In Two Minds: China Mievilles World-Building Writers and submitters of manuscripts are often under the assumption that publishers accept works according to certain established guidelines. Of course, this is true in a formal sense: F.W. Fife, for example, accepts works within certain stipulated lengths. We are looking for good writing: writers must know how to write. They cant be flagrantly amateur. But, no less than the general public, our sense of the sci fi genre changes with time, and with the pressure placed upon those guidelines by the submitters themselves. If you bring us works of a pronounced tendency, we will adapt as needed. You need to make a particular tendency part of the conversation. You need to make that tendency inarguable, inevitable as, say, Kevin Durant starting at small forward for the Okahoma City Thunder. Let us give you another example: the writer, China Mieville. Our acquaintance with this contemporary author is of relatively recent date; but, for all that, it is profound and enthusiastic. We have gotten several submissions which are similar in conception to those by Mieville, and we have a couple of them up for publication. Mieville, to be sure, is a great writer - as writer. He is quick, snappy; he is confident. But where Mieville really astonishes in his capacity for world-building. Take, for example, Mievilles *The City and the City. This is a great dystopic tale, but with a police procedural structure. The setting is Eastern European - Hungary, Croatia, Serbia? Our knowledge of these places is a little vague - and the body of a young woman has been found. Tyador Borlu, Inspector in the Beszel (fictionalized city) police, is called in to investigate the crime. The circumstances are murky to begin with, and they become more so as the action progresses. One sticking point: the city of Beszel occupies the same area as another city, Ul Qoma. Come again, you say? But thats the point: there are two cities, Beszel and another called Ul Qoma, which exist within the same geographical space. One is, roughly, Western, while the other, apparently, is more Eastern-looking, and perhaps Islamic. Residents in each city are obliged to observe that citys laws. No contact is permitted with residents who are of the other city, even if they physically are neighbors. Two families can be living in the same apartment block, but if they belong each to a different city, the families are required to unsee each other. Travel between the cities is possible only by going through a checkpoint. Solving crimes, as you might imagine, can get tricky! Truly, this is an extraordinary concept. One thinks of the spy capers of the Cold War which took place in Berlin. There, however, there was a physical wall separating the East from West. In Mievilles constructed world, the walls are probably cultural, and they have been formally demarcated by separate legal systems. But, in a larger sense, these separations are a part of Europes history. Travel from country to country, now made easy by the Euro Zone, was often a difficult matter. Cities grew up next to each other. Buda and Pest were once separate; now they are Budapest. It is Mievilles great conceit to install these opposing places right upon each other. We recommend *The City and the City without reservation, and we encourage further submissions along these lines. We have expanded our breadth of acceptance to include this latest fiat of world-building from one of speculative fictions leading lights.
Posted on: Mon, 05 May 2014 02:21:00 +0000
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