China Miéville is a critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning writer of weird fiction, whose work includes Perdido Street Station, Railsea and Un Lun Dun. His latest novel is the book of elsewhere, has been written in collaboration with The Matrix actor Keanu Reeves. The novel is set in the world of the Reeves’ BRZRKR comic book series and follows an immortal warrior on a centuries-long journey of their condition. We caught up with China to find out more about the book…
STARBURST: How would you pitch the book of elsewhere to an immortal warrior you just happened to be trapped in a lift with for half an hour?
China Miéville: This is the story of someone – perhaps not entirely like you and many of us – in something of an existential funk. He is an immortal warrior who has lived for aeons and is in search of a way to end his immortality and discover what he was made for. He works for the dark side of the US government doing their dirty work and gets snared into strange and unfathomable goings-on. He is tracked by an impossible adversary and uncovers betrayal and intrigue at every turn. All in the search for mortality and maybe something vaguely akin to peace.
And how would you describe it to a fan of John Wick movies who’s really getting into books?
This is a sequence of the fighty bits of the movies you like – and that I, too, like – all with an unlimited budget and made to look precisely how you envisage them in your head, and all strung together with the kind of more expansive and ruminative explorations of ‘the self’ that you don’t always have time for in – some – films. Hopefully providing both what you enjoy, and also surprising you with what you weren’t expecting.
the book of elsewhere is a collaboration; how does this change your usual process?
Utterly. From the word go, it was vital that Keanu and I could envisage ways forward that both honoured the subject matter and/but also did unexpected things with it, that you might be able to do best in a novel that we agreed on a narrative framework and that we both stood by the formulations and articulations. I’m quite sure in many cases, this could be extremely frustrating or boring. I know it could be a boring thing to say, but the opposite was the case when working with Keanu. Sometimes, you have the most interesting ideas when you play with someone else’s toys – especially when they are generous with them. That’s how it was working alongside him on this project.
Every project is unique; what were the new challenges with this book?
Initially, making sure I was the right person. That I connected with the original comic BRZRKR, and that I also could come up with ideas that treated it with respect in ways that Keanu approved of while also trying to do new things with it. So, the challenges were mostly early on to ensure that the framework and approach worked. Once we had worked together on that, the actual writing and the back and forth of editing was fairly smooth, not least because we’d worked hard to make sure we were on the same hymn sheet.
How does this book compare to King Rat in terms of getting it written?
I was a baby when I wrote King Rat – 24, publishing when I was 26. I had no idea how to write a book. In certain respects, that made it easier because I wasn’t second-guessing myself in the ways I do now. That’s not a bad thing to do, in many ways I think it makes me a better writer, but it can also make the process more cautious. At this point, I can barely remember how I found the writing of King Rat. Difficult I think – I find writing books difficult. But I don’t feel like a noob now, so it wasn’t stressful in the same way. And it was lovely – unexpectedly so – to work with a collaborator, which minimised the isolation of the writing process.
How far from Perdido Street Station is the book of elsewhere in terms of scope and storytelling?
Perdido Street Station was very much not just about world-creation but creation of a world that was intended to be vast and baroque and very different, so the scale is very different. the book of elsewhere is more focused: it is much more recognisably ‘our’ world, though, of course, with some oddities in it. It is also shorter, because it is trying to create a sense of pace and of the tying together of scattered threads, rather than, as with Perdido, trying to create something of a sense of wandering through a dreamscape. I’d say the scope is very different. As ever, though, I am quite possibly a bad judge of this as is, I think, often the case for writers about their own work.
If you could take a single monster from the world of fiction, and add it into a historical even changing that event, what would that be?
I mean, where to even start? For absolutely no reason, I’m going to say the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is euryhaline – and can thus live in brine as well as freshwater -, emerges from the depths to meet Narcis Monturiol when he was testing his submarine, the Ictineo – 1 or 2, doesn’t matter to me. That meeting fosters Monturiol’s utopian sense of wonder, of trans-species as well as human solidarity and potential, he establishes good relations with the Creatures, continues his subaquatic researches, does not move to the political right in his later years, and helps to establish a radical underwater polity.
Do genre labels matter? Does saying that a story is science fiction, fantasy, or Young Adult change anything about the experience of reading that story?
It inevitably does so, given that those labels provoke different ideas – and thus reading protocols – in readers and writers. But these are all very fuzzy sets, so I think being relaxed about those protocols is a good strategy. Certainly, such genre labels aren’t scientific categories, and the attempt to border-guard their edges always seems doomed to me.
What one thing makes writing easier for you?
Keeping analogue notes.
If you could write for a popular franchise, such as Star Wars or Dungeons & Dragons, what stories would you tell in those worlds?
It would depend on the world, of course, but I think the sweet spot is to write something that ‘obeys the rules’, keeps fans of the franchise happy, but that is also a surprise. Such as when Kim Newman, as ‘Jack Yeovil’, wrote a Warhammer novel, not about a wizard or a warrior but… a playwright. The trick, of course, is to do something counterintuitive like that while still managing to give readers something they enjoy – even to their own surprise. So, I don’t know – a Star Wars novel about a painter who abhors violence? It might suck, of course, but it would be interesting to try.
What books are you recommending to friends at the moment?
Everything by Celia Dale, particularly A Dark Corner. It is not fantasy/SF/horror, precisely, but utterly brilliant and very frightening.
If you could rescue one work of art or media and have it survive until Earth’s sun dies, what would it be?
The 73,000-year-old piece of crosshatching found in the Blombos cave by researchers from the University of Bergen. I love crosshatching as an artistic technique, and the fact that it goes back tens of thousands of years before most ‘cave art’ is giddyingly exciting to me.
What’s next for you?
I have just handed in a long novel I’ve been working on for 20 years. That’ll come out in the next year or so.
The Simpsons or Futurama?
If I can choose the era, Simpsons (early). If I have to take pot luck, Futurama.
Krakens or Giant Sharks?
Krakens. Obviously.
Doctor Who or Doctor No?
Doctor Who if it’s the Fourth Doctor.
Truth or Beauty?
Can I have Awe?
You can pre-order the book of elsewhere today. It will be released on July 23rd, 2024. Pre-order details can be found here.
