Chicago Nerds- Embassytown

For the August meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social (book) Club, we discussed by Embassytown by China Miéville. His most strictly science fictional tale to date, Embassytown is all about language--a race of aliens with a very weird language, who can't lie, and a disastrous story that plays out when the humans who communicate with them screw it up.

Brief notes and possible spoilers below:

Reed's Local- The City and the City

The Reed's Local Book Club meets at one of the finest Avondale dive bars. While not an SF/F club by definition, some of its picks have slanted that way, and I joined them for their discussion of China Miéville's The City and the City

If you haven't read "The City and the City" yet, you really should. A procedural murder mystery with some decidedly weird twists, it takes place in two cities that share the same geographical space. Notes and possible spoilers below!

Review- The Last Days of New Paris

(I've decided to start posting some reviews. I'm not taking particular care to keep them spoiler-free; neither am I making "recap" a goal.)

So there are two things you need to know about The Last Days of New Paris. Firstly, it's by China Miéville. If you don't know who that is, don't start here. If you don't like his work, this probably won't be the one to change your mind.

Secondly, and this is something I kept forgetting even as I read a hardcopy, this is a novella. Or close enough, by today's standards—the main text is only about 160 pages. (Although—make sure to read the afterword, which is a short story in its own right.)

That's important to remember, knowing Miéville, and liking Miéville, as I do, as I hope you do—because shorter-length Miéville is a very different creature than sprawling, long-form Miéville. There is a plot here, and a setting. But there is not the sprawling, jumbled world-building of the Bas-Lag books. There is not the intricate, reversal-filled plot, the memorable cast, of The City and the City or Embassytown.

This a novella: it can execute a few things very well, and I'd argue that Miéville has done that here. More story-driven than a short story, less richly embroidered than a novel. Keep that in mind.

Miéville Megatext

Our first Megatext meeting was a delight! The folks at Open Books were our gracious hosts (they also made this awesome flier), and we had members of Think Galactic and the Classic Sci-Fi Meetup in attendance.

We had a wide-ranging discussion and touched on almost all of his work at least a little. Quick notes:

Megatext 1: China Miéville

I'm very pleased to announce an exciting book discussion series that we're calling Megatext, where we won't talk about only one book--instead, we'll discuss an author, digging into themes and topics. The idea here is that you needn't have read everything, or even more than one book, but you're interested in their work and ideas as a whole.

This discussion is being supported by Open Books, who are hosting, and by Think Galactic, who have been talking about this idea since gushing over the fictional SF/F club in Jo Walton's "Among Others". Besides having an insightful discussion, however, one of my goals for this group is to bring together some readers from as many of the other SF/F groups of Chicagoland (and there are many) as we can, and perhaps also bring in some new folks.

Megatext 1: China Miéville

Thursday, March 24 6:30pm

Open Books, 651 W. Lake St.
(Facebook Event Page)

 Discussing Marxism & Halloween.

For the first meeting, we're going to discuss China Miéville! Here's how this works:

1. Read one or more things that he's written. I have some suggestions below.
2. Come to the meeting!
3. We'll have a little bit of structure--a quick introduction/overview and some comments. Possibly some Provocative Remarks or Questions. We liked the idea of having one or more moderators/discussion leaders for these Megatext meetings, and I will be trying that hat on for Miéville.
4. Then we'll go around and discuss! The format of this will depend a bit on how many people show up, and what we want to talk about. Feel free to just listen in if you don't feel like discussing.
5. Afterwards, possibly a jaunt to a local pub of some kind.

 Some ideas on what to read, and what we might discuss, below:

Weird & Wonderful: Railsea

For September's meeting of City Lit's Weird & Wonderful book club, we talked about China Miéville's 2011 YA novel, "Railsea". Weird & Wonderful had previously read (and greatly enjoyed discussing) his language-centered 2011 novel, "Embassytown", and while the lighter, younger-reader-targeted "Railsea" doesn't strike quite as many sparks as some of his other work, we had a lovely discussion.

Miéville is at the center of the "New Weird" genre/movement, rather analogous to Gibson's position with the early cyberpunks. The New Weird isn't terribly well-defined, but tends to involve a mixture of tropes from horror, SF, and fantasy, often with an urban setting or sensibility, and generally criticize or unsettle generic conventions.

"Railsea" is very quickly established as a weird "Moby Dick" (1851) homage with a very strange setting and a lot of other influences and references, as well as some strange (and overt) narrative/stylistic choices. At group we found this to be one of those books that got better for being talked about, or perhaps one of those books that's in some ways more satisfying to discuss than it was to read. Possible spoilers below!

Sulzer SF/F: The City & The City

The Sulzer SF/F club recently discussed China Miéville's "The City & The City" (2009).

My goodness, what a fine book: everyone should read it.

I should probably gush on Miéville just to get that out of the way: he's amazing; he's close to a genre unto himself. He's credited with starting (or at least being the center of) the "New Weird" movement, much as Gibson was/is for Cyberpunk. But Miéville jumps around too much to worry over-much about finding a genre for him--a few science fictional works, more in a kind of complicated fantasy/horror setting that inspired the "New Weird" moniker. What unites his work is brilliant language, a diverse array of influences, and keen (though rarely axe-grindy) political/social critique.