Miéville, China 1973(?)–

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Miéville, China 1973(?)–

PERSONAL: Male. Born c. 1973, in London, England. Education: Degree from Cambridge University; London School of Economics, master's degree with distinction.

ADDRESSES: Office—c/o Del Rey Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

CAREER: Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Nebula Award nomination in novel category, 2002, for Perdido Street Station; Philip K. Dick Award special citation, Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, 2002, Hugo Award nomination in best novel category, World Science Fiction Society, Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, and World Fantasy Award nomination in best novel category, and British Fantasy Society Award, all 2003, all for The Scar.

WRITINGS:

King Rat, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1998.

Perdido Street Station, Del Rey (New York, NY), 2001.

The Scar, Del Rey (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Michael Moorcock, Paul de Fillipo, and Geoff Ryman) Cities, Gollancz (London, England), 2003.

Iron Council, Del Rey (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: China Miéville's debut novel, King Rat, was hailed by some critics as an updated take on the urban-gothic fable. In London, after an unknown intruder kills a man, the man's son, Saul, is wrongly convicted of the crime. Put in jail, Saul escapes, helped by a mysterious stranger who claims to be King Rat, a subterranean ruler. What is more, King Rat declares himself the deposed leader of a rodent army and reveals that Saul's mother is also of rat-kind. Now aware of his inborn abilities, Saul discovers he can "eat garbage, move soundlessly and unseen, squeeze through impossibly tiny openings, and climb vertical walls," as a Kirkus Reviews contributor described them.

In a variation of the Pied Piper theme, magical hip-hop music also enters into the story, leading to a showdown between King Rat and his young disciple. King Rat marks an "auspicious debut," according to a reviewer in Publishers Weekly, overcoming a "predictable plot" by pulling "the reader into the story through the kinetic energy" of Miéville's prose. To Booklist critic Roland Green, if the book lacks the balance of other works by noted urban-goth authors, those flaws are countered by Miéville's sense of "folkloric expertise … his depiction of the grungier side of urban life is vivid and extensive, not to mention well-worded."

Miéville's second book, Perdido Street Station, is a fantasy/horror tale set in New Crobuzon, a city full of gangsters, revolutionaries, and assorted human and non-human species. Isaac Dan der Crimnebulin and his lover, Lin, an insect-like creature, inadvertently release a flying monster on the city. Isaac and Lin must chase down the monster before the authorities find it, or them. Jackie Cassada, reviewing the novel in Library Journal, wrote that Miéville tells a "powerful tale about the power of love and the will to survive." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called the novel "breathtakingly broad" and "an impressive and ultimately pleasing epic."

In Miéville's third book, The Scar, published in 2002, fugitives of New Crobuzon find more dangers await them when pirates take them to the floating city of Armada, which is ruled by a devious pair called The Lovers. Some critics have expressed dismay at the plot twists as well as with Miéville's writing style. Others found more to like; Jane Halshall, reviewing The Scar for School Library Journal, characterized Miéville's writing as "something akin to Lewis Carroll's use of portmanteau."

Iron Council, Miéville's next work, takes readers on a return trip to the city of New Crobuzon, where revolt stirs in the minds of the residents living under a repressive capitalist regime that doles out inhumane reconstructive surgery as punishment. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly maintained that "Miéville represents much of what is new and good in contemporary dark fantasy, and his work is must reading for devotees of that genre."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1999, review of King Rat, p. 239; February 15, 2001, Roland Green, review of Peridido Street Station, p. 1122; July, 2002, Regina Schroeder, Jackie Cassada, review of The Scar, p. 1833; June 1, 2004, Ray Olson, review of Iron Council, pp. 1670-1671.

Bookseller, December 12, 2003, p. 29.

Extrapolation, spring, 2000, Scott Maisano, "Reading Underwater; or, Fantasies of Fluency from Shakespeare to Mieville and Emshwiller," pp. 76-88; fall, 2003,John Reider, "Symposium: Marxism and Fantasy," pp. 375-380; winter, 2003, Carl Freedman, "Toward a Marxist Urban Sublime: Reading China Mieville's King Rat," pp. 395-408.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 1999, review of King Rat, p. 1181; May 1, 2002, review of Jackie Cassada, review of The Scar, p. 625; June 1, 2004, review of Iron Council, p. 522.

Library Journal, February 15, 2001, Jackie Cassada, review of Perdido Street Station, p. 204; July, 2002, Jackie Cassada, review of The Scar, p. 259; July, 2004,Jackie Cassada, review of Iron Council, p. 75.

Publishers Weekly, August 23, 1999, review of King Rat, p. 53; January 8, 2001, review of Perdido Street Station, p. 52; May 20, 2002, review of The Scar, p. 51; July 5, 2004, review of Iron Council, p. 42.

School Library Journal, March, 2003, Jane Halshall, review of The Scar, p. 259.

Spectator, May 6, 2000, Michael Moorcock, review of Perdido Street Station, pp. 33-34.

Times Literary Supplement, September 1, 2000, Edward James, review of Perdido Street Station, p. 11.