OK.
So I'm reading this collection of short stories, and while I know they're supposed to be weird, none of the endings make any sense to me.
So far, they all have good characterization, detailed world explanations, a story that seems to be going somewhere, and then they all just kind of peter out and end vaguely.
I'm left hanging, asking myself "what just happened? DID anything happen?"
What am I missing?
Am I just out of practice reading short fiction?
So I'm not the crazy one! ;-)
You know that's right!
I haven't read Trigger Warning yet, but was planning on it relatively soon.
Is it still worth it?
I'm taking a break from three moments of an explosion to read The Rising by Ian Tregillis (sp?). Book 2 of his Alchemy Wars trilogy about clockwork Dutch soldiers from New Amsterdam fighting the French-in-Exile in Canada.
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I just wish Mielville would write more Bas-Lag. Most amazing fantasy novels I've read in quite some time.
I want to re-read Perdido Street Station.
Embassytown reminded me of every CJ Cherryh novel ever. Especially Bren/Dan.
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I'm about halfway through Trigger Warning. I like it, possibly because it is being read by Neil Gaiman himself. The stories are a truly mixed bag, and I range from really enjoying some of them (like a Sherlock Holmes story that did something completely different or a brooding tale called The Truth is a Cave at the Side of a Mountain) to disdainfully dismissing them (several stories can only be described as stream of consciousness) to as I described earlier just flat out not understanding them.
When I finish the book I'll post a list of the stories I considered good.
As for Miavelle, I only read "Railsea" so far, and I liked aspects of it even though overall it felt like the book was targeted at younger audiences. I will certainly be reading more of him down the line, and have my eyes on the Perdido Street Station series.
I just finished "The Humanity of Monsters" and felt that way about several of the short stories (It's a New Weird/Horror anthology).
I've read everything by Mieville except the Tain and anything post-2016.
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I really liked Kraken, The City & ytiC ehT, Railsea, Un Lun Dun, Embassytown, and Perdido Street Station. King Rat was pretty good, reminded me of gross Gaiman. The Scar was OK. The Iron Council was a bit jarring; I wasn't used to guns in fantasy at the time, and the time jump in Bas-Lag was odd, too. Looking for Jake was a bit of a disappointment, too, now that I think about it. But I don't read as much short fiction.
I haven't read any of his comic books or his Pathfinder stuff, either. I might try to re-read Perdido Street Station relatively soon-ish. I might get my niece Un Lun Dun for her 12th birthday; I just gotta double-check with her and make sure she's into "weird" stuff.
If I had to rank them?
1. Railsea
2. Un Lun Dun
3. Kraken
4. The City & ytiC ehT
5. Perdido Street Station
6. Embassytown
7. The Scar
8. King Rat
9. Iron Council
Railsea and Un Lun Dun were very fun. Probably because they were "YA" books, they weren't TOO avant garde. Also, the POV characters were very likeable.
Kraken almost seemed like a sequel to King Rat. It was even more Gaimanesque, and I actually liked the characters.
The City & The City was his least weird book, which isn't a bad thing. It also reminded me of a CJ Cherryh novel, Wave Without a Shore, which also dealt with weird social norms about ignoring some people right in front of you.
Perdido Street Station is just chock-full of all of the crazy.
Embassytown seemed like a pastiche of a bunch of different CJ Cherryh novels, and she's my favorite author. I like that he actually detailed the aliens, so it wasn't super vague like some of his things.
I liked The Scar OK, but seemed more like a collection of leftover ideas from Perdido Street Station than a totally original piece, and some of it was kind of vague. Still a lot of neat ideas, though.
King Rat tried to make dub-step cool before it was well known to be not cool. :-P It was also really grotesque at times. It actually reminded me of Charles DeLint in its "Look at me! My cast of characters is diverse! The black guy even has dreadlocks!" kind of way. Like, he gets points for trying, but music doesn't really translate well in the written word. DeLint tries to make cool musical references in his books too, but they can really date what you're writing.
I think The Iron Council was just trying to be TOO political, and I think some of the characters were too similar or were hard to distinguish at times. I even think some of the characters' names were too similar to each other.
THE CITY AND THE CITY is being adapted as a TV series. I'm really interested to see how the hell they're going to pull it off. But at least it's doable, unlike some of his other books (PERDIDO STREET STATION would take a budget of about half a billion and would need to be 12 hours long).
Of Mieville's novels, I think the best, most coherent and the most memorable is THE SCAR. Armada is a brilliant creation and the way the story unfolds is really well-handled, plus the ending is pretty cool.
Werthead: I don't even remember the ending of The Scar.
I remember the underwater city of the crayfolk, I remember the mosquito people, I remember the blood clot armor people, I remember the abdead vampire people, I remember the big giant uber-whale (avanc?), but I don't remember what plot was, or what the ending was.
Can you remind me?
Thanks!
Edit:
I just read the Wikipedia article about The Scar. Cleared it all up.
OK.
Giving three moments of an explosion a second chance, if only because I won't get a chance to go to the library until Saturday morning....