Oh, China, China, China, China, China

[rachelmanija]

China Mieville, author of two of my top ten candidates for Coolest! Novel! Ever! (PERDIDO STREET STATION and THE SCAR), was at a Burbank bookshop tonight signing his latest book, IRON COUNCIL. I heard about this late, dashed out, and showed up just as things were winding down.

I did catch him saying something that I filed away for future writing reference, which was that to get a feeling of culture shock and that the world of the book is huge and real and unexplored, he'll mention things but not explain them, and sometimes he knows what they are and sometimes he doesn't. In PERDIDO STREET STATION he refers to "the Malarial Queendom." At that time, he had no idea what that was, but he thought it sounded cool, and it ended up giving him the idea for the mosquito people in THE SCAR.

He also said that "The New Weird" had been intended as a framework to explore certain ideas, but that as soon as people started talking about it as a literary movement which some people were in and some people weren't, it had passed its time of usefulness. Or something like that-- I only caught the end of that bit.

I had met China at the World Fantasy Convention at Montreal a few years ago, and we chatted for a while about politics and my novel, which involves an alternate version of the Indian mutiny where the mutineers are the protagonists (that's not the alternate part.) He's a socialist who once ran for office as one in England while I'm more of a a social democrat, but my politics are closer to his than they are to those of most Americans I meet. So we had a nice chat. He's a charming, funny, unpretentious person, quite unlike the stereotyped image of a radical leftist.

The author photos, which are accurate about the shaved head, tons of silver rings in one ear, and impressive biceps, are nevertheless misleading in that, although he's a big guy, he doesn't come across as menacing or cooler-than-thou in person, and actually fits in smoothly with the usual array of geeks (I include myself) at conventions-- a writing, gaming, politics geek with a better idea than most of how to dress to suit one's particular looks.

I used to think that people who meet me once, briefly, years ago, when I'm the fan and they're the pro, wouldn't remember me, but eventually noticed that they always did remember me as a person, even if they didn't recall my name or where we met, so I was not surprised that China remembered me. (He recalled my last name but not my first, which struck me as odd.)

I told him about the sale of my other book, which was not even a notion when last we met, and that I would let him know when it was out. He congratulated me and said that his parents were also hippies and had run a head shop somewhere in England. Then he wrote me a marvelous pair of inscriptions.

On IRON COUNCIL: "Here is to mutinies everywhere, Indian and others. From one mutineer to another,"

On THE SCAR, which concerns the voyage of a fantastical ship-city and the hunting of an immense interdimensional godly fish-creature: "Here are the _other_ fishes coming home to roost. Congratulations on the book.

'The sea is a continuous miracle.' -Whitman. Take care,"

China is one of my top ten candidates for Coolest! Author! Ever!

(Anyone who knows what the subject line refers to, other than Mr. Mieville, gets a free coffee if you're in the neighborhood.)

Comments

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I got to talk to him at a party at ConJose, in which I did not distinguish myself as intelligent or interesting at all, and probably came across as a complete babbling moron. But yes, he is definitely Very Very Cool (or, as he's referred to by Esther Friesner's daughter, China "He's Sooo Dreeeammyy" Mieville).

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Liz Williams said that since she "took the piss out of" (I love that phrase) the term The New Weird in an interview, he's stopped using it. The thing is, when I read her THE POISON MASTER after reading PERDIDO STREET STATION, I knew just what he meant by The New Weird, since both books clearly were.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. (The inscriptions are extremely cool.) Mieville is supposed to be Very Near Me on Wednesday evening, and lanval was trying to figure out whether it'd be a signing-and-chat or a reading. (And now lanval can read your post, since he thinks he hasn't read enough Mieville to make the -and-chat part worthwhile.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

He did a reading from THE IRON COUNCIL, but I missed it. I guess the entire session was a reading-and-chat-and-signing, but I only caught the tail end of the chat part.

You guys should go!

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouragement. :) lanval went, and enjoyed the reading. (I dissertated.) lanval seems bent on Never Updating LJ Again; the capsule version is that he agrees re: Mieville's inherent and lightly-worn coolness.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

From one mutineer to another

((dies of the coolness))

subject line

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

See! I told you that kind of line was why that book drove me bugfuck.

[larryhammer]

Isn't it from a David Bowie song?

---L.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

It's from M. John Harrison's SIGNS OF LIFE, and is the rather irritating affectation of the main character's girlfriend, who thinks that because his name is Mick Rose, it's cute to call him China. (China Rose.)

[larryhammer]

So no free coffee. Ah, well.

---L.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Ooh! That's very cool. I read Perdido Street Station (http://spectralbovine.livejournal.com/91926.html) last year, and yeah. As I say in the post, he packs enough awesomely cool concepts for multiple novels all into one book.