability to distill the complex into the simple without becoming simplistic.
So you think using Hegelian dialectics as a fictional energy source in a fantasy novel is stupid and faux-baroque writing is smart?
I feel completely the opposite, again. To me Tycho's posts are the worst kind of long-winded, where you see the glimpses of an above average writer fucking around with 'style' because that's the way he's always done it. I guess they're an acquired taste and if you like them, you like them, and if you don't, you don't - but his language is purposefully overwrought and lacks substance. At least when Mieville does it, it's to create a fantastic, otherworldly atmosphere to couch his subversive worldbuilding.
I've only ever read Kraken but I remember enjoying the experience quite a lot. I definitely agree that Mieville's writing is stronger on worldbuilding than characterization, but that's okay. I'm fine with that. That's what I want in a reading experience.
Tycho was definitely being hypocritical with his criticisms of Mieville. He is guilty of the exact same crimes he accuses Mieville - using obscure language as an attempt to obfuscate simple ideas. Just because he likes to strip the finery off his date after dressing it up for the prom does not mean he is more skillful writer nor does it make him any less of hypocrite.
Also, can we not use "pretentious" as a criticism, please? That word has been so abused it has no meaning anymore. You can apply it to any work of art (writing, music, painting, etc.) and it in all cases it would apply.
I don't know, I think Tycho and Mieville are actually guilty of pretty much the same kinds of literary pretension- where it seems like they're actively seeking out the most arcane and baroque construction/diction to dress up their point
the difference is tycho does it about two paragraphs at a clip, largely for humorous ends
mieville does it for an entire overlong book, and it's pretty key in establishing his mood. he also creates the illusion of a large vocabulary by using crazy words, but recycles the same ones over and over again
Oh yeah. In PSS, it was "vertiginous". The first time I came across it, I was like whoa, that's a long word, cool, I'll look it up. But the fourth time he used it, I thought, "he's just gone through his manuscript and Find/Replaced 'giddy' with 'vertiginous'. I still think he might have done that.
As for Tycho, the difference is this. Tycho writes a baroque paragraph and then he summarizes that whole paragraph into one simple but incredibly powerful sentence. I've got several of his sentences floating around in my head, "Look outside: you can't say we've finished building the world" is my favorite but almost every major post of his has one or two. That's skillful writing - the ability to distill the complex into the simple without becoming simplistic.
So you think using Hegelian dialectics as a fictional energy source in a fantasy novel is stupid and faux-baroque writing is smart?
I feel completely the opposite, again. To me Tycho's posts are the worst kind of long-winded, where you see the glimpses of an above average writer fucking around with 'style' because that's the way he's always done it. I guess they're an acquired taste and if you like them, you like them, and if you don't, you don't - but his language is purposefully overwrought and lacks substance. At least when Mieville does it, it's to create a fantastic, otherworldly atmosphere to couch his subversive worldbuilding.
for me the key thing with mieville is that is WORDS are overwrought, his writing itself is actually kind of... underwrought. The OP described pretty well the times when his construction gets really flat and boring, and once you get used to the spectrum of words he uses (not that hard, since it's a pretty limited one), there's not much else to prop up the writing
dude can't write about water without using the word sluice like three times
Right. Mieville's problem is that he goes on a tangent and it ends up being a macguffin. The story in PSS is about the Slake Moths, but half the book is dealing with how the city/mayor attempts to solve things, hinting at conspiracy, brutal tactics, and general totalitarianism. We assume that these will lead to something, when instead the major parties do not meet and the city-oriented stories are generally an excuse to add fight scenes and flesh out some of his more far-fetched ideas.
For example, the Weaver interacts with the moths and we "get" that the moths are bad-asses. Spending time with the handlingers just seems like him playing with a cool idea he thought of, the usual "man... wouldn't it be cool if there was a parasite that was like a hand? and had superpowers? man!" He does that in all of the Bas-Lag novels, but PSS is the most egregious since most of it doesn't affect the story at all. And yes, the Docks scene is a great example of how he overtells for no effect. He mentions "colourbombs" and wars and past uprisings; we have a series of oppressed revolutionary journalists; we have main characters who are affected negatively by the government. Spending large portions of time showing how the government is actively being a douche ultimately ends up being filler, even if it hints at the idea of the story being "high fantasy" as a political thing, but there's no story there.
While I agree that Mieville's thesaurus use can get grating, his prose shapes up considerably after PSS. The City and the City caught flak from Tycho, and he's not even read it - this irritated me the most of all, as it's the best book of his I've read so far, and was much more palatable. I mean, it won the fucking Hugo, it can't have been too bad.
And I disagree that there's nothing else to prop up the writing past the words. As strange a criticism it is, the things he uses those words about are, you know, the important part, and by and large they are good. TC&TC was all about societies and the way people who live in cities think, and the big conceit was very, very cool. He leads you into it by first describing little things like the Muslim and Jewish coffee houses and then hits you with the big picture: (spoiled in case you want to read it eventually)
the people of these two cities have somehow fallen into a self-enforced orwellian society where neither recognises the other, and there's no huge magic at play. If you've ever ignored a homeless man, it's like that.
I don't know what more you have to do to be an 'intelligent writer'. If you're not writing nuanced, deconstructionist genre fiction after books like these, then when are you?
I feel completely the opposite, again. To me Tycho's posts are the worst kind of long-winded, where you see the glimpses of an above average writer fucking around with 'style' because that's the way he's always done it. I guess they're an acquired taste and if you like them, you like them, and if you don't, you don't - but his language is purposefully overwrought and lacks substance. At least when Mieville does it, it's to create a fantastic, otherworldly atmosphere to couch his subversive worldbuilding.
But Tycho does it for fun, yeah it's self indulgent fun, and I'm not sure why he does it (he's made his point - he can do it, yay him, long ago) but he's still a great writer because he can turn it off and also do concise statements of ideas. Now if Mieville sometimes did that, I'd be happy but (at least in PSS) he never does, he goes on and on about the smallest things, if he'd stopped that halfway through and just assumed readers would mentally fill in the blanks (as we would have) the book would be 200 pages shorter and much better.
Oh, I see. People like the OP require that their fantasy reading be "comfort-reading" that won't challenge them or make them uncomfortable. I've nothing against comfort-reading - I have a large number of books I keep specifically for this reason.
Yeah, he'd better stay away from Meiville, and indeed pretty much all British fantasy novels - even Terry Pratchett is more than happy to throw a little ice water in our faces now and then (Night Watch, Small Gods, Snuff, I Shall Wear Midnight spring to mind from my recent reading).
No, I want to challenged but PSS didn't challenge me. The Marxist elements were too obvious, I know Marxist theory and I spotted those elements and I was like "Ah, so he's using Hegelian dialectics as a fictional energy source... that's stupid." I'm not being arrogant but I know when an author is skillfully weaving complex themes into a narrative and there weren't any in PSS. As I said the nadir of the book for me was the bit where Mieville explains in very simple terms, with equations, his big idea. Big ideas should be more subtle!
Why is it stupid? You keep saying it as if it's obvious or something, but there's absolutely nothing stupid about it on it's face.
Mieville is interesting, but if only for building interesting species or ideas.
Awesome things - the Weaver, people whose blood dried into armor etc.
Terrible things - his characters, blatant communist leanings intruding on story, inability to get anything done expeditiously.
The normal blatantly racist/fascist societies we see in fantasy are just fine, but "communism" isn't?
Curse that red villain Meiville for not conforming to genre norms!
When it gets in the way of the story: Yes. I have no problem with communism, but Iron Council in particular seemed to try to jam it into every crevice.
Wha?
It was about a communist-esque revolution. I mean, of course it's gonna have elements of that philosophy.
But what's actually wrong with that?
Both of you seem to be making the same extremely poor argument that merely using elements of marxism someone constitutes a problem.
Right. Mieville's problem is that he goes on a tangent and it ends up being a macguffin. The story in PSS is about the Slake Moths, but half the book is dealing with how the city/mayor attempts to solve things, hinting at conspiracy, brutal tactics, and general totalitarianism. We assume that these will lead to something, when instead the major parties do not meet and the city-oriented stories are generally an excuse to add fight scenes and flesh out some of his more far-fetched ideas.
For example, the Weaver interacts with the moths and we "get" that the moths are bad-asses. Spending time with the handlingers just seems like him playing with a cool idea he thought of, the usual "man... wouldn't it be cool if there was a parasite that was like a hand? and had superpowers? man!" He does that in all of the Bas-Lag novels, but PSS is the most egregious since most of it doesn't affect the story at all. And yes, the Docks scene is a great example of how he overtells for no effect. He mentions "colourbombs" and wars and past uprisings; we have a series of oppressed revolutionary journalists; we have main characters who are affected negatively by the government. Spending large portions of time showing how the government is actively being a douche ultimately ends up being filler, even if it hints at the idea of the story being "high fantasy" as a political thing, but there's no story there.
Part of the purpose of all that is to establish the setting of the story and the power of the government. And, through that, the inability of that all powerful government to stop the Slakemoths.
And yes, some of it's just "This is fucking cool and weird".
I feel completely the opposite, again. To me Tycho's posts are the worst kind of long-winded, where you see the glimpses of an above average writer fucking around with 'style' because that's the way he's always done it. I guess they're an acquired taste and if you like them, you like them, and if you don't, you don't - but his language is purposefully overwrought and lacks substance. At least when Mieville does it, it's to create a fantastic, otherworldly atmosphere to couch his subversive worldbuilding.
But Tycho does it for fun, yeah it's self indulgent fun, and I'm not sure why he does it (he's made his point - he can do it, yay him, long ago) but he's still a great writer because he can turn it off and also do concise statements of ideas. Now if Mieville sometimes did that, I'd be happy but (at least in PSS) he never does, he goes on and on about the smallest things, if he'd stopped that halfway through and just assumed readers would mentally fill in the blanks (as we would have) the book would be 200 pages shorter and much better.
That's cause he's interested in doing a little sight seeing on the way. It's not a question of vocabulary, but of focus.
I've only ever read Kraken but I remember enjoying the experience quite a lot. I definitely agree that Mieville's writing is stronger on worldbuilding than characterization, but that's okay. I'm fine with that. That's what I want in a reading experience.
Tycho was definitely being hypocritical with his criticisms of Mieville. He is guilty of the exact same crimes he accuses Mieville - using obscure language as an attempt to obfuscate simple ideas. Just because he likes to strip the finery off his date after dressing it up for the prom does not mean he is more skillful writer nor does it make him any less of hypocrite.
Also, can we not use "pretentious" as a criticism, please? That word has been so abused it has no meaning anymore. You can apply it to any work of art (writing, music, painting, etc.) and it in all cases it would apply.
Tycho and Mieville aren't even doing the same thing. The criticism of "well, he's using big words and then repeating them!" is both silly and missing the point.
Mieville is using obscure words and such for some of the same reasons Gene Wolfe does in his New Sun books: to make the world feel strange and alien. To give the whole story a feeling of weirdness.
Tycho makes his sentences long and convoluted and obscure simply for shits and giggles. The whole purpose is to create overwrought and opaque posts because it's funnier that way.
I feel completely the opposite, again. To me Tycho's posts are the worst kind of long-winded, where you see the glimpses of an above average writer fucking around with 'style' because that's the way he's always done it. I guess they're an acquired taste and if you like them, you like them, and if you don't, you don't - but his language is purposefully overwrought and lacks substance. At least when Mieville does it, it's to create a fantastic, otherworldly atmosphere to couch his subversive worldbuilding.
But Tycho does it for fun, yeah it's self indulgent fun, and I'm not sure why he does it (he's made his point - he can do it, yay him, long ago) but he's still a great writer because he can turn it off and also do concise statements of ideas. Now if Mieville sometimes did that, I'd be happy but (at least in PSS) he never does, he goes on and on about the smallest things, if he'd stopped that halfway through and just assumed readers would mentally fill in the blanks (as we would have) the book would be 200 pages shorter and much better.
There is a big difference between writing a blog post and writing a novel. If Mieville was to do what Tycho does in a novel it would be sloppy prose. And none of this makes Tycho less of a hypocrite for lambasting an author for doing the exact same thing he does.
I've only ever read Kraken but I remember enjoying the experience quite a lot. I definitely agree that Mieville's writing is stronger on worldbuilding than characterization, but that's okay. I'm fine with that. That's what I want in a reading experience.
Tycho was definitely being hypocritical with his criticisms of Mieville. He is guilty of the exact same crimes he accuses Mieville - using obscure language as an attempt to obfuscate simple ideas. Just because he likes to strip the finery off his date after dressing it up for the prom does not mean he is more skillful writer nor does it make him any less of hypocrite.
Also, can we not use "pretentious" as a criticism, please? That word has been so abused it has no meaning anymore. You can apply it to any work of art (writing, music, painting, etc.) and it in all cases it would apply.
Tycho and Mieville aren't even doing the same thing. The criticism of "well, he's using big words and then repeating them!" is both silly and missing the point.
Mieville is using obscure words and such for some of the same reasons Gene Wolfe does in his New Sun books: to make the world feel strange and alien. To give the whole story a feeling of weirdness.
Tycho makes his sentences long and convoluted and obscure simply for shits and giggles. The whole purpose is to create overwrought and opaque posts because it's funnier that way.
I agree with you completely. I like both of their writing. Even if they use the same mechanism they are using it to create different effects.
My only exerpience with Meiville is the Dragon magazine issue that was all about Bas-lag and new crobuzon and sounded both really cool and really too depressing to read.
As for communism...well yeah that's how history and the industrial revolution worked. I think the disconnect, (and I[m just guessing here) might have something to do with the fact that steampunk always focuses on Victorian England (instead of 1890s America) and both ignored the very long and VERY active run of anarchists.
Anarchy, as a political semi-organization (I am aware of the irony) never seems to get a lot of play in history classes these days, possibly because modern leftists aren't proud of them and modern rightists aren't proud of all the things that caused them to arise in the first place. Also most classes when I was going through school went, "and then the civil war ended, bye-bye kids see you next fall."
But anyway the point is that politics of the era were a lot like New Crobuzon appears to show, old aristocracies were falling or metamorphosing, new aristocracies were rising and trying to establish and then defend their new pedestals, and an enormous underclass of partially-educated peasants were seeing firsthand that their masters showed them no loyalty and were not, in fact, semi-divine beings given their status by divine providence. Also the gun played an important role, since with it the armored juggernaut cavalry would die as easily as the unarmored peasant and guns required a lot less training than sword, pike, and/or bow to become functional.
Thus, anarchist communists were starting ask that dangerous question, "What the hell do we need these kings and lords for anyway?"
But again, I'm just guessing here.
I also liked the "torque bomb" with its magic radiation that worked like regular radiation in Comic Book Science and Hollywood.
There is a big difference between writing a blog post and writing a novel. If Mieville was to do what Tycho does in a novel it would be sloppy prose. And none of this makes Tycho less of a hypocrite for lambasting an author for doing the exact same thing he does.
But like you say, it's a blog post vs a novel, and that makes all the difference.
Tycho gives away his writing for free. He doesn't owe the reader anything. He can be as self-indulgent as he likes and we can take it or leave it but we have no reason to expect it to be written for us as opposed to for him.
With Mieville, I am paying for his writing, yet it often seems like he is writing for his own amusement not mine. Just like Tycho - but Tycho is not charging for it.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I am banning the use of the word pretension in this thread. If you can't make your arguments without speculating on how some big meanie thinks he's better than you, then your arguments are shit.
There is a big difference between writing a blog post and writing a novel. If Mieville was to do what Tycho does in a novel it would be sloppy prose. And none of this makes Tycho less of a hypocrite for lambasting an author for doing the exact same thing he does.
But like you say, it's a blog post vs a novel, and that makes all the difference.
Tycho gives away his writing for free. He doesn't owe the reader anything. He can be as self-indulgent as he likes and we can take it or leave it but we have no reason to expect it to be written for us as opposed to for him.
With Mieville, I am paying for his writing, yet it often seems like he is writing for his own amusement not mine. Just like Tycho - but Tycho is not charging for it.
Although I didn't say that quote (??), I find this hilarious - it's okay for him to do what he wants because you don't pay for it? Nevermind the fact that Penny Arcade is far more of a business than a sole author, and gains revenue from advertising and merchandise (so non-traditional means instead of just selling the product wholesale), the idea that he is writing the newsposts for himself is bizarre. They're part of the machine, too.
I am banning the use of the word pretension in this thread. If you can't make your arguments without speculating on how some big meanie thinks he's better than you, then your arguments are shit.
Am I allowed to keep saying that I actively want him to be more pretensious?
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I am banning the use of the word pretension in this thread. If you can't make your arguments without speculating on how some big meanie thinks he's better than you, then your arguments are shit.
Am I allowed to keep saying that I actively want him to be more pretensious?
No. I don't think the word aids discussion in the slightest.
OK. To be honest I think I've said all I've got to say about PSS.
I did like The City and The City, I enjoyed the story (except the end) and the setting certainly made me think. But the more I think about it, the more I think "Breach" should not have been in the book. Or at least, should not have been verified to actually exist, only been spoken about.
Because if TC&TC is a metaphor for how we live in cities or whatever, which it is, then it seems to me that the whole point is that we live the way we do unintentionally and unconsciously. Not because there is an Orwellian police force out to nab us if we don't.
I think the setting would have been more interesting if the two cities just went around ignoring each other, not because a 3rd force compelled them to, but because that was their culture. And if breachers were punished, not by police, but by ostracism - if breach was the ultimate faux pas, the ultimate insult, like flag burning but worse. Maybe people would believe in a secret force to punish offenders but actually it's just superstition.
This is why I was disappointed by the end. Up until the last section I thought that was actually what the book was about. But then it turned out to be rather more prosaic.
I agree, Breach functions as some type of overclass that serves solely to preserve the status quo. I think that's why it's based on an eastern-European city, prone to conservatism and a little secular theocracy. Breach works because they exist in both which means they exist in neither, and it also helps preserve the history of the city which is seen as unique. However, the insular nature of the city overall, as evidenced by the statements from outsiders, certainly made me question what the point of the whole thing was. The last 3rd of the book, since it was showing its hand more clearly, did make it feel more like an exercise in exploring a cool idea rather than a story. Which is I think something that both Mieville and Stephenson bump into frequently -- that their ideas overwhelm, or are used in place of, a story.
I think the Tycho arguments are moot because I don't feel that Tycho is a good writer. He's good at Penny Arcade.
I think the disagreement I have with you eggy is that when I read fantasy I expect setting to top priority. In speculative fiction, be it fantasy, sci-fi or any the the weirder hybrids like mieville's stuff, the setting is is the story. Its about building a coherent world that seems to exist beyond the pages or the book. The plot serves to flesh out the world and make it feel more vibrant but it is not the end goal.
Though I do feel like the point is kind of that New Crobuzon is a city of people uniquely able to exploit each other, and it really should be wiped out.
While I don't disagree, I'm not sure why that's the point. "A bunch of mostly un-likable people trying to save a city that doesn't deserve saving, won't appreciate their efforts, and is basically fundamentally horrible" doesn't strike me as a compelling topic for a work of fiction. I imagine it works to the extent that it does because, mostly, the book isn't actually about the story. It's a fairly straight-forward, uncomplicated tale used as the thread that holds together an exercise in showing the reader all of his work in world-building.
For contrast, Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork is also a fundamentally corrupt city populated by people whose primary occupation appears to be screwing one another over at every opportunity. Typically his stories set there either center around people who are, at least at some level, good despite the city's depravity. Usually these people don't start out good, since very nearly no one in Ankh-Morpork is, but they end up there eventually. Or at least something that can be broadly described as 'good'. Also, typically, they're stories about saving the city from itself. Does it deserve it? Probably not. But the characters are altruistic enough that you want them to prevail and, when the scope of the story is beyond just staying alive, you can identify with their hope that their efforts will force the city to be less awful.
Perdido Street Station (and keep in mind that I read it when it came out, so the details are pretty hazy) didn't give me the impression that New Corbuzon was going to get any better for the characters' efforts. It wasn't going to get worse, either. The whole story was just a thing that happened; which can be okay if there's an arc to the characters, but I don't recall there being much in the way of change in any of them, either. Which just reinforces the sense that it's less a story and more an excuse to showcase his Steampunk Squalorscape.
Why not? What makes it not a good story?
The lack of anyone to identify with, anything to root for, or any reason to give a shit. If I present you with a man whom you neither like enough to want to see succeed nor hate enough to want to see fail and show you him going about actions whose consequences will either save or damn a group of people who probably deserve damnation, will not appreciate salvation, and, honestly, don't really seem like they could stop screwing each other over long enough to give a shit about their impending doom in either case, then what is there for you to care about?
Maybe the protagonists will succeed. Maybe they'll fail. I won't miss them if they're gone, and I wouldn't be particularly sad to see their whole world burn. On the other hand, if the succeed...well, good for them, I guess? They can go on being petty, selfish losers in a world full of assholes. The book was a struggle to read not because the prose was bad or because there was too much extraneous detail, but because there was nothing at the core of the flowery prose and meandering world-building about which I gave two shits. From page to page I wasn't excited to get back to anyone's story, because I simply did not care what happened to any of them.
And I'm not seeing why the characters aren't likeable and the city is as "fundamentally horrible" as any city of that time period.
Maybe it's just a matter of personal taste, then. I couldn't identify with any of the characters and found them too bland to even be despicable. The city was dirty, cruel, and horrible in much the fashion of many real-life cities, but typically such things are used in literature as a backdrop for something greater. Even the most meager light of goodness shines brightly in a setting like that, but we didn't have any of those. It was just a shitty, awful place to live, for not other apparent reason than the author felt like writing about a place that was shitty and awful.
When Pratchett writes about Ankh-Morpork I can identify with his heroes, want to see them succeed, and hope that their lives will be improved by their struggles. They show me that, even in a place as terrible as that city is, there are people who deserve saving. Or that, maybe, everyone has that spark of worthiness inside them, somewhere, hidden under all the shit of their surroundings.
GRRM's books are full of well-meaning people trying to do the right thing. Most of them are even pretty honorable, given an understanding of their moral compass. Viewed in the right light, nearly everyone is trying to do what they believe is for the greater good. There are relatively few truly villainous people, and those who do exist are either given a chance at redemption or meet a satisfying end.
Abercrombie writes about some loathsome people, too. Nobody in the First Law trilogy has clean hands. Yet each of his characters, somewhere deep down, has a demonstrable yearning to do something good for someone besides themselves. Maybe for the world, maybe just for one person. Frequently the means they take to that end are terrible, but I can at least identify with their justification. And a lot of the time they fail, but even in that failure I'm made the care that they failed. I can identify with and feel the pain of their loss.
Perdido Street Station is full of people whose evil is petty, selfish, and typical. People who don't go far beyond average to either end of the moral scale, and who don't seem to really even have a moral compass beyond whatever will do them the least personal harm at the moment. Not good enough to be righteous and not bad enough to be awful, they're just there, moving around a cluttered board so that I can see their surroundings in a game where the outcome isn't much different from the beginning.
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Funny you mention Stephenson because he is one of the formemost guys who game to mind in my gripe about boring or unlikable characters. He is for me to cyberpunk what Meiville is to steampunk. I read the books because they are chock full of cool ideas...but they are a slog to get through because I either hate or couldnt give a fig about anyone involved in the story. I have taken to reading books like this in paralel with something else because they feel almost like text books to an alternate world history class as opposed to fiction.
This is a very unconvincing attempt to pigeonhole PSS as high fantasy. What definition of 'high fantasy' does this use? One vague enough to fit pretty much any fantasy book into it's environs, which is the same as no definition at all. Try again.
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i can't remember the last time i was more burned by a book than perdido street station
i am eager to talk about how dumb it is
it's a really really long scene with an achingly slow set-up that seems to serve no purpose other than 'THE GUBBAMINT IS BAD'.
i for the record thought that the crisis energy lecture was one of the more interesting parts of the book, but seeing it in the concept of introducing dialectic materialism into the physics of the world makes me hate it a little bit
and rape-us ex machina is my new phrase because god damn fuck the ending of that book
You might as well say 'well they're all books really so they're, after all, totally and completely alike'.
also let's use the word gesticulate more
or the handlingers because that was the most 'lol i thought of this thing let's put it in the book' moment ever
probably not the best idea he ever had.
the difference is tycho does it about two paragraphs at a clip, largely for humorous ends
mieville does it for an entire overlong book, and it's pretty key in establishing his mood. he also creates the illusion of a large vocabulary by using crazy words, but recycles the same ones over and over again
Meanwhile tycho's 'a phalanx of pedants' is still one of my favorite phrases, though it is rather ostentatious
One of the criticisms above is that he writes unlikable characters who try to save a city not worth saving. That's sounds pretty similar to GRR Martin - right?
It's pretty obvious we feel oppositely about the whole thing, but at least we can agree there.
I think I most like his books because he's writing a novel in every genre, or at least many novels with many more genres crammed into them. If Mieville's books were the norm I think I'd agree with your reasons for disliking him, but as it is, with all the genre-stringent drivel out there, we need more fantasy writers like him.
Not all of Martin's characters and societies are totally unlikable 100% of the time.
I actively want to see Mieville's worlds tore asunder and their terrible societies to burn. I tend to support any agents of change, which tend to be the villians.
this. i didn't pick up on the dialectics thing when reading it, but the book was not challenging in any worthwhile way. It was challenging to read the word skein or foetid every fifty lines, but not to grasp the intricacies of the characters and plot, because there kind of weren't any.
however all that said i think a big part of me being so disappointed with this book was reading it coming right off the Book of the Short Sun, and most writers are probably going to look like clowns next to gene wolfe
but still i went into this wanting something big and not easily digestible and was pretty let down
As for Tycho, the difference is this. Tycho writes a baroque paragraph and then he summarizes that whole paragraph into one simple but incredibly powerful sentence. I've got several of his sentences floating around in my head, "Look outside: you can't say we've finished building the world" is my favorite but almost every major post of his has one or two. That's skillful writing - the ability to distill the complex into the simple without becoming simplistic.
truth
GRRM has many flaws ....a great many, but likable characters is not one. Arya, Brienne, The Imp, Rob are all very likable just off the top of my head, and Visarys, The Hound, and Jamie are all at least entertaining in a bastardish short of way, and thats just low hanging fruit.
When it gets in the way of the story: Yes. I have no problem with communism, but Iron Council in particular seemed to try to jam it into every crevice.
So you think using Hegelian dialectics as a fictional energy source in a fantasy novel is stupid and faux-baroque writing is smart?
I feel completely the opposite, again. To me Tycho's posts are the worst kind of long-winded, where you see the glimpses of an above average writer fucking around with 'style' because that's the way he's always done it. I guess they're an acquired taste and if you like them, you like them, and if you don't, you don't - but his language is purposefully overwrought and lacks substance. At least when Mieville does it, it's to create a fantastic, otherworldly atmosphere to couch his subversive worldbuilding.
Tycho was definitely being hypocritical with his criticisms of Mieville. He is guilty of the exact same crimes he accuses Mieville - using obscure language as an attempt to obfuscate simple ideas. Just because he likes to strip the finery off his date after dressing it up for the prom does not mean he is more skillful writer nor does it make him any less of hypocrite.
Also, can we not use "pretentious" as a criticism, please? That word has been so abused it has no meaning anymore. You can apply it to any work of art (writing, music, painting, etc.) and it in all cases it would apply.
for me the key thing with mieville is that is WORDS are overwrought, his writing itself is actually kind of... underwrought. The OP described pretty well the times when his construction gets really flat and boring, and once you get used to the spectrum of words he uses (not that hard, since it's a pretty limited one), there's not much else to prop up the writing
dude can't write about water without using the word sluice like three times
For example, the Weaver interacts with the moths and we "get" that the moths are bad-asses. Spending time with the handlingers just seems like him playing with a cool idea he thought of, the usual "man... wouldn't it be cool if there was a parasite that was like a hand? and had superpowers? man!" He does that in all of the Bas-Lag novels, but PSS is the most egregious since most of it doesn't affect the story at all. And yes, the Docks scene is a great example of how he overtells for no effect. He mentions "colourbombs" and wars and past uprisings; we have a series of oppressed revolutionary journalists; we have main characters who are affected negatively by the government. Spending large portions of time showing how the government is actively being a douche ultimately ends up being filler, even if it hints at the idea of the story being "high fantasy" as a political thing, but there's no story there.
And I disagree that there's nothing else to prop up the writing past the words. As strange a criticism it is, the things he uses those words about are, you know, the important part, and by and large they are good. TC&TC was all about societies and the way people who live in cities think, and the big conceit was very, very cool. He leads you into it by first describing little things like the Muslim and Jewish coffee houses and then hits you with the big picture: (spoiled in case you want to read it eventually)
I don't know what more you have to do to be an 'intelligent writer'. If you're not writing nuanced, deconstructionist genre fiction after books like these, then when are you?
Why is it stupid? You keep saying it as if it's obvious or something, but there's absolutely nothing stupid about it on it's face.
Wha?
It was about a communist-esque revolution. I mean, of course it's gonna have elements of that philosophy.
But what's actually wrong with that?
Both of you seem to be making the same extremely poor argument that merely using elements of marxism someone constitutes a problem.
Part of the purpose of all that is to establish the setting of the story and the power of the government. And, through that, the inability of that all powerful government to stop the Slakemoths.
And yes, some of it's just "This is fucking cool and weird".
That's cause he's interested in doing a little sight seeing on the way. It's not a question of vocabulary, but of focus.
Tycho and Mieville aren't even doing the same thing. The criticism of "well, he's using big words and then repeating them!" is both silly and missing the point.
Mieville is using obscure words and such for some of the same reasons Gene Wolfe does in his New Sun books: to make the world feel strange and alien. To give the whole story a feeling of weirdness.
Tycho makes his sentences long and convoluted and obscure simply for shits and giggles. The whole purpose is to create overwrought and opaque posts because it's funnier that way.
There is a big difference between writing a blog post and writing a novel. If Mieville was to do what Tycho does in a novel it would be sloppy prose. And none of this makes Tycho less of a hypocrite for lambasting an author for doing the exact same thing he does.
I agree with you completely. I like both of their writing. Even if they use the same mechanism they are using it to create different effects.
As for communism...well yeah that's how history and the industrial revolution worked. I think the disconnect, (and I[m just guessing here) might have something to do with the fact that steampunk always focuses on Victorian England (instead of 1890s America) and both ignored the very long and VERY active run of anarchists.
Anarchy, as a political semi-organization (I am aware of the irony) never seems to get a lot of play in history classes these days, possibly because modern leftists aren't proud of them and modern rightists aren't proud of all the things that caused them to arise in the first place. Also most classes when I was going through school went, "and then the civil war ended, bye-bye kids see you next fall."
But anyway the point is that politics of the era were a lot like New Crobuzon appears to show, old aristocracies were falling or metamorphosing, new aristocracies were rising and trying to establish and then defend their new pedestals, and an enormous underclass of partially-educated peasants were seeing firsthand that their masters showed them no loyalty and were not, in fact, semi-divine beings given their status by divine providence. Also the gun played an important role, since with it the armored juggernaut cavalry would die as easily as the unarmored peasant and guns required a lot less training than sword, pike, and/or bow to become functional.
Thus, anarchist communists were starting ask that dangerous question, "What the hell do we need these kings and lords for anyway?"
But again, I'm just guessing here.
I also liked the "torque bomb" with its magic radiation that worked like regular radiation in Comic Book Science and Hollywood.
Tycho gives away his writing for free. He doesn't owe the reader anything. He can be as self-indulgent as he likes and we can take it or leave it but we have no reason to expect it to be written for us as opposed to for him.
With Mieville, I am paying for his writing, yet it often seems like he is writing for his own amusement not mine. Just like Tycho - but Tycho is not charging for it.
Although I didn't say that quote (??), I find this hilarious - it's okay for him to do what he wants because you don't pay for it? Nevermind the fact that Penny Arcade is far more of a business than a sole author, and gains revenue from advertising and merchandise (so non-traditional means instead of just selling the product wholesale), the idea that he is writing the newsposts for himself is bizarre. They're part of the machine, too.
No. I don't think the word aids discussion in the slightest.
I did like The City and The City, I enjoyed the story (except the end) and the setting certainly made me think. But the more I think about it, the more I think "Breach" should not have been in the book. Or at least, should not have been verified to actually exist, only been spoken about.
Because if TC&TC is a metaphor for how we live in cities or whatever, which it is, then it seems to me that the whole point is that we live the way we do unintentionally and unconsciously. Not because there is an Orwellian police force out to nab us if we don't.
I think the setting would have been more interesting if the two cities just went around ignoring each other, not because a 3rd force compelled them to, but because that was their culture. And if breachers were punished, not by police, but by ostracism - if breach was the ultimate faux pas, the ultimate insult, like flag burning but worse. Maybe people would believe in a secret force to punish offenders but actually it's just superstition.
This is why I was disappointed by the end. Up until the last section I thought that was actually what the book was about. But then it turned out to be rather more prosaic.
I think the Tycho arguments are moot because I don't feel that Tycho is a good writer. He's good at Penny Arcade.
The lack of anyone to identify with, anything to root for, or any reason to give a shit. If I present you with a man whom you neither like enough to want to see succeed nor hate enough to want to see fail and show you him going about actions whose consequences will either save or damn a group of people who probably deserve damnation, will not appreciate salvation, and, honestly, don't really seem like they could stop screwing each other over long enough to give a shit about their impending doom in either case, then what is there for you to care about?
Maybe the protagonists will succeed. Maybe they'll fail. I won't miss them if they're gone, and I wouldn't be particularly sad to see their whole world burn. On the other hand, if the succeed...well, good for them, I guess? They can go on being petty, selfish losers in a world full of assholes. The book was a struggle to read not because the prose was bad or because there was too much extraneous detail, but because there was nothing at the core of the flowery prose and meandering world-building about which I gave two shits. From page to page I wasn't excited to get back to anyone's story, because I simply did not care what happened to any of them.
Maybe it's just a matter of personal taste, then. I couldn't identify with any of the characters and found them too bland to even be despicable. The city was dirty, cruel, and horrible in much the fashion of many real-life cities, but typically such things are used in literature as a backdrop for something greater. Even the most meager light of goodness shines brightly in a setting like that, but we didn't have any of those. It was just a shitty, awful place to live, for not other apparent reason than the author felt like writing about a place that was shitty and awful.
When Pratchett writes about Ankh-Morpork I can identify with his heroes, want to see them succeed, and hope that their lives will be improved by their struggles. They show me that, even in a place as terrible as that city is, there are people who deserve saving. Or that, maybe, everyone has that spark of worthiness inside them, somewhere, hidden under all the shit of their surroundings.
GRRM's books are full of well-meaning people trying to do the right thing. Most of them are even pretty honorable, given an understanding of their moral compass. Viewed in the right light, nearly everyone is trying to do what they believe is for the greater good. There are relatively few truly villainous people, and those who do exist are either given a chance at redemption or meet a satisfying end.
Abercrombie writes about some loathsome people, too. Nobody in the First Law trilogy has clean hands. Yet each of his characters, somewhere deep down, has a demonstrable yearning to do something good for someone besides themselves. Maybe for the world, maybe just for one person. Frequently the means they take to that end are terrible, but I can at least identify with their justification. And a lot of the time they fail, but even in that failure I'm made the care that they failed. I can identify with and feel the pain of their loss.
Perdido Street Station is full of people whose evil is petty, selfish, and typical. People who don't go far beyond average to either end of the moral scale, and who don't seem to really even have a moral compass beyond whatever will do them the least personal harm at the moment. Not good enough to be righteous and not bad enough to be awful, they're just there, moving around a cluttered board so that I can see their surroundings in a game where the outcome isn't much different from the beginning.