Tags
2010s, 2015, anthology/collection, British, China Miéville, Dave McKean, Del Rey Books, Horror, New Weird, science fiction, short fiction, Subterranean Press, weird fiction
China Mieville is an author that’s hard to categorize, as his stories often escape or defy comfortable genre classification. He is one of the forerunners of the New Weird movement, which should tell you a lot; he writes weird fiction, a blend of the improbable and the impossible with a chilling bite. He’s also damn good at his job, one of the powerhouses of genre fiction today with a slew of top-shelf novels to his name. He’s not as well known for his short fiction, though he has written pieces before—some for magazines, newspapers, websites, or his blog, both longer novellas and short idea-generation flash fiction. A number of those previously published stories are combined with brand new material to make up Three Moments of an Explosion, a 2015 release with 28 shorter works. (And I should add, with a novel slated for release early next year, Mieville is as productive as he is innovative.) Three Moments releases today in North America and is already out in the UK; I received an advance copy from Del Rey and NetGalley in exchange for this open and honest review.
“Polynia” is one of first big stories in the collection at 25 pages, and it’s a perfect example of Mieville’s style of short fiction. In near-future Europe, pieces of the earth destroyed by human influence make a striking return: icebergs form in the sky above London, brain coral begins growing off the EU buildings in Brussels. The story is rich in atmosphere—the wonder and unease caused by these natural-yet-unnatural occurrences, things that should not be. Our protagonists are kids, watching footage beamed through the BBC of failed military expeditions or sneaking a look at illegal footage shot by extreme explorers. It’s almost a coming-of-age story—the muggy, junk-laden back-alleys of London which become oddly chilly when a massive iceberg floats past. “Covehite” also mixed contemporary issues with the inexplicable, as oil rigs destroyed by nautical accidents stomp their way out of the seas and head inland.
And like the best magicians, Mieville doesn’t reveal his secrets. One of the common criticisms of Mieville’s earlier collections were that his stories lacked a sense of finality or closure; the reader expecting a nice clean denouement that explains away the wonder and wraps everything up with a neat bow may be disappointed. I refute the point: the stories work best when Mieville’s powerful creativity runs rampant, where things wondrous and inexplicable happen to everyday people. Explaining the mystery would detract from the experience; Weird Fiction works best when it’s allowed to be weird. And in many cases, there’s usually a deeper meaning for the reader to find and ponder.
Such as with “Three Moments of an Explosion.” It’s another perfect example of Mieville’s short fiction, but is nothing like the sprawling “Poylnia,” just a few short paragraphs that take up a page. The title is quite accurate; it describes an explosion from three points of time: the corporate-sponsored demolition of an old building, the drugged-up urban explorers who race up and back down as the building crumbles in slow motion around them, and the fading memory of the one explorer who didn’t make it out in time. The story has a surreal, dreamlike quality to it, and acts as cutting commentary that spreads out to strike at several targets. It’s one of those stories that a reader may ponder for days later—three paragraphs with just the right amount of meat to give you something to think about.
A good number of the stories are more like flash fiction than a traditional short, toying with form and format, playing with brevity. Some, like “The Rope is the World,” feel something like story outlines—a brilliant little short history that sets up an intricate world where space elevators were created, then abandoned, leaving people stranded on the infinite decks. There’s a lot of interesting concepts packed into such a short tale—perhaps not enough for a novel, though in some cases I’d like to see someone try. There’s also a few gems that show Mieville could have a brilliant career as a screenwriter: “The Crawl,” “Listen to the Birds,” and “Escapee” are trailers for fake horror films, striking the right balance between not revealing any of the films’ big secrets but showing enough of their atmosphere that I want to know more. Similarly, “Syllabus” is exactly what it sounds like, the syllabus for a far-future college where your AI must approve your essay topics.
I sometimes forget that Mieville’s first novel, King Rat, earned top-notch horror accolades for a good reason. The reason is because his brand of creepy weirdness plays very well with horror, and the more traditional fantasy-horror tales in this collection are knockouts—“Säcken” and “After The Festival” show that Mieville’s talent for crafting chilling horror is still in top form. “Säcken” follows two women as they vacation by a quiet German lake; as one woman become terrified by strange occurrences, their relationship becomes strained and rocky, placing them both in danger. Dread oozes from this story like cold, murky lakewater, sending chills up my spine. “After the Festival” inserts a Medieval-esque ritual into an otherwise normal world, where partygoers wear the decapitated heads of animals as part of a celebration—but wearing the heads too long leads to serious danger, changing the wearer and unleashing their animal nature.
The crushing weight of unknown forces comes through in stories like “The Bastard Prompt” and “Keep,” relying heavily on the mystery and weirdness of how the world has changed to keep you reading. By the end they make a kind of sense, but the how’s and why’s are mercurial; both feature apocalyptic changes that the protagonists struggle to understand, while they become in tune with the strange occurrences. Unexplained phenomena remain surreal and terrifying when there’s no scientific explanation for the things that should not be. That’s why Mieville isn’t often categorized as science fiction: he writes weird tales, stories where characters react to the impossible and unknowable as best they can.
Three Moments of an Explosion contains a number of gems and excellent stories, among the fascinating bits of flash-fiction ephemera. Examining all of them will take time, and to be honest, I think they are best left to their own weird ways—just roll with the weirdness, as neither you nor the characters will know exactly why or how the impossible can happen. That’s what makes the stories full of breathless wonder, strange mystery, and chilling terror, and why reading the collection all at once may be a bit draining. Mieville has established himself as one of the best writers of the unknown, and this collection is yet another showcase of how powerful, dynamic, and—well, limitless his imagination can be. It’s a must-read for fans of Mieville and the New Weird movement, and it may be a good in-read for those who haven’t yet read one of his novels. Really, for any horror or fantasy reader, there will be things here for you to enjoy. Two thumbs way, way up.
Book Details
Title: Three Moments of an Explosion
Author: China Mieville
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Release Date: 16 June 2015
What I Read: ebook
Price I Paid: $0 (e-ARC via Netgalley)
ISBN/ASIN: 110188472X / B00R04OVOA
fromcouchtomoon said:
Between you and Le Guin… grrr.
More comments later. Must work. But grrr I didn’t want to read this.
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fromcouchtomoon said:
So, yeah, grrr. I guess that’s all I had to say about this.
I saw the Le Guin article in The Guardian yesterday and didn’t even click on it because that headline said it all and she is so good at dissecting things and I didn’t want her to influence me. (Even though The Guardian books section is frustratingly short and abrupt, so she may not have gotten a chance to dissect anything.) Now YOUR post comes along and I HAVE to read your posts, so I’m skimming, one-eye closed you know, but it sounds really, really cool. I initially figured I MIGHT pick this up in 5 to 10 years or something, but not something that would go on my already too big 2015 list for December.
Blast you to ether, Ironbombs!
(So, can we assume it is much elyctric puissance in multisyllabic form?)
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admiral.ironbombs said:
The Le Gun article was fascinating, but those Guardian columns do limit how much dissection goes on. If it was a post on her site it would have been gloriously long and detailed.
I initially figured I MIGHT pick this up in 5 to 10 years or something
And we all know the “or something” means “next year, with the Hugo ‘6s because it’s on some awards shortlists.” Besides, you know how many Mieville fans are blogging these days… you’re going to see someone else in your circles post about it in like a month.
(So, can we assume it is much elyctric puissance in multisyllabic form?)
Most of the stories had contemporary or near-future settings so the craziest of the vocabulary wasn’t there, but I did find several gems I had to look up. Doing a quick scan of your favorite variety: 1 viscous, 12 spit, 5 ooze, 4 vomit, 1 mucal, 1 cowed only 3 scree. I don’t want to steal your thunder so I’ll let you read it by the numbers… in 5-10 years 😉
A line I highlighted but forgot to use: “It was a bag, a sack full of bad presents, of coal or earth or blood clots or ruined roots.” For some reason I wanted to use that as a metaphor for the book at the time, but it fits real well with your offal offerings.
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fromcouchtomoon said:
Yeah The Guardian can be infuriating at times. And those desperate, click-baity headlines are atrocious. Good intentions, though, and better than most US dailies. And the books section is great, but the brevity is off-putting. Wham, bam, thank you ma– oh, okay, I’m done now, bye!
“Offal offerings.” That made me smile. Hey! FUTURE TITLE FOR HIS NEXT COLLECTION!
Of course there are 12 “spits.” Why would there be fewer than 12 “spits”?
I want to say the persistent use of “cowed” is a commentary on state of humanity as livestock in a capitalist system, but that’s probably stretching it. I bet he just likes the word “cowed.” It is a good word.
I bet that quote is an awesome metaquote. Now I know exactly what to expect.
As for definitely reading it among the Hugo ‘6s, it’s a collection, not a novel, so I could easily ignore it if I wanted to. If it gets a lot of commercial attention, I’ll get tired of hearing about it… which is why I figured I would read this in 5-10 years, during some off-year when he’s not as newsworthy. Kind of like Gaiman… I get tired of hearing about the celebs. But maybe the Mieville fatigue won’t be so bad this time around.
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nikki @bookpunks said:
“I want to say the persistent use of “cowed” is a commentary on state of humanity as livestock in a capitalist system, but that’s probably stretching it. I bet he just likes the word “cowed.” It is a good word.” HAhahahahaha. Yes.
It is probably going to take me a while to get to this one but yeah, as usual you have gotten me excited about another book that really should rise to the top of the TBR pile, that I don’t even own yet, and holy shit with two new novels form him next year I think I’d rather read Railsea and then those and continue to put off the short fiction. But hey at least I read The Apology Chapbook.
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DJ (@MyLifeMyBooksMyEscape) said:
Part me of hopes that because these are all short stories, maybe Mieville won’t have enough time to confuse me as much. But the other part of me knows that is just ignorant wishing, and it doesn’t matter XD
This does sound like it will be great. And a plus about all the be stores being so short, is I won’t mind if have I read them twice to (hopefully) understand the weirdness of Mieville.
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admiral.ironbombs said:
There were definitely a few I had to re-read just so I could wrap my head around them and figure out what I thought they were saying. Still not sure I’m right, but at least I formed an opinion 🙂 And those were from some of the shorter stories in the collection, too.
There’s a couple of longer novellas in there, maybe 20-30 pages, but about a dozen are a few pages or less. And only a handful of them (mostly the horror stories) had a definite sense of closure, but even then I kept thinking about them…
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Jesse said:
One of the concerning aspects of this collection is how few stories were previously published. It’s certainly possible that Mieville tucked them away in a drawer to save himself the trouble of submission to different venues, knowing his relative popularity would pull through in a collection one day. That being said, it’s also possible he did submit many of them, but was rejected… I don’t doubt your review :), it’s just most collections these days contain very few unpublished stories. I guess Mieville’s name is enough to sell anything.
Do you know anything about his new novel? He’s such an unpredictable writer that I’m very curious.
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admiral.ironbombs said:
I’d thought about that as well, and before I started reading assumed some of the stories would be from the junk drawer files… Instead, a lot of those unpublished pieces feel like writing prompts, all the experiments and flash pieces that wouldn’t really sell anywhere. I’ve seen several of them on his blog, which kind of reinforces my opinion that they were the equivalents of doodles, written either to jot down ideas or as mental exercises of some kind. Then again, most flash fiction feels more like a prompt than a fully polished story to me.
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Cavershamragu said:
The massive size is just maybe putting me off even starting reading him, but i will, i will 🙂
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booksbrainsandbeer said:
I’m a Mieville fan but was dubious of this collection. No longer! I trust your opinion, so now this, too, goes on “the pile”…
“Explaining the mystery would detract from the experience; Weird Fiction works best when it’s allowed to be weird.” Agreed. I also enjoyed The City & the City most when the mystery was building, when he hadn’t explained it all away (although he had to for that one). Pleasure in disquietude.
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Anton said:
Started this today and yes, it’s incredibly good!
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Rabindranauth said:
I’ve read the majority of this at this point – I skipped over what you had to say about those stories I had to read, but I couldn’t wait to see what you thought about the stuff I’ve read so far – we both seem to love the same aspects of the book. I’m digging his shorter short fiction, and the trailers are some of the creepiest shit I’ve read. With the exception of that one with the factory worker with the hook – that one struck me as more of a riff on the ridiculousness of some superhero-style movies, lol.
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admiral.ironbombs said:
Haha — that hook story was not that memorable imo, compared to the rest of the book, and I think you’re right about it parodying ridiculous movies. Lots of good stuff in this volume, though i was feeling some story fatigue by the end. Glad you’re enjoying it!
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