Talk:China Miéville

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Name of genre[edit]

"belongs to a loose group of writers who consciously attempt to move the fantasy genre away from the realms of Tolkienesque clich?." Is there a name for this group, is there an article that can be linked to? Which writers belong to this group. I detect strong affiliations with Michael Moorcock and Mervyn Peake, should they be mentioned? The Mervyn Peake article calls the genre Fantasist Realist would this be the correct genre to place China Mi?ville? Htaccess 07:56, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

China has repeatedly stated that he considers himself a weird fiction writer, in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft et al. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, it's up to readers and critics to place his work in one or more genres. --Goblin ›talk 18:57, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

His writings - well, the ones set in the world of Perdido Street Station - are probably best described as "steampunk". The world is steampunk. - Malimar—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.104.48.135 (talk) 17:45, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Need RS for these classifications and cateogorizations.Parkwells (talk) 00:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removed entry for "The Tain"[edit]

Uh, why? The Tain was published standalone in book form by PS Publishing (ISBNs 1902880641 and 1902880633), so shouldn't it be listed in the bibliography? I'm putting it back in. --Goblin ›talk 01:01, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't remove the entry - but the orignal hyperlink was incorrect. Pointed towards a band. It seems ok now -- lostsocks—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lostsocks (talk • contribs) 21:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lenins tomb[edit]

I am having a hard time finding any blog posts by China at Lenins tomb, at first I thought he was Lenin but apparently not, is there any way to link to just Chinas posts? Htaccess 04:35, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've linked to some of his posts in the article and expl;ained hw to find his posts as opposed to the other participants --Martin Wisse 16:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, its a pity there is no way to link to all his posts, most blogs with multiple authours (eg Wordpress) have a facility to link to only the posts of one of the authors. The content is worth while though so should probably be kept but its not ideal.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Htaccess (talk • contribs) 23:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Surely this isn't his original name! How did he get it?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Deipnosophista (talk • contribs) 18:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation[edit]

Two parts of the article are very possibly a copyright violation. They are directly copied from Mieville's introduction from the inside cover of Random House's paperback edition, ISBN 0-345-45940-7. These are the suspected parts:

"When he was eighteen, he lived and taught English in Egypt, where he developed an interest in Arab culture and Middle Eastern politics. Mi?ville has a B.A. in social anthropology from Cambridge and a master's with distinction and PhD from the London School of Economics."

And again, lower in the article:

"His first novel, King Rat, was nominated for both an International Horror Guild and Bram Stoker awards. Perdido Street Station won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards. His third, The Scar, was nominated for the 2003 Hugo, Arthur C. Clarke and World Fantasy awards."

Both are almost verbatim copies. 213.233.160.48 19:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation in reverse[edit]

The edit of 19:55, 11 February 2006 by 83.227.105.101 adds a link to a page that presents an edited version of this Wiki entry with no attribution. Dogville 20:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

75.18.206.188[edit]

... was me. Kalkin 20:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Birthplace[edit]

Both from the article:

  • "China Tom Miéville (born September 6, 1972, Norwich)"
  • "Miéville was born in Willesden, a neighbourhood in northwest London, and has lived in the city since early childhood."

Which one? Norwich to London is a two hour train journey, so this can't be right by any definition. Nphase 09:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he didn't go by train.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kraken[edit]

All right, someone listed Kraken as being an upcoming book from Miéville and the only reference is an Amazon UK link http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0333989511/ref=nosim/authordatabase with NO information on it. I was never sure, but I'd heard of Kraken before and had come to the conclusion that it was not a new book but a foreign translation of The Scar. It really seems like there ought to be a better source than a completely blank Amazon entry before something is listed as a new book.71.217.234.70 12:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, this amazon.co.uk entry says: paperback publication in 2010 by Tor. "Other Editions" links to an entry for a hardcover "Untitled Novel 1" (also Tor, 2010). As Tor Books is AFAIK solely a publisher of English-language books, this doesn't look like a foreign translation to me. I find no official announcements through Google, but quite a lot of websites/blogs/fora mentioning Kraken as Miéville's possible next book. Some mention "coming out in September 2007" - well, this was obviously not the case. Apart from the Amazon entry, it all looks like rumor, and I'm not sure whether we should mention it in the article yet. Gestumblindi (talk) 02:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

El Azogue?[edit]

Another of the "is this a foreign translation" questions. Listed on Amazon, it's in Spanish... not having read "Tain", could this be a translation, or is it a new work?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.218.217.195 (talk) 16:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

El azogue translates from Spanish as the quicksilver. Nuttyskin (talk) 22:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Politics[edit]

I removed the word "traditionally" - the constituency he contested is a relatively new one making it rather unlikely to have a "tradition". As a note, it was carved out of two Tory constituencies and was viewed by the local Labour Party (of which I was once a member) as a likely marginal. Bigdaddy1981 04:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

His name[edit]

I for one have no clue as to how his name is supposed to be pronounced. Does anyone have an idea, if so, can we add a phonetic guide? Because I'm sure people (like me!) struggle to ask for this guy's books in libraries. 82.10.111.59 14:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's "mee-AY-ville". I've always said "May-ville" but I heard an interview with him recently where he cleared that up. Tredanse 04:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)t̪[reply]
It's "mee-AY-ville" but please don't put it in the article- its' against policy to put up pronunciation guides that anyone except a small perecentage of readers can understand. We'd need to get someone who understands the phonetic alphabet to add a guide. Lurker (said · done) 16:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --Limetom 10:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure that's correct? From my understanding of the IPA (I'm an English teacher) the symbols you use would be pronounced "chi-anna" and my understanding is that the second syllable of his surname is emphasised, not the first.Mia-etol (talk) 18:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have added a link in External Links, to an audio interview with Rick Kleffel of The Agony Column Podcast, which also has the correct pronunciation of his name. Browndog72 (talk) 13:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Surely this isn't his original name? How did he get it? Deipnosophista (talk) 18:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is his original given name. I was at a reading where he was asked about it, and he said "my parents were hippies", and explained that "China" is Cockney rhyming slang for "mate" (="friend") ("China plate"->"mate"). Kaleja (talk) 01:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that only a small percentage would understand imitative pronunciation over IPA is mistaken, if not deluded. Nuttyskin (talk) 22:43, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In-DEE-ud. Shtove (talk) 17:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"stood for the HoC"?[edit]

In the introduction, it says he "stood for the house of commons" - I am not from england so I don't know what this means. Did he represent them? Did he try to get elected? or what? Rebent (talk) 22:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tried to get elected. It's rather standard wording. Skomorokh 22:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

filmography?[edit]

Don't know where to put this on the page, but I recently found out from a BFI database entry that China was credited as an extra in the 1999 film "Notting Hill". The accent in his name is messed up, which might be effectively hiding it from searches. I have my own suspicion, after watching the DVD, about where he appears, but would be interested in others confirming. Also, would love for a more experienced editor than myself to add this information. The BFI page link is http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/details.php?ranking=95&cc=on. Bgaloot (talk) 16:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Needs proper biography[edit]

This article is off to a good start, but I'm surprised that it's missing a proper biography section beyond his formative education. Can someone fill this out? WesleyDodds (talk) 21:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. This article reads like (yet) another Wikipedia-as-free-publicity article.
Sad. Very sad. But doomed to continue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.115.74 (talk) 20:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We ought at least to be seeing a Personal life section by now: married, divorced, civil partner or doting daddy of three French bulldog pups -- which is it? Our prurient curiosity is killing us! Nuttyskin (talk) 15:13, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
He keeps his private life under wraps. Nangaf (talk) 03:44, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I propose the following: "Mieville has not commented on his personal life in recent years. In 2013, responding to allegations of emotional abuse by a woman with whom he had been in a relationship the previous year, he stated that he had been in an open relationship at the time." Fox, Rose (February 11, 2013). "Unpleasant Allegations, and a Response". Publisher's Weekly. Archived from the original on March 3, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2022.98.111.146.234 (talk) 04:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Publisher's Weekly seems like a legitimate news source. I suspect this is one of those instances where WP:BLP advises caution, though. Nangaf (talk) 05:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have inserted a brief section describing what little we know about his personal life. I don't think there is any reason to mention more about the allegations of emotional abuse than the fact that he denied them, despite the fact that they have been repeated what appears to have been a co-ordinated whispering campaign, because the allegations do not appear to have named him explicitly.Nangaf (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
She may have used the initials "CM" in the original blogpost -- updated to "Jekyll" here -- but check out the meta tags in the source code (view-source:https://bidisha-online.blogspot.com/2012/12/emotional-violence-and-social-power.html). "China Mieville abuser", "China Mieville harassment", et cetera. 98.111.146.234 (talk) 00:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that sounds exactly like a whispering campaign to me. Absent an explicit, high-quality source, the sort of background noise that you would expect an encyclopedia to ignore. Nangaf (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Not original research[edit]

Hello,

To say that "Miéville's works all describe worlds or scenarios that are fantastical or supernatural" is original research, is to say that "reading his works and having subsequent opinions on them" is "original research".

Also, there is a citation at the end of the sentence.

I've removed the tag.

2602:306:C458:6E40:1050:C1C0:B6B:8993 (talk) 17:07, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The citation does support the statement; I think you were right to remove the tag. However, "reading his works and having subsequent opinions on them" is exactly what is meant by original research. If all you have are your own opinions, you shouldn't be putting them into an article. You must cite the opinion of a reliable source. This is sometimes a slippery concept to grasp; it's very easy to think something like, "It's obvious Miéville's works are fantasy," without realizing that it is an opinion and not fact.
Thank you for your thoughtful editing — Gorthian (talk) 19:23, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Bibliography[edit]

I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. Feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 05:39, 31 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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University of Warwick[edit]

This article is in category 'Academics of the University of Warwick', but nothing in the article mentions him spending any time at Warwick. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:01, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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A Spectre Haunting Europe Will Be Published in 2020[edit]

Per Amazon[1], A Spectre Haunting Europe will be published in 2020, not 2019. Siberian Husky (talk) 04:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mieville as a historian[edit]

Mieville is the author of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, a work of popular history. As Mieville is an author of a work of history, and an authority on a historical topic, this means that it should not be controversial to categorize Mieville as a historian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:547:1300:2520:8912:9477:DB5C:CC1E (talk) 00:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PlanetaryObservationStation (talk) 00:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)PlanetaryObservationStation[reply]

He has written a work of popular history, but he is not a historian. In order for it to be uncontroversial to categorise Mieville as a historian, you'd want to find sources that describe him as such. There are none that I can find. What I do find are sources saying the opposite, making a virtue of the fact Mieville is not professionally trained in the area, and noting that "the author says that he isn’t trying to correct for his own biases in what he is writing". This means it is not accurate to say Mieville is "an authority on a historical topic".
The lede already describes Mieville as an essayist, and a socialist political activist, both of which do a perfectly good job of describing the Mieville who wrote October. H. Carver (talk) 00:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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