Much contemporary fantasy is quite violent, perhaps in an attempt to win the respect of people who assume fantasy is all fairies and fluff; but I doubt if that’s why so much of China Miéville’s work is so in-your-face gruesome. More likely he is meeting the expectations of a readership used to the infinite kill count of sensational films and electronic games, and is bloody-minded enough to enjoy doing so. But, knowing him as a writer avowedly committed to Marxist principles of social justice, with an intense sensitivity to contemporary moral and emotional complexities and a thoughtful mind that finds expression in lucid, cogent talks and essays, I wonder if he uses the horrific as a brilliant barrage of blanks concealing a subtler, deeper engagement with the dark side.
You can’t talk about Miéville without using the word “brilliant”, whether referring to his displays of intellectual brilliance, as in the essay “The Limits of Utopia”, which opens up new ways to think about our future, or to the dazzle of his prose, as displayed in this new collection of stories. Stylistic brilliance often implies coldness, a spectator pose. The reader is not expected to identify and suffer with the characters, but to watch the fireworks go off, and gasp, and say “Wow!”. Indeed, some of these stories are pure fireworks. A whizbang, a starburst, a bright configuration of unpredictable, momentary elegance – gone. Many writers, and many readers, ask no more.
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