China Miéville

[blake 3:17]

I just finished Kraken, which I was really astounded by it. I'd read his The City and The City a year ago and enjoyed it enormously.

I found Kraken far exceeded my tolerance for "fantasy", and had some just amazing Marxist subtexts in it -- the strike by familiars and golems, the coining of realtheologik, and the basic materiality of the missing squid.

Other thoughts?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Read Perdido Street Station next, then Iron Council.

[Blake's Baby]

Enjoyed Kraken, mostly, but thought there were some areas that could be improved. Obviously the magical creatures' strike was kinda awesome. But that's all I've read - certainly good enough to persuade me to read more.

[Red Commissar]

I've only read his "Las-Bag" trio of books- Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. Pretty nice bit of world building and interesting characters, as well as attention to the world beyond just the interactions of the characters . The first two's political themes were more subtle or just a part of the world building, it's more prominent in Iron Council.

Mieville also compiled a list of sci-fi books with strong political themes, mostly left leaning with the exception of Atlas Shrugged which he included as a "know your enemy" type deal.

http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/50socialist/full/

I think some other books should have been on there, but it's through that list I came across Iain M. Banks, Star Fraction by Ken Macleod, Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, and the Mars Trilogy by Robinson.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

How is Embassytown?