China Mieville is one of the most celebrated authors of this era with countless awards and accolades racked up over the years.  The City & the City won the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award, 2010 Hugo Award, and 2010 World Fantasy Award, as well as being a Nebula Award nominee in the Best Novel category.  See his books here at amazon’s page about him and maybe read a few of the zillions of awesome reviews he has. He writes in a category aptly named ‘weird fiction’ and is perfectly fine with you and me saying he is a ‘fantasy author’ or a ‘fantasy and science fiction author’ rather than taking exception and demanding that his book be remanded to the ‘classics’ or ‘fiction’ categories of our local books store (see Slaughter House Five) rather than that section of shelves where demons, H.A.L.’s, satyrs, Krakens, worm holes and runaway gods reside.

In an interview with The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, China reveals a bit about himself and his sometimes wild and exotic and sometimes insightful theories on life, fiction, science fiction and the world in general.

Dungeons and Dragons

Yes, our hero likes to throw the dice around.  I wonder if there is a list out there with the names of every science fiction and fantasy author that’s ever rolled the dice in the name of scoring a critical hit and ‘just grabbing hold of the rope as you slip over the edge of the cliff into the chasm. Wow, you were really lucky there, bro.’ in an epic game of Dungeons & Dragons.  I’d bet they are almost all on there.  And I bet a lot of us have as well.  I know I have.  If you were to visit my mom’s house (If you do, beware, she will totally ‘friend’ you on Facebook) and ask her she will bring out the folders filled with maps, legends, cities, adventures, characters (and anything else I could think of adding to my DM’d world of Dungeons & Dragons) that I created as a young man.  Apparently me and China feel the same way about half-elf magic users.

What’s been your best memory of D&D???

“Incompossibility”

Incompossibility is a tentacled skull that resides ‘magically’ on China’s body and apparently gives him super writing powers.  I’m not sure how it works, you’ll have to visit the article and find out for yourself.  Needless to say the explanation was deeper than the puddle I usually like to splash around in and that it had a further explanation in yet another article that you’ll have to read to really get it.  (If you do get it, please take a few more minutes to explain it to me.)

Marxism

Yes, China is part of a little club that espouses some sort of Marxism.  Please don’t hold up the Soviet Union as an example of why said theory would not/could not/should not work.  He’s heard it before and might just punch you in the face with some John Scalzi kind of rage if you do.  (Didn’t know Scalzi was a rager?  Read about Scalzi’s hitman tendencies here.) I don’t care what kind of government you guys put into place so long as you agree to bring back Firefly.

Fighting Bill Gates

Honestly, who hasn’t wrestled around with some version of Windows and not felt like fighting Bill Gates?  However, in this case, it isn’t China Mieville who fought Bill Gates but the website China Mieville VS (they pit China vs. all manner of victims) that fought him.  Has China heard of this site?  He has. Does he approve?  Well, the site is still up…

And China looks like a pretty tough dude.

China vs Slip and Slides?

China vs Logan Nine Fingers?

China vs Kavothe?

Let’s hope he doesn’t start anything rough with Patrick Rothfuss for not liking his dragons.  I don’t think China actually has any dragons in his books, but I’m sure, being the dedicated Dungeons & Dragons player that he is, that he’s owned a dragon here and there.

Turns out that China is just another great writer that sounds mean as hell…

-d

Hey guys, there has been a general clamor for more details on the June writing class, so I’ve gone ahead and posted them on the sign up page, but will reprint them here for your enlightenment. Look forward to seeing this happen! And fyi, if you haven’t already shared news of the class with your friends and such, now would be the ideal time so they can get in on the ground floor!

1. Every Monday, I’ll post that week’s lecture.
2. Optionally, throughout the week I’ll post a couple “creative catalysts” you can respond to that consist of a flash fiction writing prompts focusing on a principle Brandon taught. They’ll be constrained to around 250 words and are supposed to only represent 15 minutes of internal-editor-free writing to get your creative writerly muscles warmed up.
3. By each Thursday, you’ll be expected to post a 1000 word submission to the specialized forum I have set up. I almost have it done, but suffice it to say it will look somewhat similar to Quora or Stackoverflow if you’re familiar with those.
4. By Monday (in time for the next lecture), you should have critiqued at least 4 other students submissions.
5. By the end of the September (4 months), have have written 30,000 words, hopefully a complete novelette.

See you guys soon.

-Scott

Harlan Ellison can’t be bothered when he happens to have a moment of inspiration.  That means if he’s in bed, sans clothing, (I mean who doesn’t sleep naked??) he jumps up and hurries to his writing apparatus and starts banging keys.  But when you have 4 Hugo awards in the short story category, no one questions your methods.  They might snigger, laugh behind their hand or even tell an outright joke, but after throwing four pieces of epic hardware on the trophy shelf, no one questions Harlan’s method.

In an interview, Harlan explains his naked-ness along with a few other points of view he happens to like holding on to.  When asked what he’s watching on television these days he replies, ‘The test pattern.’  I laughed when I read that, because the test pattern (a color correction tool) has gone the way of Firefly.  It used to fill television screens when a station ‘went off the air’ at 2 a.m., something you’d find yourselves staring at, bleary eyed, when you finally woke up after having fallen asleep during your favorite t.v. show.

Harlan bemoans the progress of the human race and suggests, in the interview, that maybe we should hand it over to the cockroaches.  Ellison likes to say things that incense people to some kind of emotional reaction.  Perhaps, he uses that in his writing.  Maybe that’s something all of us could use in our writing.  Figuring out what traits an author possesses that directly lead to success on the battlefield, er, the writing world, is nearly impossible.  Well, except reading, though Harlan doesn’t do much of that anymore.

But then Harlan doesn’t have anything else to prove.  I mean he voiced himself on The Simpsons.  If you’re wondering if you’re an icon in the United States just flip on the old telly and see if your likeness is on The Simpsons or South Park.  I check every few weeks and, sadly, there is no sign of me.  I guess I should wait until I win a Hugo first.  But, then, I might just be waiting forever.  

Harlan apparently enjoys attention as he is known to sit down in the middle of anywhere– a bookstore, art gallery, or convention and write a story.  On the floor with a typewriter kind of ‘write a story.’  When a young boy, upon hearing the punch of the keys, asked his mother what exactly Harlan was beating on, his mother answered, “It’s a typewriter.”  “What’s that?” the boy asked, wide eyed.  Harlan, with a twinkle in his eye, said, “It’s magic! I think into it and what I want comes out!”  The boy then demanded his mother get him one.

Yes, he also talks a bit about Hemingway in the interview, that and the re-release of his first novel Web of the City, but what I’ll remember is that he lied to a child, writes in the nude and wins Hugo awards like a skee ball player wins nearly useless but still somehow awesome tickets.

Remember, this site is hosting an absolutely FREE writing class with video tutorials starring Mr. Brandon Sanderson himself.  If you’re interested sign up here.

-d