steve aylett/china mieville/jeff noon - c/d,s+d

I'm abt 12 pages into the Scar and like it enough to keep going, despite being a bit put off in a depressed jealous way by his pic + bio (pierced boot-boy look and oh an LSE PhD) and by his politics (lenin's tomb, gross)

Obviously connected to Pullman on a surface level in terms of setting but that's what I think is interesting: what is the deal with the Victorian age these days? cyberpunk is dead (so i hear, gibson is just writing regular novels these days, etc) and i've never had much stomach for sword and sorcery novels, and the LOTR movies seemed to have sucked up all that cultural oxygen. But there's something about a perverse re-reading of the early-industrial blood-and-capital imperial frankenstein-conrad-consumptive-whores era that's really getting to me right now.

(plus i've just watched all the Deadwood there is to see in a two-week stretch)

anyone vote for him?

I couldn't finish Iron Council; I think Mieville's getting progressively worse, and after three books I really was just too familiar with his toolkit.

what's the moment you're thinking of? when john keats turns up as a hacker?

i should amend this: i adore conan, read fritz lieber as a kid, all that, but all the entry-table glossy hardcover fantasy stuff, robert jordan, dragonriders of pern, whatever the fuck, it's just not my thing.

Honestly the book probably isn't all that great, but it seemed relevant at least. It's certainly a lot more fixated on the nineteenth century than Mieville is.

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Tried Noon's 'Vurt', but thought he was trying so hard to be hip and down with da kids that it was just painful, and abandoned it after a couple of chapters. Maybe the later stuff is better

I read Mieville's The Scar recently... and enjoyed it a lot. It's nice to read a fantasy book that does not have a map at the start.

Anyone read his new one, The City and The City? I own it but have yet to crack the spine.

I read it back in the summer; posted this on ILBooks:

I was surprised how very standard police procedural/detective story The City & the City was, with this layer of disconcerting weirdness wrapped around it. I liked how the oddness had to be played out more in my own head, imagining wtf was going on with the interface between the cities vs. having all the nuances and details spelled out.

The City and the City has similarly been sitting on my shelf for a while. Must...read...

Read it. It's very very good, easily his most well-written so far.

yeah i got interested in CM becuz godard's wife is called anna mieville and i tht this might be their maoist kid grown up and writing cyber-britpunk, [...]

― mark s, Thursday, March 21, 2002 1:00 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark

i thought this too. seems a right tool imo

I started on Iron Council after running straight through The Scar and Perdido Street Station but ended up putting it down a few months ago when I got busy. I know it's not in the same fantasy world, but am I going to want to go back and finish it if I read The City & The City first? I've heard enough good things that I'm excited to pick up the new one, not so much Iron Council.

Iron Council is the least good of the Bas-Lag books, IMO. Good, but not essential. In your shoes I'd get on with The City & the City, maybe come back to Iron Council in a few years or whatever.

I thought Iron Council was by far the best of the three, myself, and that the Scar was the weakest. Foregrounding the politics, having a central love story, and being part-Western all added to the usual attractions, imo.

I really want to read Steve Aylett, as they sound great. I was figuring I should start with the Crime Studio, but it appears to be out of print. Any other recommendations?

I read Vurt and Pollen by Jeff Noon a long long time ago, and I don't remember them that well, but iirc they were trying too hard to be street and slangy and edgy, and that got in the way of some OK ideas.

seems a right tool imo why, out of interest?

im just not a huge fan of the s"w"p i guess

Never actually read any Mieville but curiosity was piqued by a mention on a recent ILX thread and now I have The Scar sitting unread at home - would people recommend reading Perdido Street Station first, or should I just get stuck in? I mean for plot reasons, not just preference for one book or the other.

Read Vurt, it was a fun read but I couldn't work out at the time whether I liked it or not, even less sure now. I've read another Britisher cyberpunk story with a "rave" in and they've blurred together in my head a bit but the rave parts of both were pretty embarrassing. Liked the Game Cat stuff though.

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Ha. My sister has just rejoined, so I'm more tolerant of them. I thought there was some specific toolery you had in mind.

I was actually tempted to go to his lecture on the politics of monsters at the Marxism thing last year, but didn't.

There's no need to have read Perdido Street Station to get the Scar, in terms of plot, and the setting sort of continually reveals and reinvents itself anyway, so you should be fine.

I read The Scar first and had no issues. I like it better than PSS, but I thought that it didn't detract from either by reading them in a different order.

This is a bit of a shame:
http://www.swampthingroots.com/news_06-03-10_china-mieville-hints-at-his-swamp-thing-run.html

Saw Mieville speaking the other day, he's a really interesting guy.

Steve Aylett's "Lint" is a masterpiece.

Really enjoying Embassytown - stayed awake till 3 AM reading it last night. Nice to see him trying something different after the almost self-parodic (and often quite boring) Kraken.

He never got to write Swamp Thing, but his current reworking of Dial H for Hero is marvellous.