Weird fiction

Edel Brosnan meets novelist China Miéville.

China Miéville’s first novel King Rat transformed London Underground into a haven for human misfits and talking rodents. Since then he has written three novels, Perdido Street Station, The Scar and The Iron Council, all set in the gleefully gothic world of Bas-Lag. This is a fantastical realm with a difference – think of Peter Ackroyd’s London, crossed with mega-cities such as Cairo – and teeming with a cosmopolitan mix of alien species. While in his novella The Tain our reflections in mirrors turn decidedly nasty...

Miéville rejects the snobbish distinction between fantasy and science fiction – he prefers the more useful “weird fiction” label. His books have won praise from ‘serious’ reviewers in the TLS, Guardian and Telegraph.

But Miéville, who happily owns up to being a “total geek”, isn’t your average fantasy writer. He has a degree in social anthropology from Cambridge and a PhD on International Law, from LSE – recently published by an academic press. He is also a political animal. He stood as a candidate for the Socialist Alliance in 2001, and was hailed by the rabidly rightwing Evening Standard as “the sexiest man in politics”.

I met China Miéville in a café in Kilburn, to discuss socialist fantasy, magic, technology and the Writers’ Guild: the fact that we are affiliated to the TUC matters to him. We both admit to doubts over the Guild’s continued links with the Labour Party. He cites Labour’s failure to repeal the anti-trade-union laws it inherited from the Tories; I’m just not sure we’re getting value for money.

It seems to me the magic in your books conforms to rules, in the same way as "hard science" does in SF.

Magic in my books can do certain things, at certain costs. I won't just suddenly pull a new kind of magic out of my arse: any new magical ideas have to work alongside an overall 'scientific' system of magic.

You're creating an alternative universe in each novel: do you do a lot of preparation work?

I'm a total geek, and I love all that stuff.  I invent the geography, the monsters, the societies, etc. It's a technique peculiar to fantasy and SF, though it gets mocked all the time. I spend a long time trying to make the universe systematic. The equation is something like “social theory plus geek soul equals 'realistic' fantasy”.

So first you create the world; then the characters and plot grow out of that?

For me, what comes first is a few key scenes, and an overall emotional tenor. Plus a couple of monsters.

Are there specific themes you find yourself returning to?

At the level of themes that I'm aware of, it's all the obvious stuff like social conflict, racism, solidarity. But each book also feels very much as if it has its own agenda, on top of that.

Does your academic background inform your work?

Anthropology has been very useful to me as a fiction writer, as has the broader field of social philosophy. There are all kinds of simple things that make sense, like not making your alien species monocultural.

So, unlike, say, Tolkien, your orcs wouldn’t all be inherently warlike and evil.

[Laughs] What - are all orcs like that? Isn't there a group of peace-loving gatherer-hunter orcs off in the foothills anywhere? It sounds facetious, but trying to invent cultures with their own internal conflicts, makes for a more realistic, and a more engaging setting.

Do you set yourself a target number of words when you're writing?

I write very intensely – 11, 12-hour days – for a few weeks at a time, interspersed with periods of research and idea-trawling. When I’m writing, I try to do 2000 words a day. I often don't, but that's the point at which I breathe a sigh of contentment. I'll cut a load of those words later, but that's a good first-draft rule for me.

Do you rewrite?

Yes. I write a long first draft, then go back and cut like a bastard, then I go to my editor plus agent and a couple of trusted friends, and ask their thoughts. My basic rule is if more than one person suggests something, it's probably right, and if more than two suggest it, I do it immediately.

That’s the one piece of advice I give new writers – rewrite and listen to criticism – but it's usually the last thing they want to hear. What advice would you give a new writer?

I'd second that, for a start. Never mind aspiring writers, there are too many professional writers who don't like being edited. It's absurd. It doesn't mean your editor is always right, but the idea that you get to the stage where you “don't have to listen to editors”, as a couple of very famous novelists say, is incredibly self-destructive. The other bit of amazingly prosaic advice is: get an agent; don't go straight to a publisher. A good agent is the best thing ever.

Conventional wisdom says UK publishing is going through a hard time. What do you think?

From where I'm standing, it is an excellent time to be working in SF/Fantasy. There's lots of genre-blurring, a lot of excellent children's literature, there’s more attention being paid to science fiction and fantasy-based literature.

Are there any plans to turn your books into films? I thought The Tain sounded very cinematic.

Well, I agree with you! King Rat, my first novel, is optioned, and in my unbiased opinion would make a good film: it's set in London, has a great soundtrack and involves some cool fight scenes. The three 'Bas-Lag' books would be much harder.

How do your American readers respond to the politics in your books?

Counter-intuitively perhaps, my stuff goes down very well there. There's a cliché that British SF is 'depressing', and American SF is all 'thrusting' and manifest-destiny and whatnot. So you might expect American readers to blench at socialist gothic fantasies with highly ambivalent endings. And you might think that Iron Council – being a dark fantasy about gay trade unionists – might not go down so well. But so far, so good.

If people don't agree with the politics, they just get on with the story. I'm very conscious that my novels aren’t political pamphlets, they’re entertainments. If I don’t keep people interested enough to turn the pages, then I've failed.

What about non English-speaking countries?

I'm lucky; I've been translated a lot. I've won SF prizes in France and Germany, which is testimony to the quality of the translations I've had.

How closely do you work with your translators? Is it quite hands-off?

My Japanese and Korean translators just get on with it. But I've corresponded extensively with my European translators and you can tell that people are doing a good job by the kind of questions they ask. They query nuances, cadences and composite words. It's a fascinating process.

Do you go to SF/ Fantasy conventions?

Yes. Cons (as we geeks call them) are a blast.

They do sound a lot more fun than a signing session in Waterstone’s.

Cons are very easy to take the piss out of because a lot of SF readers are geeks. And I could do without some of the costumes. But the kind of serious, close, critical reading and discussion that goes on there puts many book groups to shame.

This article first appeared in the Guild’s magazine, UK Writer (New Year 2005).