Semi-OT: Random Mievillainousness

stilskin · 02 Dec 2004, 10:31 · from 2004-December.txt.gz

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From: acronus at yahoo.com (stilskin)
Date: Thu Dec  2 10:31:33 2004
Subject: (urth) Semi-OT: Random Mievillainousness
In-Reply-To: <2B864D24-4495-11D9-BB67-0003939CE29C at earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <20041202183131.57910.qmail at web20022.mail.yahoo.com>

Mieville is worth reading.  He is no hack, in my
opinion, although he has clearly been influenced by
hacks -- as has Gene Wolfe.  I recommend The Scar as
the "purest" Mieville -- that's the book I feel has
come closest to showcasing his strengths.  Perdido
Street Station will also give a fair appreciation of
his talents.  I would avoid Iron Council, his latest. 
He's not the tidiest of writers under the best of
circumstances, but IC is just plain sloppy.

Paul
--- Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> You know, I haven't read any Mieville, but for all
> the talk of him 
> being hack-ish, there's a certain purity of feeling
> in these quotes 
> that make me curious now to check out at least one
> book by him.
> 
> Don
> 
> On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 09:38 AM, Dan'l
> Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> 
> > China M. has an article in the Guardian
> (http://tinyurl.com/6s587)
> > from which I pull the  following quotes as
> possibly interesting
> > and/or relevant to the recent-ongoing discussion
> of his work:
> >
> > *****BEGIN QUOTED TEXT*****
> > I'm in this business for the monsters. My single
> favourite monsters
> > are the beastmen in The Island of Doctor Moreau. I
> love the
> > octopoid creatures and the giant swine spirit in
> William Hope
> > Hodgson. I have a lot of time for pig monsters.
> I've always liked
> > being terrified of monsters from underwater coming
> up, like the
> > Creature from the Black Lagoon. There's a picture
> of Beatrix
> > Potter's Jeremy Fisher with the trout about to
> bite his foot and
> > he hasn't seen it yet. Completely terrifying.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > Loads of children read books about dinosaurs,
> underwater
> > monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots.
> Essentially, the
> > people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't
> grown out of
> > enjoying the strange and weird.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > The weirdest thing I ever saw was in Hyde Park.
> There was a
> > crowd, I joined them, and for the next 10 minutes
> we stood
> > aghast and fascinated watching a pelican eating a
> pigeon.
> > *****END QUOTED TEXT*****
> >
> > --Dan'l
> >
> > -- 
> > www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
> > Freedom has no barcode.
> >      --J.G. Ballard
> > _______________________________________________
> > Urth Mailing List
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> > Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >
> 
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