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Fantasy and science fiction can be literal as well as allegorical and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a monster like a giant squid for what it is, as well as searching for metaphor.

China Mieville

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China Mieville
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: September 6
Academic
Anthropologist
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Fantasy Author
Literary Critic
Novelist
Political Scientist
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Norwich
Norfolk
China Tom Miéville
China Mieville
China Tom Mieville
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Enjoy
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More quotes by China Mieville

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While yes we can both agree the sudden recovery of this footage smells not a little, and that we appear to be bits of tinfoil-on-string to some malevolent government kitten, yes yes yes but, Borlu, however they've come by this evidence, this is the correct decision.
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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.
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In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.
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It had not been a long journey, but the memory of it filled her like an infection. She had felt tethered by time to the city behind her, so that the minutes stretched out taut as she moved away, and slowed the farther she got, dragging out her little voyage.
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A sickly little smile grew and died on his mouth like a fungus.
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The best way to write a novel is to do it behind your own back.
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Fantastic fiction covers fantasy, horror and science fiction - and it doesn't get the attention it deserves from the literati.
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I'll never be a minimalist. The fact that the prose is more tightly controlled doesn't for a minute mean that it's minimalist. I very much like arcane words and baroque sentence structure.
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My sustenance is information. My interventions are hidden. I increase as I learn. I compute, so I am.
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If you're brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn't, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless.
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London is an endless skirmish between angles and emptiness.
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Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.
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I think there's something quite interesting about the almost tragic quality of a lot of overwrought prose, because it has a much more self-conscious awareness of its own failure to touch the real.
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I remember vividly what it's like to read as a 10-year-old - that passionate inhabiting of a book.
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Geeks run the world. Condoleezza Rice is a geek, Bill Gates is clearly a geek, many of the big filmmakers and writers are geeks, lots of military people are geeks. Anyone who has heard Donald Rumsfeld talk about military hardware knows they are in the presence of a geek.
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I'd never been to a science-fiction convention until I became a professional writer.
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I differ with myself then agree, like the rock that was broken and cemented together. I change my opinion.
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Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not.
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So long as it fated, fate didn't care what it fated.
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I love it when people want to interpret my books.
China Mieville