I think "Un Lun Dun" might be unintentionally dangerously close to "Epic Pooh" for working-class Londoner kids.Bob Johnson wrote:Yes, exactly.TomHChappell wrote:"Un Lun Dun"'s for kids. Maybe that's why you didn't like it.
Well, if you believe the Wikipedia article, Perdido Street is horror, Scar is nautical adventure, and Iron Council is western. But, they're all also "high fantasy", since Bas Lag is an entire conworld independent of our prime reality.Bob Johnson wrote:I loved Perdido, and enjoyed Scar and Iron. The latter (also later) two seemed less vibrant; perhaps it's best that he took a break from Bas-Lag. I thought he was going to switch genre entirely.
King Rat, The City, and Kraken are all "weird fantasy" -- mostly in our everyday world in modern times (I suppose "the City" is Cold War and "King Rat" could also be a particular 20th century decade). But "The City and The City" is a noir detective story; and "King Rat" is a bildungsroman. I haven't read "Kraken" yet, but it seems to be a kind of "King Kong as Cthulhu" thing (or a "Cthulhu as King Kong" thing). I suppose I could be wrong.
I don't know how to slot "Embassytown" as anything but Science Fiction, though why shouldn't it be possible? And also, why does it have to be done?
"Kraken" has been called "cyberpunk", but so far I haven't seen why.
As far as I know I've never read "The Tain".
I think I may have read "A Room of One's Own", and "Hellblazer 250", but otherwise I don't think I've read any of his short stories. I think I want to, but obviously I can't say they're all good before I read them; odds are a few of them are a bit "meh", and odds are the author would agree.
He has been reported as saying he wants to write at least one novel in every genre of novel.
If that's true it might be a while before he repeats a genre; except that all of his novels so far have also fit into one or another sub-genre of either fantasy or of science-fiction (or both).
Before I opened the book that's what I thought too. But they're unrelated.Bob Johnson wrote:I thought he was Steven Jay Gould at first. I'll take a look.