A trap is only a trap if you don't know about it. If you know about it, it's a challenge.
China MievilleI 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.
China MievilleIn every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.
China MievilleEvery book I write, the first thing I have to do is get into the voice, and the voice varies from book to book - that's part of what's interesting to me.
China MievilleMy parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached "China," thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that "china" is Cockney rhyming slang for "mate." People say "my old china," meaning "my old mate," because "china plate" rhymes with "mate.
China MievilleOld stories would tell how Weavers would kill each other over aesthetic disagreements, such as whether it was prettier to destroy an army of a thousand men or to leave it be, or whether a particular dandelion should or should not be plucked. For a Weaver, to think was to think aesthetically. To act - to Weave - was to bring about more pleasing patterns. They did not eat physical food: they seemed to subsist on the appreciation of beauty.
China Mieville