Three Moments of an Explosion

I really enjoy China Miéville, but this is the first of his short stories I've ever read. The collection definitely veered further into horror than I expected. The writing is exquisite, but do not attempt if you are at all squeamish. It reads as an exploration of the weird, of little details and urban legends and bits of dream turned into explorations of our world, our bodies, our relationships. I think that “The Design” will stick with me for a long time, one of the most macabre and most subtle romances I've ever read.

I'd say it's different from the other Miéville works I've read, but also each story is so different from each other story.

Some of the short stories were great, others not so much.

Um.

I love Miéville so much that I just could not fathom not enjoying a collection of his short stories, but I just can't honestly say that I enjoyed this. At all.

I suppose his novels do have some aspects of this, but I was not prepared for, essentially, horror – like, seriously disturbing, nightmare-fuel type stuff. Really inventive, upsetting, haunting stories.

And besides that, they all either have bad endings or leave things unresolved. A lot of them are very formulaic, and the formula is “present day, present time” + “something inexplicable and fucked up happens” (giant icebergs appear in the skies over London, people come down with a strange malady that causes trenches to form in the ground around them, etc) + “the story ends without there ever being any answers to what is happening”.

They're not badly written, they just give you nightmares and depress you without really giving you anything in return.

I did enjoy the slightly Borgesian style of: The Dowager of Bees, A Second Slice Manifesto, Syllabus, The Design.

I wish I had never read Säcken and After the Festival. Just... shudders.