Quotes from China Mieville

I think the role of science fiction is not at all to prophesy. I think it is to tell interesting, vivid, strange stories that at their best are dreamlike intense versions and visions of today.

I remember vividly what it's like to read as a 10-year-old - that passionate inhabiting of a book.

Personally I don't like it when writers become excessively proscriptive about the way that people read their books.

I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.

Part of the appeal of the fantastic is taking ridiculous ideas very seriously and pretending they're not absurd.

A lot of geeks are pale, bespectacled, wear dark clothing and don't get out much - the stereotype exists because it is very often true. I could pass for a non-geek but it would be inaccurate.

I think science fiction is very bad at prediction.

I always felt sorry for the sidekick as a kid. They never got their due and it left a very bad taste in the mouth - they are defined by a subordinate relationship to someone else. I always felt like a bit of sidekick when I was a kid and it didn't feel fair.

There's plenty of stuff that I don't feel dissident about: I really like tea, I don't have any problem with that. I like lots of paintings.

Fantasy and science fiction can be literal as well as allegorical and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a monster like a giant squid for what it is, as well as searching for metaphor.

A sickly little smile grew and died on his mouth like a fungus.

I'd never been to a science-fiction convention until I became a professional writer.

In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.

Socialism and SF are the two most fundamental influences in my life.

In the field of fantastic fiction, the question of world-building is not uncontroversial. But I grew up with 'Dungeons and Dragons,' so that whole world-building thing is very close to my heart.

I like the idea of trying to write a book in every genre.

Geeks run the world. Condoleezza Rice is a geek, Bill Gates is clearly a geek, many of the big filmmakers and writers are geeks, lots of military people are geeks. Anyone who has heard Donald Rumsfeld talk about military hardware knows they are in the presence of a geek.

Well I don't feel sectarian against sparseness, although I sometimes get a little chippy about this. I resent the way that a certain notion of parsimony has become the norm for skilful literary writing.

I'll tell you, I've never particularly been a 'Trek' person. I feel about 'Trek' the way one feels about known, vaguely liked, but rather distant members of one's family.

My parents went through the dictionary looking for a beautiful name, nearly called me Banyan, flicked on a few pages and came to China, which is cockney rhyming slang for mate.

'Kraken' is set in London and has a lot of London riffs, but I think it's more like slightly dreamlike, slightly abstract London. It's London as a kind of fantasy kingdom.

I love it when people want to interpret my books.

I'm a very friendly socialist.

Ever since I was two, I've loved octopuses, monsters, abandoned buildings.