It’s funny how much China Miéville hated Tolkien cuz I’m pretty sure LotR and Perdido Street Station had the same creative process. Dude creates fictional universe he really likes and characters for it, puts all his energy into the world then realizes he doesn’t have a good idea for a story set in it, creates some boilerplate disaster narrative that’s basically an excuse for the more relatable characters to go in a walking tour of the world where just happen to bump into all the cool shit.
I mean, I’ve only read two other books by China and I quite liked both of them so I think he has some chops as a writer. We should keep in mind PSS is one of his earlier books.
And heck I’ll even say I found a good amount to enjoy in PSS, to the point me and a friend made a whole DND campaign inspired by it. But yeah I think China is kinda cocky and seemed to inject a lot of unneeded edgy shit in the story. I get it’s supposed to be all GrimDark, but come on dude.
spoilers
Also I saw the fucking reveal of bird dudes crime from like a mile away. Thought maybe he’d make it something more clever and morally ambiguous but no, just go for the worst crime of passion you can thing of!
It’s funny how much China Miéville hated Tolkien cuz I’m pretty sure LotR and Perdido Street Station had the same creative process. Dude creates fictional universe he really likes and characters for it, puts all his energy into the world then realizes he doesn’t have a good idea for a story set in it, creates some boilerplate disaster narrative that’s basically an excuse for the more relatable characters to go in a walking tour of the world where just happen to bump into all the cool shit.
That's a really good way of putting it. See also: The entire bibliography of Larry Niven.
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I mean, I’ve only read two other books by China and I quite liked both of them so I think he has some chops as a writer. We should keep in mind PSS is one of his earlier books.
And heck I’ll even say I found a good amount to enjoy in PSS, to the point me and a friend made a whole DND campaign inspired by it. But yeah I think China is kinda cocky and seemed to inject a lot of unneeded edgy shit in the story. I get it’s supposed to be all GrimDark, but come on dude.
spoilers
Also I saw the fucking reveal of bird dudes crime from like a mile away. Thought maybe he’d make it something more clever and morally ambiguous but no, just go for the worst crime of passion you can thing of!