June 22, 2004
Perdido Street Station
I’ve just finished reading Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. This book is the apotheosis (or, from a certain perspective, the nadir) of my pre-grad school wallow in frothy, joyful genre art from comic books to novels to video games. It’s a fantasy book, presenting a world populated by strange humanoid races who exemplify various ways in which humanity views and constructs itself – but this is an utterly different world from Tolkein’s, drawing on modern and postmodern mythology and self-image to create something truly wondrous and new, without the stench of death that clings to every high fantasy story written since 1970. In Mieville’s seething city-state of New Crobuzon, a nascent industro-chemical revolution nuzzles with “thaumaturgy” capable of sculpting liquid water and refashioning living flesh into terrifying, cruel new shapes.
Though perhaps a bit too fashionably squalid (a fetish clearly drawn from cyberpunk SF), the world is clearly recognizable as an analogue of our own, full of calculating political intrigue, interracial strife, and a brutalized underclass. On top of all that, the plot of the book is intricate and compelling - though it’s really funny hearing fantasy fans compare it to War and Peace, when it’s a bit closer to, say, The Sum of All Fears. The language is much closer to fantastic tradition than the setting, wavering from straightforward description to slightly highfaluting psychological rumination to, in a few scattered spots, a kind of romantic moon-gazing poesy that comes off like a medieval Dave Eggers at eternal climax. So yeah, it may not be rocket science, but it’s still pretty darn smart and well-written for fantasy, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re looking to massage the intersection between your imaginative pleasure centers and higher processing nodes.
Mieville’s also a socialist, which I’m sure is a real fucking radical stance when you’re ENGLISH.
Sounds pretty cool! Btw, are you suggesting it's more radical for English people to be Socialist? I would think the opposite is true.
Incidentally, I've recently gotten into Philip Dick, who is actually the first SF writer I've really enjoyed in a long time.
I think the Socialism comment was sarcastic, implying that it's completely unremarkable for a Limey to be a Socialist.
Not that I can criticize. I regularly don't get the jokes on here.
Btw, when it comes to SF, you should check out Asimov and Heinlein. Neither one of them is a good writer, but they're both great sci-fi authors. Of course, not as dark as Dick, so maybe not to your taste, but still good stuff.
I read an awful lot of Asimov as a kid - all of the Foundation trilogies. I picked up a Heinlein a couple of years ago, but I just couldn't take it - Mieville's not a great writer, but at least he isn't god-awful.
Yeah, that's a problem with a lot of SF writers. For me, good story-telling makes up for it. I read SF and such in between more serious books as a break, generally in a 24-48 hour period, so I'm not too concerned about poor style.
I loved Assimov as a kid and I would still consider him one of my favorites SFers, but I don't know much about the subject. As for Heinlein, I read "Stranger..." years ago and enjoyed it, but then I liked Ayn Rand at the time as well. Now "Stranger" seems a little silly, but then it is genre fiction.
Dick isn't THAT great and perhaps a little depressive, but his books are easy, unpredictable, have actual psychological depth, and they are critical of fascist phantasies. I've pretty much got to the point where I prefer literary fiction to genre fiction even when I'm on vacation. As a writer on the border between literature and genre, Dick works pretty well for a good read on the train.
"Stranger in a Strange Land" is not at all representative of Heinlein's work. It's a serious aberration, albeit an enjoyable one. I would recommend "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "The Man Who Sold the Moon", or "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls". The first is probably the best, but they're all fun.
Now if you're talking about works that are on the edge between literature and genre fiction, you can't get much better than Frank Herbert. Although the second half of the series isn't quite as good or as dense as the first three books, the entire Dune series is well worth reading.
Other nice occupants of the genre/literature borderlands -
Horror:
-Most of Lovecraft; one of the few things I read as a kid that I can still fully enjoy.
-Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend"
-Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves"
Fantasy:
-Micheal Cisco's "The Divinity Student" (absolutely stunning)
-Jeff Vandermeer's "City of Saints and Madmen"
-Micheal Moorcock's "A cure for Cancer"
The classic SF equivalents are much better known and widely acknowledged, but I'm not as familiar with good modern entries in the genre.
Lovecraft is fantastic. One of my most-worn books is Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.