Would China Mieville really destroy the world?

That's the question I kept asking myself as I made my way through Kraken (If you missed my earlier post on the topic, here it is).On the one hand, the three previous Mieville novels I'd read were pretty grim; but on the other, Kraken started off funny and got even funnier as it went along. Really, would an author who gives his protagonist access to a working Star Trek phaser let that protagonist (not to mention everyone else on the planet) die a fiery death? Well, this is China Mieville we're talking about, so I just wasn't sure.

Now I have my answer, so the only remaining question is how much to tell you. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but some of you might feel like Lady K. She read Perdido Street Station at my recommendation and hated the ending so much that she was ready to swear off Mieville completely unless I told her Kraken was a safe read. So, Lady K, here's your answer: YES. By all means, check out this book.

When I blogged about the novel at the halfway point, I said it reminded me a lot of Neil Gaiman, especially Neverwhere and American Gods. I left Anansi Boys out of that post only because it seemed a little redundant to mention when I'd already name-checked American Gods. Now I feel like I have to include it, because Kraken ended up being more like Anansi Boys than American Gods. I say that for a number of reasons, but most of them involve spoilers, so all I'll tell you here is this: a) AB is funnier than AG, while still retaining plenty of horror; and b) Billy Harrow is a lot like Fat Charlie, both in personality and in character arc.

Hmm, I wonder if Gaiman has read much Mieville (I don't have to wonder the opposite, because it's just so clearly true). Maybe they even know each other. Wouldn't it be interesting to have dinner with the two of them together?

I know some hardcore Mieville fans look down on Kraken because it's more lightweight than his Bas-lag novels, so I guess that means I'm not a hardcore fan. But I'm okay with that because it means I got to enjoy a fun novel with real emotional weight, fantastic characters, terrifying villains, hundreds of geeky in-jokes, and "confirmation" of a personal theory I've always held about Star Trek's transporter technology. ;) So what if the ending didn't make me want to stick my head in the oven? Is that a bad thing?

P.S.: The picture at the top of this post doesn't really have anything to do with Kraken, but you didn't really want to see that boring old book cover again, did you? ;) I thought you'd appreciate a bit of stuntkid art instead.

Not quite the right kraken apocalypse

Well, I finally got the chance to buy China Mieville's latest, Kraken, over the weekend. I've been devouring it ever since, and I'm about halfway through right now (I'd probably go faster if I weren't still polishing my next EMC story).

Folks, this is a very different kind of Mieville novel. For one thing, it's not what I was expecting, which was a modern spin on H.P. Lovecraft. This isn't a Cthulhu mythos tale at all, although there's been one joking reference to the Elder God so far.

Actually, there are a lot of jokes in this novel, and that surprises me as much as anything else. Who knew China Mieville had a sense of humor? The biggest source of wisecracks is Collingswood, a constable assigned to an under-the-radar paranormal division of the London police. She looks like a blonde Amy Winehouse, dresses like someone posing as a police officer for a costume ball, and has a seriously bad attitude. I love her.

But about the plot (Funny how that's never the first thing I talk about, eh?). It revolves around a stereotypically impossible crime: the theft of a giant squid, still in its case, from the depths of the Natural History Museum. The squid and the museum are real, but I doubt that Billy Harrow, the protagonist of Kraken, was involved in the preservation of the actual beast. Anyway, he's the one who discovers it missing, and for some reason that makes him very important to a bunch of scary and not-so-scary denizens of what Neil Gaiman would call "London Below."

Actually, I see a lot of Gaiman influence in Kraken (mostly from Neverwhere and American Gods) - and a lot of Clive Barker influence, too (mostly Weaveworld). Mieville has come up with some seriously freaky villains so far, and I don't even know who the real squid thief is yet. It might be someone I've already met, or it might not.

All I know right now is that the squid's disappearance seems to herald the end of the world...but not the right end of the world, according to a cult that actually worships giant squids. Thus the quote at the top of this blog entry. Yes, it is a quote. Like I said, who knew China Mieville had a sense of humor?

I have no idea whether that humor will carry through to the end of the novel or not, but I hope it will. And I hope Collingswood survives, too. She could use a novel of her own. ;)

By request: spiders!

An anonymous commenter pointed me toward this video by The Cure. Sadly, it's not embeddable, but I promise you it's worth the time to click over to YouTube and have a look. Well, unless you're deathly afraid of spiders, that is. ;-)

As for me, I couldn't help being reminded of my collaboration with Tabico on Arachnae, or the Icky-Squicky Spider. You've got a guy seemingly paralyzed in bed but too numb to feel much fear,  dead-eyed band members who've already succumbed to the venom and turned into zombies, a cackling spider-freak wrapped up in a corner, and even a spiderweb over a guy's face fluttering in the breeze of his breath. Oh, and that final shot! It's like they switched over from "Arachnae" to Octopus Vulgaris for a moment, just for kicks.

I don't know about Tabico (though I do hope she drops by to weigh in on the topic), but I never saw more than one or two Cure videos when the band was popular, and I knew nothing about this fetish-o-rama. It's almost funny how so many of these images made their way into "Arachnae." Must be something in the collective unconscious. A China Mieville Weaver, perhaps? ;-)

He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!

I've just finished a third China Mieville book, Iron Council. That's not an official cover of it at left, but I think this piece of fan art by Joe D (copied from this page), sums up the story better than any of the professional covers I've seen. Iron Council is a novel of "power to the people," power against the people, and most especially the power of Christ figures over the people.

Not that I'm trying to pin a religious interpretation on the book; it's not religious, and neither, as far as I can tell, is China Mieville. So if you don't know what a "Christ figure" means in literary terms, have a quick look here before you read on. I don't want to give you the wrong impression.

Now here we go. The most obvious Christ figure in Iron Council is Judah Low, who's so saintly and so powerful that he can turn the tide of a battle by creating "ab-life" from scratch. In other words, he makes golems. And he's pretty damn inventive with them, too. That's supposed to be him riding one of his creations in the second-from-left picture below (by homarusrex,  who has a lot of other Mieville-related pics in his Deviant Art gallery, although you'll have to beware of spoilers. Big ones.).

I don't think this is a particularly accurate interpretation of Judah or his golems, but I couldn't find anything more appropriate; and anyway Toro (far left) and Jack Half-a-Prayer (second from right) are a couple of other messiah-figures from Iron Council who IMO look spot-on. I also really like the cactus man. That's exactly how I picture them. As for the guy on the right, he's a crayman from The Scar.

Anyway, Mieville's point about Christ figures seems to be that they really aren't messiahs, just (occasionally) naughty boys - and girls - with a lot of power, charisma, and ego. For instance, Judah can be incredibly annoying and hurtful to those who are closest to him, especially poor Cutter. If Judah is a stand-in for Christ, then Cutter is his John, a.k.a. "the beloved disciple." Or if you're tired of religious analogies, you might think of Cutter as Sam to Judah's Frodo (which, if you've already read Iron Council, should give you a giggle. Just think about it for a second. ;-)).

Really, you probably are tired of messiah-talk by now, so I'll just make one more quick note about that and then pretend I'm an ordinary book lover and not an ex-English teacher. The truest "savior" in Iron Council is presented so subtly that you might overlook his/her Christlike qualities altogether. But maybe now that I've clued you in, you won't. I hope you won't. The character really deserves to be recognized.

But what's the book actually about, eh? And how does it stack up against Perdido Street Station and The Scar? Let me start with the easier question: I liked The Scar best, and I liked all three of the novels, but Iron Council is my least favorite. That's due in part to how bleak it is, even though Mieville managed to pull another bittersweet triumph out of his hat at the last moment. I'm beginning to think it's a trademark of his.* I might also have liked the book better if I hadn't been forced to read it in little chunks with lots of down-time between chapters. Because of that, it lost a lot of (heh) momentum for me. I wonder what it would feel like in a re-read. I suppose I'll find out one day. I normally do read good books more than once.

And this is a good book, even though it's pretty hard to summarize without spoiling. I can say this much, though. Iron Council is set about 20 years after Perdido Street Station, and New Crobuzon is full of squabbling, competing resistance movements (which gives me a second good reason for that Monty Python quote above). One of these births a smaller, separate group whose members follow Judah Low. Literally. As the book begins, Low has left the city in search of the Iron Council - which, yes, is partly a train, but that's not all it is - and the people who were closest to him set out in search of him.

Cutter and company end up traveling all the way across the continent and, fairly early on, pick up the guy in the picture (by trabbold) at right above. His name is Drogon, and he has a very, very scary power. He can control people, just by whispering words only they can hear. Just imagine the implications of that. And now imagine those implications again, with the knowledge that Drogon only controls people's bodies; their minds are still free, no matter what he makes them do. I've blogged about body control vs. mind control before, and I still find body control pretty horrific by itself. Plus, with Drogon, you don't know whose side he's really on until near the end of the book. That makes him even more of a threat to your nerves.

During their journeys, Cutter and Judah et al struggle against dangers like smokestone, the Cacatopic Stain, and a relentlessly pursuing militia. Meanwhile, back in New Crobuzon, another pack of dissidents has joined the bull-masked Toro in a plot to kill the Mayor. Then there's a cackly, homeless graffiti artist named Spiral Jacobs, whom I kept imagining as a less-sinister version of Jethro Tull's "Aqualung."

But that's pretty much all I can tell you about Iron Council without telling you too much. I do recommend it, even though I don't recommend getting too attached to most of its characters. ;-/

*along with overuse of the words palimpsest, cosseted, and jag

So...about China Mieville's The Scar

Back in December I reviewed Perdido Street Station, the first book by China Miéville that I'd read, and the first of three he's written so far about an imaginary world called Bas-Lag. Even if you didn't read my PSS review, you'd know I enjoyed it since I bought another Miéville book; but the question is, how did this one stack up against that one? Well, I'm happy to report I'm already on to the third Bas-Lag novel, Iron Council, and I plan to buy Kraken when it comes out in paperback this March.

Until then, here's a bit more about The Scar, just enough to get you interested in it without spoiling anything important.

Bellis, by Trabbold

The protagonist is Bellis Coldwine, a woman mentioned just once in passing in PSS (None of the characters from that novel appear in this one). Bellis has been forced to flee New Crobuzon even though she wasn't involved in the events of PSS, just because of her connection to someone who was involved. You know how the militia can be. ;-/ Bellis books passage on a ship carrying a few other free travelers and a hold full of "Remade" criminals whose bodies have been warped by science and magic and who are now destined for a life of slavery in the foreign land of Nova Esperium. One of these Remade is a man by the name of Tanner Sack. We never learn what his crime was, but he seems like a nice guy; and whatever he did, it surely wasn't enough to deserve having a pair of tentacles grafted to his chest.

Tanner, by AgarthanGuide

Anyway, it's no spoiler to tell you the ship never reaches Nova Esperium. It's commandeered by pirates; and Bellis, Tanner and all most of the rest are pressganged into joining Armada, a giant (no, really, a giant) floating city made up of thousands of roped-together vessels which has apparently been drifting around the ocean for almost as many years as it has ships.

For Bellis, being shanghaied is a disaster; she loves New Crobuzon and hoped to return one day after the furor died down. For Tanner, it's the best thing that ever happened to him. He's free in Armada, a full citizen with just as much respect and opportunity as anyone else. He even finds a way to make his Remaking work for him instead of against him.

Standoffish and self-controlled as Bellis appears to be, she still longs for companionship and a conspirator as she tries to escape. This brings her into contact with a number of decent and not-so-decent individuals. Then there's the mysterious letter she writes in secret, recounting all the events that happen to her in the course of her journey. I sympathized very deeply with Bellis throughout the novel, and what happened when she finally revealed the letter's recipient was the most poignant moment of the whole story for me. When you read The Scar, if you read it, notice what the revelation says about Bellis herself. Then imagine how she must feel at the response of the person she reveals it to, especially after she offers to let this person read the letter. Miéville really underplayed this scene, but I got it. I could see myself doing just the same as Bellis, and I knew how I'd react if I got that response.

There are other important characters in The Scar besides Bellis and Tanner, but I wasn't able to find satisfying pictures of most of them. There's Silas Fennec, a  charming spy; Uther Doul, the warrior-philosopher who'd kill you as soon as look at you; Shekel, the cabin boy befriended by Tanner Sack; the Brucolac, the leading vampire of Armada; and the Lovers who run the whole thing. I found a good picture of the Lovers, at least. As you can see, their faces are scarred in mirror image, and Miéville teases you for a good long while before revealing their origin. I won't steal his thunder. ;-)

You might notice that while I've taken a lot of time to describe the main players of The Scar, I've hardly said a word about the plot. There's a reason for that. Trust me, you don't want to be spoiled too much before you read this novel, because there are so many occasions where you think you finally understand what it's all about, only to discover you've climbed a single step up a staircase that spirals out of sight. When the staircase finally ends, though, you might find yourself where you never expected to be, considering all that had gone before. I was certainly surprised, and I say this as someone who figured Yagharek's crime the moment he first hinted about it in Perdido Street Station.

Beyond that, I'll just say that I was pleased with The Scar. Very pleased. ;-)

Neil Gaiman encounters an undead Ulorin Vex

I'll post another entry tonight or tomorrow when I have more time, but meanwhile, I've finally figured out what's been bugging me about this pic from Ulorin Vex's blog. It's not just that she's too pale; it's that she looks positively undead. I don't know whether she's a zombie or a vampire or a lich, but she's clearly about to take a bite out of poor Neil unless her lips have been sewn shut (I've been reading more China Mieville, you see. That's what my next blog entry will be about).

The birds and the...bugs: A final verdict on Perdido Street Station

I talked about Perdido Street Station once before, shortly after I'd read the scene with the first slake-moth attack, which I thought was a pretty fantastic crossing of MC and HPL - Lovecraft, that is. It took my interest in the book to a whole new level, and I ended up finishing the thing at breakneck speed last Saturday.

If you look at the comments below my earlier post, you'll see that "E" warned me the book was very brutal, cynical, and anti-traditional-fantasy. My response was that as long as it had at least a semi-happy ending, I'd be okay with it. Well, I'm not spoiling as much as you think I'm spoiling when I say that the book had a...satisfying ending; and I can't wait to read the next book in the series, The Scar. Not every character in PSS got what they deserved, and some got things they definitely didn't deserve; but it all hung together in a satisfying whole and had some pretty deep messages about moral gray areas. Going back to E's comments about Miéville intentionally trying to be the anti-Tolkien, I can assure you that the heroes and heroines of Perdido Street Station do things Gandalf and Aragorn could never even contemplate - nor, I think, could Frodo, even at the Cracks of Doom. Funny how I can enjoy both kinds of authors, but then again, I've never been one to fit neatly into anyone else's box. Anyway, what separates Miéville's decent characters from his villains is primarily their sense of guilt; and I think that's a good thing. It's a realistic thing.

So, then, a little more exposition (and warning) for anyone else who thinks they might like to try a little Miéville. I said before that this novel takes place on a world with a wide variety of sapient species, in a city that's sort of a magical mashup of steampunk and Dickens. After a bit of thought, I've realized it also contains a healthy dose of the classic movie Brazil. New Crobuzon's government is as corrupt as they come, justice is rarely served (see, again, my second paragraph), and only the artists and dreamers seem to have some precarious freedom.

Lin is one of those artists. She's a khepri, a member of the species depicted at the top of this post (in a wonderful illustration from artmunki of Deviant Art). Her lover is the human scientist/dreamer Isaaac, who is commissioned to restore flight to a birdman whose wings have been cut off for an unspecified crime. That's the birdman, Yagharek, in the second picture above (by Gordillo, also of Deviant Art). Beyond these three, you'll have a hard time figuring out which of the characters who drift in and out of the story are truly important, but I'll give you two hints: 1) the Weaver is incredibly cool...from a safe distance, and 2) the guy you think is going to have a Han Solo arc does not have a Han Solo arc; this story is much more complex than a Lucas film.

But of course, if you're first learning about this book from me, you're at least as interested in the slake-moths as anything else. So, without spoiling too much, I'll say that they're just as cool as the Weaver and about 100 times more terrifying. Don't expect anything erotic about the descriptions of their attacks, though; China Miéville is not an MC fetishist. He just know how to scare the everliving shit out of an MC fetishist, even when he's writing on that fetishist's home turf. And I don't know about you, but to me, that's a plus. I'm definitely buying more of this guy's stuff.

Beautiful horror, horrible beauty

First, a quick note: my new story, "If Wishes Were Horses," is all ready to post, but the EMCSA has been offline most of the week, so I decided not even to try sending it in. Hopefully, the problem will be fixed a few more days and I can e-mail Simon; but if it continues, I'll just post the story here next weekend.

And now on to today's main event.

I've been reading Perdido Street Station, my first dip into the widely-acclaimed fiction of China Miéville; and while it's been very good so far, yesterday it suddenly became great. Lovecraftian-MC great. Now I'm even more interested in this book than I was before, and I plan to buy Miéville's real Lovecraftian pastiche, Kraken, next. Let me tell you, folks, this guy knows how to describe what Lovecraft only hinted at.

Here's the bit I read yesterday, with a little setup. Perdido Street Station takes place on a world where several sapient species live in a magical/steampunk/Dickensian sort of city (sorry, that's the best I can come up with; this world is totally unique). The main character, Isaac, is a scientist who was given an unfamiliar caterpillar-like creature earlier on; and it grew to dog-size before cocooning itself inside its cage. Fortunately for Isaac, he's out of the office when the cocoon finally bursts. Instead it's his friend Lublamai and a nasty little creature named Teafortwo who get to meet the newborn.

Note that Lublamai's research space is downstairs, and Isaac's is upstairs on a wide landing that goes all around the building. This will help you picture the scene a little better.

And now on with the show.

---

Lublamai and Teafortwo looked up at the screech and discordant plucking of torn wire. The sound seemed to start above them and wash throughout the room. They looked at each other, then up again.

"Wassat, guvnor...?" said Teafortwo.

Lublamai walked away from the desk. He glanced up at Isaac's balcony, turned slowly, took in the whole of the ground floor. There was silence. Lublamai stood still, frowning, gazing at the front door. Had the sound come from outside? he wondered.

A movement was reflected in the mirror beside the door.

A dark thing rose from the floor at the top of the stairs.

Lublamai spoke, emitted some tremulous noise of disbelief, of fear, of confusion, but it dissipated soundlessly after the briefest moment. He stared with an open mouth at the reflection.

The thing unfolded. The sense was of a blossoming. As expansion after being enclosed, like a man or woman standing and spreading their arms wide after huddling foetally, but multiplied and made vast. As if the thing's indistinct limbs could bend a thousand times, so that it unhinged liked a paper sculpture, standing and spreading arms or legs or tentacles or tails that opened and opened. The thing that had huddled like a dog stood and opened itself, and it was nearly the size of a man.

Teafortwo screeched something. Lublamai opened his mouth wider and tried to move. He could not see its shape. Only its dark, glistening skin and hands that clutched like a child's. Cold shadows. Eyes that were not eyes. Organic folds and jags and twists like rats' tails that shuddered and twitched as if newly dead. And those finger-long shards of colourless bone that shone white and parted and dripped and that were teeth....

As Teafortwo tried to bolt past Lublamai and Lublamai tried to open his mouth to scream, his eyes still fixed to the creature in the mirror, his feet skittering on the flagstones, the thing at the top of the stairs opened its wings.

Four rustling concertinas of dark matter flickered outwards on the creature's back, and outwards again and again, slotting into position, fanning and expanding in vast folds of thick mottled flesh, expanding to an impossible size: an explosion of organic patterns, a flag unfurling, clenched fists opening.

The thing made its body thin and spread those colossal wings, massive flat folds of stiff skin that seemed to fill the hall. They were irregular, chaotic in shape, random fluid whorls; but mirror-perfect left and right, like spilt ink or paint patterns on folded paper.

And on those great flat planes were dark stains, rude patterns that seemed to flicker as Lublamai watched and Teafortwo fumbled with the door, wailing. The colours were midnight, sepulchral, black-blue, black-brown, black-red. And then the patterns did flicker, the shadow-shapes moved like amoeba in a magnifying lens or oil on water, the patterns left and right still matching, moving in time, hypnotic and heavy, faster. Lublamai's face creased. His back itched maniacally with the thought that the thing was behind him. Lublamai spun to face it, gazed directly into the mutating colors, the dusky vivid show....

....and Lublamai no longer thought of screaming but only of watching as those dark markings rolled and boiled in perfect symmetry across the wings like clouds in a night sky above, in water below.

Teafortwo howled. He turned to see the thing that was now descending the stairs, those wings still unfurled. Then the patterns on the wings caught him and he stared, his mouth open.

The dark designs on those wings moved beguilingly.

Lublamai and Teafortwo stood still and silent, agog, slack-jawed and shivering, gazing at the magnificent wings.


The creature tasted the air.

It looked briefly at Teafortwo, and opened its mouth, but the pickings were meagre. It turned its head and faced Lublamai, keeping those wings spread and enthralling. It moaned with hunger ... The air hummed with the taste of Lublamai. The creature salivated and its wings flickered into a frenzy, and Lublamai's taste grew stronger and stronger until the thing's monstrous tongue emerged and it moved forward, flicking Teafortwo effortlessly out of the way.

The winged creature took Lublamai in its hungry embrace.

---

So...what do you think happened to Lublamai? Pretty much what you'd expect. What you'd hope for. ;-) And the best part is, this creature isn't alone. In fact, it's the runt of its litter. I'm expecting Perdido Street Station to get a lot darker after this, and that suits me just fine.