China Mieville
China Mieville
China Tom Miéville FRSLis an English fantasy fiction author, comic writer and academic. He often describes his work as "weird fiction", and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth6 September 1972
beautiful hippie names
My parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached "China," thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that "china" is Cockney rhyming slang for "mate." People say "my old china," meaning "my old mate," because "china plate" rhymes with "mate.
couple book writing
When I'm writing a book, generally I start with the mood and setting, along with a couple of specific images—things that have come into my head, totally abstracted from any narrative, that I've fixated on. After that, I construct a world, or an area, into which that general setting, that atmosphere, and the specific images I've focused on can fit.
two fundamentals influence
Socialism and SF are the two most fundamental influences in my life.
thinking interesting vision
I think the role of science fiction is not at all to prophesy. I think it is to tell interesting, vivid, strange stories that at their best are dreamlike intense versions and visions of today.
book people way
Personally I don't like it when writers become excessively proscriptive about the way that people read their books.
book writing ideas
I like the idea of trying to write a book in every genre.
two octopus abandoned-buildings
Ever since I was two, I've loved octopuses, monsters, abandoned buildings.
allegory
I don't like allegory.
book people want
I love it when people want to interpret my books.
book years passionate
I remember vividly what it's like to read as a 10-year-old - that passionate inhabiting of a book.
book writing names
In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.
sex fiction prestige
No one ever got into science fiction for the sex or prestige. They got into it because they love it.
friendly socialist
I'm a very friendly socialist.
dark would-be geek
A lot of geeks are pale, bespectacled, wear dark clothing and don't get out much - the stereotype exists because it is very often true. I could pass for a non-geek but it would be inaccurate.