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.
But it's not a dichotomy. Or it shouldn't be. There's no reason why you can't have a great plot that also reveals a great world. Tolkein did that with the simple trick of making the story be one long tour through his world, from one end to the other. At least in the Hobbit it worked, LOTR stretched that idea too far, but you see the point.
World building, or creating a setting, shouldn't really be the top priority in any book. It can help a great deal in a genre novel if they nail it, and in some books bad world building can hurt the book horribly, but it's not the most important thing. I mean, it's a novel, not an RPG sourcebook. That's not to say plot is the most important thing either.
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.
/shrug
I don't see why you need a protagonist to be likeable. They really only need to be interesting and I'd say the main characters of PSS are certainly interesting enough to want to follow.
The body of narrative art is packed to the brim with characters who are not really likeable people.
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.
It's a shitty awful place in that it's a city around industrial revolution times. There's plenty of good people there and people trying to make it better. We see several fronts in that fight.
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.
Man, I'm not even sure what book you read anymore. I'm not sure how Isaac is anything like you describe. In what way is he a horrible person?
It's a shitty awful place in that it's a city around industrial revolution times.
But Charles Dickens managed to write about real industrial revolution cities without being so unremittingly negative. That's what made his books so effective, he showed how (for example) a sweet and innocent child could be caught up in a nightmare of crime and misery. If Oliver Twist had been unlikeable from the start, no-one would have cared.
It's a shitty awful place in that it's a city around industrial revolution times.
But Charles Dickens managed to write about real industrial revolution cities without being so unremittingly negative. That's what made his books so effective, he showed how (for example) a sweet and innocent child could be caught up in a nightmare of crime and misery. If Oliver Twist had been unlikeable from the start, no-one would have cared.
You are all over the place here talking about 2 different issues in the same argument.
Anyway:
1) The world of Charles Dickens is pretty fucking horrible too. Maybe you didn't notice cause he don't tend to focus on the misery of 18th century London. Probably because "what shit be like here" would be common knowledge. Mieville very much wants to remind you how utterly fucking shit cities were back then.
2) Seriously, in what way is Isaac a horrible person? Or an uninteresting one? Protagonists don't need to be sweet and innocent.
I wouldn't say Isaac is a terrible person, but he's definitely an uninteresting one. Well actually the majority of the characters are pretty underdeveloped
except Yagharek
I wouldn't say Isaac is a terrible person, but he's definitely an uninteresting one. Well actually the majority of the characters are pretty underdeveloped
except Yagharek
I was really getting to like Yagharek, he was developing from a self-obsessed whiner into something of a tragic hero - he was the only character who was trying to save New Crobuzon even though it wasn't his city, although I suppose he did stand to gain from it because if Isaac died then he'd never fly again, but still. And then suddenly the ending, "By the way, your favourite character's a rapist!"
I wouldn't say Isaac is a terrible person, but he's definitely an uninteresting one. Well actually the majority of the characters are pretty underdeveloped
except Yagharek
I was really getting to like Yagharek, he was developing from a self-obsessed whiner into something of a tragic hero - he was the only character who was trying to save New Crobuzon even though it wasn't his city, although I suppose he did stand to gain from it because if Isaac died then he'd never fly again, but still. And then suddenly the ending, "By the way, your favourite character's a rapist!"
I thought that was clever, actually. We always knew he had done something heinous by the code of his society (a hyper-libertarian one), but we didn't take that very seriously. Naturally, our perspective changed when we found out what the crime was as described by our own social system. But that change itself invites reflection on the way that we should think about different social treatments of and meanings of particular crimes.
It was a little showy--Mieville seems to be aggressively intellectual about some things--but I think I liked it overall (much as I actually liked his aggressive communist bent). It's the "Moldywarpe" shit and the endless (and endlessly verbose) descriptions of dystopian pools of stagnant slime that annoyed me.
I wouldn't say Isaac is a terrible person, but he's definitely an uninteresting one. Well actually the majority of the characters are pretty underdeveloped
except Yagharek
I was really getting to like Yagharek, he was developing from a self-obsessed whiner into something of a tragic hero - he was the only character who was trying to save New Crobuzon even though it wasn't his city, although I suppose he did stand to gain from it because if Isaac died then he'd never fly again, but still. And then suddenly the ending, "By the way, your favourite character's a rapist!"
I thought that was clever, actually. We always knew he had done something heinous by the code of his society (a hyper-libertarian one), but we didn't take that very seriously. Naturally, our perspective changed when we found out what the crime was as described by our own social system. But that change itself invites reflection on the way that we should think about different social treatments of and meanings of particular crimes.
It was a little showy--Mieville seems to be aggressively intellectual about some things--but I think I liked it overall (much as I actually liked his aggressive communist bent). It's the "Moldywarpe" shit and the endless (and endlessly verbose) descriptions of dystopian pools of stagnant slime that annoyed me.
I was a little torn between these two reactions. It was definitely interesting to hear the victim expressing her own view of the crime as IIRC "taking away her choice". Kinda hard to see how the bird society would actually work, but it's fun to imagine.
On the other hand, Yagharek is now a rapist. I still felt for the guy - especially with Isaac abandoning him - but damn.
I'm not seeing how that's a bad reaction. That's the whole point.
At first we dismiss his crime because it's some silly bird crime and who gives a fuck and we like and feel bad for the guy. Then we find out what the crime really is and we are horrified. And yet, at the same time, you have her victim insisting it's not bad for the reasons you claim, but for other reasons.
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.
The thing is this proto communist thing existed prior industrialisation. I would argue the so called "Adherents of Justice," the landless and refugee peasants that broke into Parthian/Sassinid estates, passed around the high born women and the stockpiles of the graneries and actually articulated the idea that men are created equal and that the pretensions of Persian nobility and priesthood had to be dissolved can be seen as "communist" today because we have a meme equating the lower classes arguing with power as communist.
New Crobuzon like Sassind Persia was in crisis so you get the lower elements in a hierarchical society suddenly acting upon the realisation that they're being shafted by the upper orders. The thing is like New Crobuzon, Imperial Persia mearly ride out their lower classes acting up, not all revolutionary movements are successful. We remember that ideas like fraternity, liberty, and equality are good because the french revolution (and American) were successful, but the Adherents of justice are hardly even a foot note because they failed at changing their society. Is the Persian for; "all men are equal" a catch phrase? No. Shahshah Kyaved mearly co-opts the movement and uses it against the powerful Parthian Lords and goes on to invade eastern Rome.
I like China's so called aggressive intellectualism, I like his construction of horrid societies filled with horrid, indifferent and compromised people. It reminds us that we are a nasty lot and should work on being excellent to each other more.
Bastable on
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
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.
Well, to be fair I am being a bit of a devil's advocate. I personally really liked Perdido Street Station and part of that was because I enjoyed reading about the city and its political events. I also liked Isaac, especially as he was a fat, dark-skinned geek, found the revelation about Yagharek and how that affected the story tragic yet sensible, and also enjoyed the ending. I agree with the author when he said "to him, that was the only way to end the story."
But I don't recommend it to people because many of the sections drag explicitly because of those reasons. It's a pretty brutal book and the actual bad guys don't show up until the book is half finished, and Mieville doesn't speed up the story to be under a certain page limit. Having read a fair chunk of Mieville's books, he has some tendencies that pop up in his storytelling, and although I believe he is improving significantly and I remain excited about his work I think he still has a tendency to distract himself in-text. I often bring up the inch-men scene in Iron Council because he does some textual things that read more like a blog or forum that a book.
Even Mieville has gone on record on some podcast saying basically "wasn't my best book, pretty sloppy, lots I'd change, but some people love it more than even my new stuff for exactly the flaws I wouldn't repeat," ie, the plot-irrelevant setting diversions and such. I can get behind that view.
I love it for its flaws. It's fun to read a guy who's clearly been brimming with ideas for some time and just wants to get them all out now he's finally written a book. If the ideas had been worse or Mieville a wee bit worse of a writer the cons would have outweighed the pros. Luckily that wasn't the case.
I've only ever read Kracken and quite enjoyed it. But the thread title alone bugs the hell out of me. Roundly dismissing an author based on one work? That'd be like reading The Tommyknockers and declaring that Stephen King is utter shit from top to tails.
Even Mieville has gone on record on some podcast saying basically "wasn't my best book, pretty sloppy, lots I'd change, but some people love it more than even my new stuff for exactly the flaws I wouldn't repeat," ie, the plot-irrelevant setting diversions and such. I can get behind that view.
I love it for its flaws. It's fun to read a guy who's clearly been brimming with ideas for some time and just wants to get them all out now he's finally written a book. If the ideas had been worse or Mieville a wee bit worse of a writer the cons would have outweighed the pros. Luckily that wasn't the case.
Eh, I dunno. Perdido Street Station had its problems, but it was still a pretty good book. I never warmed up to most of the characters, but the setting was interesting and I don't regret reading it in the least. I'll need to get reading his other books once I have some more time.
If it was his first book, I'd say it was a stellar effort.
I like China's so called aggressive intellectualism
This is what I don't get, I must admit. How he is "intellectual"? He uses long words. Other than that...? I mean, OK, he brings in a few political themes. But who hasn't? C. S. Lewis put in an absolute shedload of religious and other themes into the Narnia series, far more than Mieville, yet I've never seen his writing described as "intellectualism" and if he was writing today I don't think he'd be accused of that.
I've only ever read Kracken and quite enjoyed it. But the thread title alone bugs the hell out of me. Roundly dismissing an author based on one work? That'd be like reading The Tommyknockers and declaring that Stephen King is utter shit from top to tails.
But if you read the whole of the OP you'd see that what I meant specifically was that Tycho seemed to think that Mieville was hyper-intellectual and that this was a bad thing, while I thought that PSS wasn't especially intellectual and would have been better if it was. Which is also my opinion of The City & The City - it was certainly much better than PSS, I enjoyed it, but it could have been a great book if the concept was treated in a more sophisticated manner.
Mieville's writing isn't really aggressively intellectual per se, but it's probably true to say it looks smarter than lots of SF and Fantasy. Fantasy especially is so hidebound that merely including systems of government other than monarchy can put people's noses right out of joint. Divine right of kings? OK. Some form of socialist government? WHERE'S MY FANTASY GONE?
And Mieville does actually seem to want to engage with ideas in his books as well as tell a story and build a world, which again makes him stand out from the crowd.
Mieville's writing isn't really aggressively intellectual per se, but it's probably true to say it looks smarter than lots of SF and Fantasy. Fantasy especially is so hidebound that merely including systems of government other than monarchy can put people's noses right out of joint. Divine right of kings? OK. Some form of socialist government? WHERE'S MY FANTASY GONE?
And Mieville does actually seem to want to engage with ideas in his books as well as tell a story and build a world, which again makes him stand out from the crowd.
Yeah, he doesn't shy away from discussing actual political things (as in, governments and organizations and in-fighting and debate, in a lofty "gray area" sort of way rather than just rallying cries) and he also tends to use those political activities as a catalyst for the actual story. His stories tend to create crisis from some ideology or political event that manifests into something tangible and actionable, and that's pretty different from the usual "rally against the bad guy" thing we see in fantasy. I personally see most sci fi, or at least the "best" sci fi, as bucking the trend of a Big Bad and having more ambiguity in motives and resolution, and Mieville's fantasy is similar in that he does write it to be ambiguous.
I've only ever read Kracken and quite enjoyed it. But the thread title alone bugs the hell out of me. Roundly dismissing an author based on one work? That'd be like reading The Tommyknockers and declaring that Stephen King is utter shit from top to tails.
But if you read the whole of the OP you'd see that what I meant specifically was that Tycho seemed to think that Mieville was hyper-intellectual and that this was a bad thing, while I thought that PSS wasn't especially intellectual and would have been better if it was. Which is also my opinion of The City & The City - it was certainly much better than PSS, I enjoyed it, but it could have been a great book if the concept was treated in a more sophisticated manner.
But you go on to say things like, "The whole thing about "crisis energy" is reminiscent of the Marxist/Hegelian concept of 'dialectics'," and then call the books not intellectual (which implies you could name a half dozen other fantasy books off the top of your head that more thoroughly deal with Marxist/Hegelian dialectics) and then go on to say scenes about unions aren't appropriate for a fantasy book. It's like you want to get the book coming and going. If it brings up real-world politics it's not thorough enough but then you argue that real-world politics aren't right for a fantasy book.
Put me down as another reader who likes Miéville and even Perdido Street Station. It's a big sprawling mess, but I was engaged, I cared about the characters, and I appreciated reading fantasy that was explicitly political and took a stance. While their writing styles are different, for me Miéville is a sort of fantasy Iain M. Banks, and I like their works for much the same reason: they don't write genre fiction that is escapist and they have things to say about our world while creating riveting other worlds.
My main issue with Miéville, though, is that he usually flubs the ending. His short stories in Looking for Jake don't have that problem, and they're pretty great for the most part.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I like China's so called aggressive intellectualism
This is what I don't get, I must admit. How he is "intellectual"? He uses long words. Other than that...? I mean, OK, he brings in a few political themes. But who hasn't? C. S. Lewis put in an absolute shedload of religious and other themes into the Narnia series, far more than Mieville, yet I've never seen his writing described as "intellectualism" and if he was writing today I don't think he'd be accused of that.
Yeah he uses long words and brings in political themes that are part of a history of rational discourse that are discussed in universities/tertiary education: Intellectualism, ivory tower discourse etc.
That C.S Lewis using themes of faith and will cannot be accused intellectualism is pretty self evident. Unless we're in a world where Ibn Rushad defending Aristotelian based knowledge against Islamic clerics is considered anti intellectual, Lewis's religious/faith based themes can never be painted as Intellectual.
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Most of Lewis's themes are based on relatively simple allegory and reference, rather than actual political moves. It's "this is a big deal because Aslan is so 'n so and these bad guys are trying to kill everyone." We actually discover very little about the world of Narnia, the political motives of individuals let alone groups, and motivations are surprisingly superficial.
Tolkien has some politics in his book, namely the Elrond/Galadriel conflict (which is mostly hinted at) and the Stewards of Gondor thing being all pissy about losing their standing. While they're present in the story, though, LoTR is not a political story -- it's a hero quest. Frodo's approach to most tangents in the book is "shut up, let's just get this over with already!"
None of this says that Mieville is a better writer than Lewis or Tolkien (Mieville could learn a lot from just spending a couple months studying Tolkien's story/world-building style more closely), but rather than Mieville's thing is a focus on intellectualism, philosophy, and politics. He cares more about discussing the ideologies and societal movements rather than the specific actions of characters, unless the specific actions of those characters play part in the larger elements he's framing. That's fine! It just can be alienating to people expecting close character studies and character-based stories.
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/shrug
I don't see why you need a protagonist to be likeable. They really only need to be interesting and I'd say the main characters of PSS are certainly interesting enough to want to follow.
The body of narrative art is packed to the brim with characters who are not really likeable people.
It's a shitty awful place in that it's a city around industrial revolution times. There's plenty of good people there and people trying to make it better. We see several fronts in that fight.
Man, I'm not even sure what book you read anymore. I'm not sure how Isaac is anything like you describe. In what way is he a horrible person?
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You are all over the place here talking about 2 different issues in the same argument.
Anyway:
1) The world of Charles Dickens is pretty fucking horrible too. Maybe you didn't notice cause he don't tend to focus on the misery of 18th century London. Probably because "what shit be like here" would be common knowledge. Mieville very much wants to remind you how utterly fucking shit cities were back then.
2) Seriously, in what way is Isaac a horrible person? Or an uninteresting one? Protagonists don't need to be sweet and innocent.
except Yagharek
I thought that was clever, actually. We always knew he had done something heinous by the code of his society (a hyper-libertarian one), but we didn't take that very seriously. Naturally, our perspective changed when we found out what the crime was as described by our own social system. But that change itself invites reflection on the way that we should think about different social treatments of and meanings of particular crimes.
It was a little showy--Mieville seems to be aggressively intellectual about some things--but I think I liked it overall (much as I actually liked his aggressive communist bent). It's the "Moldywarpe" shit and the endless (and endlessly verbose) descriptions of dystopian pools of stagnant slime that annoyed me.
I was a little torn between these two reactions. It was definitely interesting to hear the victim expressing her own view of the crime as IIRC "taking away her choice". Kinda hard to see how the bird society would actually work, but it's fun to imagine.
On the other hand, Yagharek is now a rapist. I still felt for the guy - especially with Isaac abandoning him - but damn.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
At first we dismiss his crime because it's some silly bird crime and who gives a fuck and we like and feel bad for the guy. Then we find out what the crime really is and we are horrified. And yet, at the same time, you have her victim insisting it's not bad for the reasons you claim, but for other reasons.
It's a nice little dynamic.
I certainly cared about Isaac and Yagharek and Lin. I didn't want bad shit to happen to them.
The thing is this proto communist thing existed prior industrialisation. I would argue the so called "Adherents of Justice," the landless and refugee peasants that broke into Parthian/Sassinid estates, passed around the high born women and the stockpiles of the graneries and actually articulated the idea that men are created equal and that the pretensions of Persian nobility and priesthood had to be dissolved can be seen as "communist" today because we have a meme equating the lower classes arguing with power as communist.
New Crobuzon like Sassind Persia was in crisis so you get the lower elements in a hierarchical society suddenly acting upon the realisation that they're being shafted by the upper orders. The thing is like New Crobuzon, Imperial Persia mearly ride out their lower classes acting up, not all revolutionary movements are successful. We remember that ideas like fraternity, liberty, and equality are good because the french revolution (and American) were successful, but the Adherents of justice are hardly even a foot note because they failed at changing their society. Is the Persian for; "all men are equal" a catch phrase? No. Shahshah Kyaved mearly co-opts the movement and uses it against the powerful Parthian Lords and goes on to invade eastern Rome.
I like China's so called aggressive intellectualism, I like his construction of horrid societies filled with horrid, indifferent and compromised people. It reminds us that we are a nasty lot and should work on being excellent to each other more.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Well, to be fair I am being a bit of a devil's advocate. I personally really liked Perdido Street Station and part of that was because I enjoyed reading about the city and its political events. I also liked Isaac, especially as he was a fat, dark-skinned geek, found the revelation about Yagharek and how that affected the story tragic yet sensible, and also enjoyed the ending. I agree with the author when he said "to him, that was the only way to end the story."
But I don't recommend it to people because many of the sections drag explicitly because of those reasons. It's a pretty brutal book and the actual bad guys don't show up until the book is half finished, and Mieville doesn't speed up the story to be under a certain page limit. Having read a fair chunk of Mieville's books, he has some tendencies that pop up in his storytelling, and although I believe he is improving significantly and I remain excited about his work I think he still has a tendency to distract himself in-text. I often bring up the inch-men scene in Iron Council because he does some textual things that read more like a blog or forum that a book.
I love it for its flaws. It's fun to read a guy who's clearly been brimming with ideas for some time and just wants to get them all out now he's finally written a book. If the ideas had been worse or Mieville a wee bit worse of a writer the cons would have outweighed the pros. Luckily that wasn't the case.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
I would definitely say it's not his best.
If it was his first book, I'd say it was a stellar effort.
And Mieville does actually seem to want to engage with ideas in his books as well as tell a story and build a world, which again makes him stand out from the crowd.
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Yeah, he doesn't shy away from discussing actual political things (as in, governments and organizations and in-fighting and debate, in a lofty "gray area" sort of way rather than just rallying cries) and he also tends to use those political activities as a catalyst for the actual story. His stories tend to create crisis from some ideology or political event that manifests into something tangible and actionable, and that's pretty different from the usual "rally against the bad guy" thing we see in fantasy. I personally see most sci fi, or at least the "best" sci fi, as bucking the trend of a Big Bad and having more ambiguity in motives and resolution, and Mieville's fantasy is similar in that he does write it to be ambiguous.
But you go on to say things like, "The whole thing about "crisis energy" is reminiscent of the Marxist/Hegelian concept of 'dialectics'," and then call the books not intellectual (which implies you could name a half dozen other fantasy books off the top of your head that more thoroughly deal with Marxist/Hegelian dialectics) and then go on to say scenes about unions aren't appropriate for a fantasy book. It's like you want to get the book coming and going. If it brings up real-world politics it's not thorough enough but then you argue that real-world politics aren't right for a fantasy book.
My main issue with Miéville, though, is that he usually flubs the ending. His short stories in Looking for Jake don't have that problem, and they're pretty great for the most part.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Yeah he uses long words and brings in political themes that are part of a history of rational discourse that are discussed in universities/tertiary education: Intellectualism, ivory tower discourse etc.
That C.S Lewis using themes of faith and will cannot be accused intellectualism is pretty self evident. Unless we're in a world where Ibn Rushad defending Aristotelian based knowledge against Islamic clerics is considered anti intellectual, Lewis's religious/faith based themes can never be painted as Intellectual.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Tolkien has some politics in his book, namely the Elrond/Galadriel conflict (which is mostly hinted at) and the Stewards of Gondor thing being all pissy about losing their standing. While they're present in the story, though, LoTR is not a political story -- it's a hero quest. Frodo's approach to most tangents in the book is "shut up, let's just get this over with already!"
None of this says that Mieville is a better writer than Lewis or Tolkien (Mieville could learn a lot from just spending a couple months studying Tolkien's story/world-building style more closely), but rather than Mieville's thing is a focus on intellectualism, philosophy, and politics. He cares more about discussing the ideologies and societal movements rather than the specific actions of characters, unless the specific actions of those characters play part in the larger elements he's framing. That's fine! It just can be alienating to people expecting close character studies and character-based stories.