Hugo Award winner China Mieville

Just before the 2010 Hugo Award was announced, sci-fi author China Miéville spoke about how he feels about awards, the distinction between genre and literature and his love of British comics and why we still need postmodern superheroes. He talks about his inspiration for Kraken and how it differed from his Hugo winning The City and The City.
Miéville was a guest of the Melbourne Writers Festival and Aussiecon 4.

[@KristinaBjoran]

BIRD IN THE WINDOW.
(great interview also - China rocks)

[@Morfeusm]

I did not know he draws. Thank you for the interview!

[@chrysanth.5700]

I didn't know anything about him at all before today.
I think this interview was very versatile with questions, I second this!

[@bhbluebird]

Talented, brilliant, but a better editor wouldn't hurt.

[@pouncebaratheon4178]

I want to agree but can't in good conscience. For me, moments like near the beginning of Perdido Street Station when he spends several pages describing the descent of a basket seem superfluous and it can be hard to even make it through them. On the other hand, I've seen people dissing parts of the book that I absolutely loved. I read a review recently that complained about how long and unnecessary the section about the Handlingers was. My gut response was 'Noooo! You can't just take away the fourth coolest monster in the best book of monsters since Kadath!'* To them, that whole section just slowed the advancement of the plot. To me, it was more characterization of the fascinatingly horrific world of Bas-Lag, the whole reason I read and loved the novel. Likewise, many people love PSS because of Mieville's incredible literary creativity and because he's one of the few truly talented writers who intentionally write purple prose rather than avoid it like the plague. Some people love his lack of adverbial fear the way I love moments like when the Slake moth spoilers redacted that woman. So it's hard to justify paring down novels like that which are presenting material for different groups of people.
*I actually enjoy PSS significantly more than Kadath but I didn't want to blaspheme.

[@ArtichokeHunter]

Cross-hatching!

[@benthejrporter]

I had to read the first 40 pages of The City and The City again to work it out! What a weird setting!

[@danielphillips97]

So we can take cactus people seriously, but we can't take people in tights and spandex seriously?