The China Syndrome
01/10/2002 . Source: Stephen Hunt 

Author China Miéville talks to fantasy novelist Stephen Hunt about his passion for Gormenghast, the smug utopianism of Cambridge, why David Cronenberg should make the film version of Perdido Street Station, and on being a Dr Who man through and through.

Are you currently writing full time now, or are you still doing your Ph.D. at the London School of Economics?

I finished my PhD earlier this year. I've not totally lost touch with research though - I'm still on the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism, and I'm trying to do a bit of non-fiction and theoretical writing now and then. But basically, yes, full-time fiction.

When and why did you begin writing? When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I've been writing with the vague aim of 'being a writer' since I was at least 12, but I haven't really felt comfortable describing myself as a writer to other people until a year or so ago.

If I'm honest, being published was really the turning point in my conception of myself as a writer - which doesn't make much sense, as I know there are plenty of superb unpublished writers out there. But that's how it was for me.

How has becoming a published author impacted your lifestyle?

Since my second book, it's been possible for me to live off the writing, which is an unbelievable luxury, and not something I take for granted at all. But psychologically, as the last answer shows, it had a big impact as well. It was an amazing vindication - even though you can be very cynical about the taste of the publishing industry if you want, being paid to write made a huge difference.

It was also a huge headtrip for me to find myself in the company - literally, like at parties or launches or whatever - of writers whose work had meant a huge amount to me for ages. M. John Harrison, John Crowley, Gene Wolfe. Still pinch myself about that.

How do you see the future of fantasy literature in the 21st century?

Who knows? What I'd like to see is the boundaries between SF, Fantasy, horror and 'slipstream' (whateverthefuck that is) being blurred and problematised, as they are in the work of people like Jeff VanderMeer, Jeff Ford, Ted Chiang, et very many al.

I'd like to see a move away from Tolkienesque fantasy, towards a more baroque and macabre tradition, the reclamation of other ways of doing fantasy. I'd like to see more mainstream writers using fantastic tropes with more facility than they have hitherto - I admired David Mitchell's Ghostwritten for the fact that it was clearly not written in an SF tradition, but it used SF and fantasy tropes without getting all anxious about it.

That's what I'd like. What happens is, though, not in my hands. The other big question is the extent to which the literary mainstream opens its eyes to fantastic work, stops being so snobby about it. Frankly, and unfortunately, I'm skeptical. I think the prejudice is very deep.

Do you tend to read the work of many other SF, fantasy or weird fiction slipstream authors?

For sure. It's not what I read exclusively - reading only genre would be as blinkered as reading no genre - but it's my first love, and it's where I always return. Recently, I've been getting very excited about Ted Chiang and Kelly Link, two excellent young American authors. My strongest mental foundations are in this field - Wolfe, Harrison, Moorcock, Le Guin, Dick - and I'm hugely proud to be part of it.

Were you signed by the Cheetham Literary Agency before or after King Rat was published?

Before. It was a very good piece of advice someone gave me - don't even bother approaching publishers, when you've got a manuscript, try to get an agent. I know people who haven't done it that way, but I couldn't have dealt with it any other way.

How long did you spend in rejection letter hell before you were first published?

Not too bad. I got rejected by two agents, then accepted by Mic Cheetham. A lot better than some people suffer.

Did you always want to be a writer?

As I say, certainly since I was ten or twelve or something. For a few years it was that or Marine biology, but my patience with the actual minutiae of science evaporated before my patience with writing fiction.

Where, when, and how do you write?

Very irregularly, at the moment, which is something I'm trying to rectify. I am often doing various other things, so it's hard to settle into a routine. I wrote most of Perdido and King Rat in cafes - I get a bit stir crazy at home, sometimes.

But I'm writing more and more in my house (I have a great study) which means less of a tea/coffee bill. I normally try to start writing by ten or eleven, and can go from between five and ten hours. It's really hard to generalise.

Did Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy influence the world of Perdido Street Station?

Enormously. Colossally. Someone once said that Perdido read like a book written in an alternative universe, where 'Gormenghast' was the most influential fantasy book of all time, rather than 'Lord of the Rings'. I take that as a massive compliment.

What are you reading now?

I'm reading several things at various speeds. A nonfiction book called 'Russia' by Mike Haynes. An old Czech-German novel called 'Severin's Journey into the Dark' by Paul Leppin. De Quincey's 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater'. Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth' (finally got round to it).

Did you enjoy your years at Cambridge? (interestingly, we're all Polytechnic kids at the 'Nest)

Yeah I did, but not with any dewy eyes. Cambridge was amazingly claustrophobic and twee. It's good because it's so fucking rich it has amazing resources, but it can be amazingly annoying.

I loved my subject (Social Anthropology, at the time) and I had good mates, but there's a kind of smug utopianism to the place which can be irritating.

Did you come up through the writing short-stories route, or did you get published in novel-form first?

Technically, my first ever published work was a short story, but it was only published because King Rat was coming out, I think. King Rat was the first thing accepted for publication. since then I've had four short stories published, with two others coming out.

I love writing them, but I'm not very prolific. Before I finished King Rat, I had several stories quite rightly turned down by Interzone. They were turned down for being too shit.

How would you quickly summarise the world of Perdido Street Station and The Scar for someone who hasn't read any of the novels yet?

A brutal, baroque steam-powered world, where magic (of a sort) is real. Full of oppressive governments and colossal cities, and stuffed full of arcane races that get on fractiously.

If Perdido Street Station was going to be made into a film or TV series, which actors and producers do you think could do it justice? (We suspect this might be impossible, given what the BBC did to Gormenghast).

Ooh ooh this is my favourite game, Cast The Films. The directors I'd like to see have a go at it would be people like David Cronenberg, Jan Svankmajer, David Fincher. Actors? Isaac - LL Cool J? (I'm not joking - he's a decent actor - but he'd have to learn to do a British accent and I bet he couldn't do it)

What's his name who plays Tony Soprano? Lin - doesn't really matter, except she needs to be quite athletic. Angela Basset, say. Lucky Gazid - Rhys Ifans? Vermishank - Kenneth Cranham? Who else do you want?

Do you ever attend SF-cons, and what has your experience with them been?

I enjoy Cons. They can be a bit much at times, and I don't feel particularly interested in the whole costume thing, but I'm always hugely impressed by the seriousness and depth with which the people at Cons approach literature.

It's very exciting. Of course, I think it's nice to go as a writer - it's the closest we get, in our sad way, to being rock stars.

Would you ever consider writing in a different genre, or are you content with your weird fiction and fantasy riff?

I read plenty of stuff in other genres, but when it comes to writing, I find it hard to keep motivated to write anything that doesn't have a supernatural/sf-nal element. So I find it hard to imagine I'll ever write anything non-genre. But obviously, never say never.

What are your hobbies?

Drawing. Scuba (though I've not done that for far too long). Playing video games very badly. Galleries and such.

How did your time living in Egypt inform your writing?

Cairo looms pretty large in Perdido - it's a spectacularly extraordinary city, highly inspirational. The weird topography of that city, and it's high-tech/low-tech thing is a constant referent.

Do you have any favourite fantasy/SF movies or TV?

I was a DR Who man (Perdido is hugely influenced by one DR Who story in particularly - I can't say which one without spoilers). I love John Carpenter - The Thing, Prince of Darkness. Cronenberg (especially Videodrome). Loved The Matrix (I know the plot was absurd - who cares?).

I like the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur films like Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie, and especially The Seventh Victim. Recently, I hugely enjoyed Reign of Fire, though I seem to be in a minority.

Were there any interesting points raised in your 'Science Fantasy and Political Commitment' session at the recent Marxism 2002 conference in London?

Yeah, there always are. I'm particularly interested in the debates over the extent to which deliberately political fiction can be 'art', or whether it's always just crass propaganda. I think that though it's hard to write politically engaged fiction, it's a cop-out to think it's definitionally flawed.

There was also a very interesting debate about whether you can talk about 'embedded' radicalism in a work by a conservative writer (I think you can). (Just as books by radical writers can be embeddedly conservative).

What advice would you give to budding fantasy writers?

i) Get an agent.

ii) Don't think that fantasy started with, reached its high point, or finished with, Tolkien.

iii) Enjoy the fantastic - revel in the astonishing. I know that sounds ridiculously trite, but a lot of fantasy these days is actually the recurrence of a set of cliches.

iv) Don't forget that language is its own end, and not just a means for communicating a plot. It matters.

Are you from the 'writing tightly against a full outline school' or the 'make it up as you go along' school?

There are plenty of great books written 'as they went along', but personally I draft obsessively, and don't put finger to keyboard without a pretty rigorous outline.

I just can't keep track of shit, otherwise. I have timelines and the like pinned to my wall as I write.

When it comes to your drafts, how much do you tend to rewrite?

I tend to do quite a lot of editing as I go along, so on the whole, the final draft isn't too different to the first.

Having said which, the more books I write, the more I revise them, which I think is a good sign.

Have any manuscript changes ever been made to your works, or have they sailed through 'clean'?

Oh there are always a few changes, but mostly 'change this word here, how about this punctuation there', not huge structural ones. I think my manuscripts are relatively clean. I've never heard of anyone whose book has come back completely clean.

Of the reader feedback you have had come back on your novels, what's been your favourite to date?

The occasional use of the word 'genius' is always enjoyable... Otherwise, I'd say the remark about being from a world where Gormenghast was the taproot text of fantasy is what did it for me.

Do you tend to do much research for your books?

Yeah, shitloads. It can get a bit pornograph - this neurotic fascination to get just one more detail. But I work quite hard to make things plausible, so even if they're not scientifically rigorous (they're not, at all) I research quite a lot to make them sound as if they are. Though it may not be our science.

When it comes to research, the two things I rely on above all others are the internet, and children's books. Children's books are good because the level of detail they contain is sufficient to be convincing, but not too intense.

How long does it take you to write a novel?

Round about a year, I'd say - but it's difficult to be exact because you're often research and thinking about the next one halfway through the one you're doing.

What new material are you working on at the moment?

I'm just finishing a novella due out later this year with PS Publishing, and I've just completed a short story for the American magazine 'Conjunctions'.

I have three short stories I'm trying to work on, but the main thing is the new novel. It's set in the same world as Perdido and The Scar, but like those two, it's a standalone.

It's involving a fair bit of research, but I'm hugely excited about it. I won't say more - I get superstitious about unfinished work.