The Dream of a Bridge

China Mieville “This Census-Taker” (Del Rey, 2016)

If I were to bother with doing SFF power rankings, China Mieville would be near the top.  He’s one of the writers that you can give to your MFA friend sure that the technical elements will be strong enough to keep your friend interested.  I tend to think of him as the 21^st century Gene Wolfe, writing dense challenging texts that can be dense and impenetrable or exciting (or both).  He seems to move around the genre, tackling different styles and concepts with each project.

This Census-Taker is a step back to what may be the central area of Mieville’s world, the Weird.  A boy, now a man, tells us of his past and who he is.

Of course this IS China Mieville, so things are unsettling as both vague and specific.  Tenses change continually.  I found myself struggling to contextualize and make sense of the narrative.  What was actually happening? How much was due to having an unreliable narrator?

Unfortunately I found this one of Mieville’s books that I just bounced off of.  I found it impossible to form an emotional connection to the story, or to really even care about what happened.  It’s a beautiful technical piece, but one that I found less than engaging.

Speaking of Big Ideas

China Mieville “Three Moments of an Explosion” (Del Rey, 2015)

Let’s be honest.  In the world of SFF, any new release from China Mieville is a big deal.  He’s the hipster’s Neil Gaiman.  A huge figure bestriding the field doing whatever he wants.  

Mieville hasn’t released a book since 2012.  He’s been busy (check out his run on Dial H, it’s really good), at least in part writing these stories. 

Three Moments gives us a lot of stories.  I should be honest here—I don’t know if they are all really stories.  Some are so experimental that they don’t really have plot or characters or even something structured like a story.

Mieville is a master of the Weird, so I was expecting that.  I was surprised, however, by how experimental this collection felt.  His modius operandi seemed to be generating an idea & then building something around that big idea.  The result may be fantastic, or the structure may just collapse.  You can’t really tell until you are reading the story.

Like his best work, Three Moments is provocative and challenging.  Unfortunately I can’t say that it has the consistency of his best work.  At times it feels like he’s throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.