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djcb comments on August 2012 Media Thread - Less Wrong
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Not really new, but I found China Miéville's Perdido Street Station really good. It's a mix of steampunk, fantasy and horror, and Miéville is a magician with words. He also looks at the motivations of all the actors, good and bad (and human, non-human).
I've read a good few of Miéville's novels - I found Perdido Street Station to be the weakest in terms of prose though I guess that could be cause it was only his second novel, or it deliberately homages Lovecraft (whose prose I'm not keen on either) in its style.
Still a wonderful book though.
I haven't read any of his other books -- is there any you could recommend? Maybe one of the recent ones, like Embassy Town and Railsee?
I think I'm three behind on his books at this stage, not even counting his children's book... but the other books set in Bas-Lag (the Perdido Street Station world) are very good. The Scar is probably my favourite of the three. Iron Council is also pretty good - among other thing, it's a clever pastiche of a number of different kinds of story - but a lot of people get turned off by how heavily political it is. (Miéville is very very Marxist, as far as I know.) It didn't bother me too much.
The City and the City is very good. I've heard it described as a police mystery by Kafka (I've not read Kafka, but I've heard this a few times). It's set in contemporary Earth, rather than a fantasy setting. His short story collection is also good - there's one Bas-Lag story, and a few horrors. I started Embassytown and it seemed promising.
The main issue with Miéville is he adds a lot of concepts and doesn't explain them clearly until well into the book, if he even outright explains them at all - that works to the book's advantage sometimes but I found it a little tough in Embassytown.
Huh, that means I've read only half his adult books! Better catch up!
Oh, thanks a lot for the information! I'll check those out!