At age 38, China Miéville, accomplished fantasy fiction/sci fi/horror author, teacher and political activist, is still one of the foremost experts on ‘weird fiction’, a new literary genre that blurs the boundaries and smashes preconceptions and stereotypes typically associated with the traditional fantasy, horror and science fiction genres.
China Miéville has won a number of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult and Horror writing awards over the years and his stories are written to a very high and intelligent standard making him an author that I would recommend very highly to anyone seeking something a little different.The first story of his I read was ‘Un Lun Dun’. When I first bought the book I was unsure which age group it was aimed at, but it sounded quite good and the cover looked great (I know, I know, don't judge a book by its cover, but seriously, it's awesome!). I read the first couple of pages and straight away thought that it was childish and ridiculous, but for some reason kept reading (And I've since found out that it -is- in fact a children's book). I found the book to be the most illogical story I have ever read, but it was extremely well written and absolutely brilliant! Though I'm not sure that I would recommend it to or for children as I found some of the imagery quite disturbing and I'm, well, you know, not a child anymore.
I then got my hands on ‘Looking for Jake’ which is a collection of short stories by China Miéville published in 2005 and spanning all fiction genres. I am completely in awe of this man’s imagination.
His other novels include ‘The Scar’, ‘The City & the City’, ‘Kraken’ and ‘Embassytown’. He also co-authored a ‘Pathfinder’ book, which is a reworking of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition rules (table top roleplaying games featuring the d20 dice system). Geektastic!
Emma J. James
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