It was a nice weekend for China Miéville. First, he appeared as a special guest for his own spotlight panel on Saturday at Comic-Con. This was then followed by a nice profile in the New York Times. When it came to his new novel, Kraken, the Times described it this way:
“With its playful, densely pyrotechnic prose and its blizzard of references to other works, ‘Kraken’ defies easy characterization as much as Mr. Miéville does.”
Perhaps the funniest part of the interview is when Miéville took a stand against “beaming up”:
“For nonfantasy readers, there are references to works like ‘The Crying of Lot 49,’ the Saki short story ‘Sredni Vashtar,’ and the movie ‘Fantasia.’ And Trekkies will be tickled by the long riff on teleportation, or travel by ‘beaming up,’ a facet of ‘Star Trek’ that has long irritated Mr. Miéville because, in his view, it entails ripping people apart and then piecing them, inadequately, back together.
‘I spent much of my youth soul-suckingly horrified by ‘Star Trek’ and not understanding why no one else could understand that it was a charnel ship manned by ghosts, because you die every time you teleport!’ Mr. Miéville said. “It freaked me out.”t.”
You can check out the rest of the interview here.
Below is an interview with Miéville from this year’s Comic-Con:
Wanted to download For Love of Mother Not but impossible to get to it.