Last night’s China Mieville signing at Forbidden Planet...

The first thing that crossed my mind, when China Mieville came into Forbidden Planet, was that if publishers entered their authors into an arm wrestling tournament then China would wipe the floor with the opposition. This is one seriously hard looking guy! My second thought ran along the lines of how my brains turn to mush whenever I meet a favourite author but then China started talking and I took this welcome opportunity to ignore any further random thoughts, not before I took a picture of my official place number for the signing queue though! Ok, it was the number 14 on a post it note but (to be fair) I was reeling under the affects of ‘author awe’!



China is a really interesting guy who made an effort to answer all the questions asked in as much detail as possible. We would have probably stood there all day listening to him but he kept things reasonably short purely because the downstairs bit of Forbidden Planet can become a veritable sauna when it gets crowded...



The reading itself was the same one that went out on a recent podcast (can’t find the link to this, if anyone has it could they leave a comment please?) and outlines some of the initial investigations that take place around the murder that forms the basis for the plot. As luck would have it, I’d just finished reading that particular passage on the way into work, yesterday morning, but it was still an experience to hear the book being read by the author himself (especially as I’d found myself reading the book in a really dodgy Eastern European accent!)



I won’t go too much into the questions asked as I’m hoping to be able to give you guys a link to a video that was shot last night. The bits that caught my attention though were mention of a ‘Bas-Lag’ role playing game and China saying that he would love to write another ‘Bas-Lag’ novel but only if it didn’t undermine the ending of ‘The Iron Council’... He also spoke about a couple of manuscripts that he is putting the finishing touches too (one sci-fi, one urban fantasy in the style of ‘Perdido Street Station’)...

Another fun evening at Forbidden Planet, if you're after details of more signings then you really should click Here. The Mark Charan Newton and Guillermo del Toro signings look pretty good to me! :o)

P.S. Stop by tomorrow if you're a UK resident who fancies their chances at getting hold of a signed copy of 'The City and The City', it really is very good...