Urban fantasy genius China Miéville not only turned in his next fantasy novel on time, but he also wrote a police procedural — with a healthy dose of alternate world-building — in his spare time.
As the video above explains, Miéville’s The City And The City takes place in two fictional Eastern European cities, one modern and gleaming, the other run-down. And it sounds as though, in attempting to master the tricky police-procedural form, Miéville didn’t neglect the fantastic world-building and social commentary he’s known for. Over at Suvudu, the Random House blog, his editor Chris Schluep explains how the novel came about:
When China Miéville delivered the manuscript to his newest novel, entitled The City & The City, I was much more than a little surprised. In fact, I was flabbergasted. First of all, I had no idea that he had been writing it. And secondly, he had just delivered a different manuscript-the one I had been expecting-the day before.
His reasons for doing so were simple, and they had nothing to do with proving that he was superhuman. China’s mother, who was terminally ill at the time, had always loved police procedurals-so China set out to write one as a kind of gift to her. But knowing that his reputation is as a fantasy writer, he wasn’t sure what his publishers or his audience would make of his attempt. He studied up by reading as much as he could in the mystery and thriller genre, and then he wrote the book during breaks from writing the fantasy that I was expecting from him. It’s an amazing feat by anyone’s standards.
